Rebody Oh no. It's not another 507 Rebody. Oh yes it is!

[Duncodin]

State as at early August 2024

My kit arrived in November 2023. For the first month I didn't touch the kit. Concentrated on the mucky underneath stuff since then. Rear beam bushes. New brake disks. Hand brake cable. Bit of welding and whatever else I fancied doing while under there.

During the holidays I turned my attention to the body. First thing I wanted to fix was the left hand headlight surround. Other Tribute 507 builders have mentioned it. There's a glitch in the mould and the left hand headlight mounting surface is bent.

I decided to do all of my fixin in the lower half of the surround where, I reckon, the bulk of the problem is.

First I cut a crescent around the whole lower half to allow the headlight bowl to be fitted which pulled the surround/ring vertical. Then cut strips in the panel below the light and pushed the strips up and back to meet the surround in it's new position.

You can see by the size of the cut how big the problem is. It's not just a mm that needed sanding off.

Bonded it all into place with fibre glass behind.

I need to do work below to fit the indicators so preferred doing the work to rectify the headlight below the light so not messing with the top at all

Indicators next.

 

[Duncodin]

The indicators I'm using are from 1950's VW Minibus which look like this

I assume there's similar to those from the Karmen Ghia used by other people.

I ordered a pair of these which came in orange.

Only problem is they don't have any way to attach to the front of the car. Luckily the VW has a repair piece

So ordered a pair of those.

Needed to figure our where I wanted to fit it

Then cut the hole and poke the metal through from behind and adjust to make it as near horizontal/vertical as I could.

and bond it in place from behind with F/G

 

[Duncodin]

The Left side needed more work because that's where I'd 'adjusted' the bad headlight surround. The whole headlight surround may have been out of alignment but I did all my fixin in the lower half to pull it back in line with the top.

Indicator bracket went in OK.

So that's it now for Christmas.

You all have a great one

 

[Althulas]

A nice start keep the process coming

 

[DaveP]

Great start. Good luck with the build. Happy Xmas too
Dave

 

[Dxbolton]

The indicators I'm using are from 1950's VW Minibus which look like this

View attachment 286331

I assume there's similar to those from the Karmen Ghia used by other people.

I ordered a pair of these which came in orange.

View attachment 286333

Only problem is they don't have any way to attach to the front of the car. Luckily the VW has a repair piece

View attachment 286335

So ordered a pair of those.

these are the exact same lights as I used, but with clear lens.
the repair panel is a genius idea, I made brackets to attach mine but yours looks better

 

[Duncodin]

these are the exact same lights as I used, but with clear lens.
the repair panel is a genius idea, I made brackets to attach mine but yours looks better

I'd seen these metal brackets a while ago while looking for indicators. When I'd got the indicators and saw your brackets that I remembed the VW ones I'd seen a while ago.

I do like the metal bit now it's bonded in. I'm wondering if I should paint it body color and find a small lucas style indicator mounted directly into that metal surface. Might look more original 507 than the vw bullet. No hurry. It's an option I can look at.

After all that though it would be easy for tribute, for future builders, to form that shape into the panel from the factory. (He could do that while fixing the mold for that duff LH headlight surround.)

 

[Duncodin]

Next on my list is that grill shape. I never liked tribute's take on the 507 grill.

Much too tall.

Puts me in mind of an Aleggro VandenPlas.

Over the holidays I'll chop the front off rebuild it. I can always buy a new one if I screw it up.

 

[Duncodin]

Before

After

The nose is about 1.5 inch longer and It's just an inch lower but I think it changes the look of the car a lot.

Still a bit of fettling but I like where it's going.

 

[t-tony]

Subtle, but very nice.

Tony.

 

[Dxbolton]

The longer nose does look good

 

[Duncodin]

The longer nose does look good

Thanks. Still work to do though.

Before I do much more I'll unpack the tribute grill insert frame things and see how much fettling they need to make them fit.

 

[Duncodin]

 

[Pond]

The blending looks very good from the pictures.
Just one question....it looks like the bumpers are GRP. If so, how do you finish them?

 

[Duncodin]

Thats some gloss grey I put on there to check the shape of fhe nose extension. The refection of the over head lights will show up any problems with the shape. It's not perfect but good enough for now till I go to paint.

Yes. The bumpers are GRP. I haven't got that far. I might do everything in body color with minimal chrome. So bumpers and mirrors etc in body color. If I get tired of the body color I'll have them wrapped in chrome vinyl.

 

[Dxbolton]

The blending looks very good from the pictures.
Just one question....it looks like the bumpers are GRP. If so, how do you finish them?

I’m using chrome paint. First company didn’t finish them properly but new chap is making a far better job

 

[10stb]

Looking great. I like the nose extension....looks almost shark like. I hadn't thought about doing that.

I'm fettling with the grill surround at the moment. I bonded clips to the fibreglass surrounds and have bonded timber blocks that I will fibreglass on the clamshell. The surround can then be screwed the timber block to secure it. I should also be able to fix the mesh grill to it.

 

[Duncodin]

Wood? I used wood while I was fixing the LH headlight surround but in such a way that I could take it back out again once the FG had gone off. For my nose job I've got alu tube in there and will put some along the bottom of the grill as well and screw the grill insert to the alu tube.

I've had to cut my grill insert down a bit because my opening is now a little smaller.

 

[Duncodin]

@10stb , your bonnet bulge. Did you use the offcut to fill the gap? Or did you make up a whole new piece?

 

[IainP]

If using wood with any type of resin structure gents, make sure it’s kiln dried and then fully sealed with resin after bonding. If not you can have water absorption and cracking, which is immensely time consuming to rectify.