Warped fascia advice: My car is 'smiling' at me...

[SS Spoiler]

My car has a 37lb SS spoiler fastened to the louver, causing the fascia to sag. Cutting a piece of plywood to rest on the frame and pushing up on the fascia helped a lot. I cut a hole behind the license plate for access. [makes it easy to get to the engine cover latch if your cable snaps]

Paul Cerny 2691
Kalispell, MT

[pezzonovante88]

One of the things that bugs me most about my car is the fascias. They're not even that bad, I just hate the slight sag in the center of the front fascia and warping of the rear fascia. One of these days I'll get them properly repaired.

[Ron]

I found a couple of good places to mount 1/8" aluminum angle on the rear fascia -- Just cut to length and pop rivet them in counter sunk tapered holes. (You can see the placement before plugging with 3M below). TIP- Work the flaws to the area behind the license plate with a heat gun, making it lay right before riveting as much as possible! (And make sure flaws bow inboard or the plate will hold its framework out too far...) Really stiffened it up, and provided a place to put new threads in for the tail lights to boot...

I can't find the pics of the back side (sorry). The upper one is just flat stock, exposed when installed because it looked cool to me (I can still get a pic if anyone wants...).

Reinforcements.jpg

[Farrar]

Nice work, Ron!

Work the flaws to the area behind the license plate with a heat gun, making it lay right before riveting as much as possible!

Newbie question here: So you just lay it down on the metal, and hit it with the heat gun until it lies flat on the metal? Did you have to "massage" it?

[Ron]

THX.
Kinda...we have done two...one seemed to fit the aluminum angles real well in one direction which made it easier.
Heat, check, repeat was the trick.

The process:
We removed the fascia, degreased it etc. Then scraped all of the silver paint off with a sharp knife like tool to save all of the original primer (much better bond in the end due to the material and age...), made all hole and tear repairs. Then roughed the shape out with a heat gun while hung upside down (PO removed the heat shield for turbo headers, so it drooped in the middle...). Then started at the top with a set of "temporary rivets" (part of tool set, basically a set of special pliers you put them in, squeeze, poke it into the holes and release) drilling only a few holes and gently heating it until it basically relaxed into shape, removed temps and checked, repeat...twice IIRC. Then moved to the lower piece -- you'll never do it all at once, for re-adjusting adjustments. Then we mounted it back on the car, nudged it where needed, poped riveted the existing holes, and added the rest. Finished up with re-priming, feathering, and shot it with the OEM to PPG Fleet crossover in the resources section.

Let me know If unclear or ???