hi guys my car is going through a bit of a resto at the moment, fresh engine and paint, both my front wings need changing. ive heard a few people have made them bolt on instead of spot welded, has anyone got any pics? also what are peoples views on this?

 

Cant see any problem with this new cars have bolts on wings hondas usually only have 6 m6 bolts.

I'd use rivnuts m6 3 or 4 along the rail just mounting of these rivnuts on the lower edge could be tricky as theres not too much room that would be my only concern

 

I don't know but suspect that they may be welded on for structural reasons.

Car design and engineering has come a long way since 1982.

 

It was done for ease of production fella,same as all fords of that era,it's a lot quicker and cheaper to spot weld,no drilling/tapping or bolts then see.
Ford always choose the fastest production method as they sell so many cars.
Bolting them on is fine,their not hard to weld though so its swings and roundabouts really.

 

I used to work at honda for manys years and it took 2 blokes to fit wings and bonnets then someone to adjust. spot weld method place in jig press button job done.
But honda are really way behind imo with production methods on certain aspects of a car.

BUT i've seen a wing on a escos thats been bonded on by a bodyshop

 

Aren't Mike Rainbirds Escos wings bolted on now?

 

I'll give ford their dues, they would make sure that they had the most expensive,easy to use bit of kit around to speed up production and theyd look at using say 10 bolts for the wings as 10 x 5,000,000 etc as that's just the way they thought.
I remember being asked to speed up the program in anyway I could on transit disc production one day as they had such a large order book that every one or two seconds they could save in production equated to more parts.
I scoured the program and got about 5 seconds per channel out of it.
Never had the heart to tell them we stopped after 640 parts on an eight hour shift!!!!
Amazed they never sussed it out how we did "circa" 640 parts everyday.

 

I converted the front wings on one of my Fiestas to Allen headed bolts and rivnuts



Definitely made things a lot easier for accessing things.