tdishon

Thinking about their one-piece front end?
Who manufacturs it for them?
It's $1,199
Zip has one for $1,600
different quality?

(A jig assembled unit is not an option)

mike coletta

I've used Ecklers glass for years, and never had a problem. They are hand laid (as are all the one piece/non jig built noses), and require a lot of grinding for fitment.

Mike Coletta

wmf62

i have an Eckler one piece on my 62, back from when they made their own stuff... took a lot of work to make it look right, but the price is right is you have the time and the skills.
Bill

Kerrmudgeon

Not that I really care, but I'm curious about the resale value of a one piece front end vs a patched up (even a major repair) original? :

Nowhere Man

If its a OM it can be huge on value. A NOM it would depend on how well it was done but still not to many people like one peice hand laid front ends on any car. They just look rough and unfinished under the hood

65silververt

You wont see any of the hand laid fiberglass on the front end when you open the hood unless you stuff your head under the fenders. If you take a few hours to skim coat, sand, and then black out the underside, it will look fine. Same goes for the fender skirts, but you will apply undercoating there, so not a big deal. Quite frankly, if i am purchasing an altered NOM car, i dont really care if it has a one piece front end. The benefits on the one piece front end are that the seams will not show and you wont have to worry about it cracking at the joints on the front fender lips.

rich5962

I used a Eckler's one piece on NOM '59. A friend's car and he did not want to pay the $5k+ for Press Molded.

As Mike said, it takes extra work to get fit and finish but the end result was good. Once blacked out the inner skirts in the engine bay are fine. Gelcoat surface inside, rough outside/under. One thing I did to make the hood underside more appealing was to sand the rough glass smoother and applied heavy coats of surfacing primer and blocked smooth, but with a little typical roughness as on the original.

The splices for the top surround area are important. I fabricated my own bonding strips for the splices to add strength and a mat/resin splice bond up top. I used repro bonding strips from Corvette image for the front surround to inner skirts. Everything fit fine there.

One area that was tricky was to get the hood front lip aligned to the body. Proper spacing of the bonding surfaces between the inner skirts and the hood ledge is important for hood alignment.

A step by step of the body build here.....
http://home.comcast.net/~richmz/site/?/page/1959_Corvette_Restoration_Project_-_Part_2

Rich
p.s. Not sure the price difference but call Zip to ask where they get it from. It might actually be Eckler's.

Mr D.

Well my take on this is IF I was looking at a car with a hand laid front end I would deduct the cost to have a PM front end installed and repainted.

65silververt

My bet is that if you put bonding strips on a one piece front end, 95 percent of people that walk up to and feel under the fender lip will think its a press molded front end that's never been in an accident.

waltonb123

Why? If you feel that strongly about it why bother, just move on to one you like. Personally, on a NOM car It would be a non issue.

Mr D.

Why? Just because a car is a NOM doesn't mean it gets the cheapest repairs.

Didn't say I would buy it, just said I would deduct cost to make it right.

waltonb123

I'm not trying to get into a pissing contest but what's wrong with going a less expensive route?
I have yet to hear anyone say they had problems down the road after installing a one piece if so I'd like to hear about it.
In this particular case I don't think price has much to do with the quality of the finished end result unlike things like trim.

John McGraw

I absolutely agree. I use press molded stuff, even on my resto-mods.

I have used the hand-laid stuff in the past, and just don't like it. If the thought is that you can make it look like press-molded on the back, that just ain't going to happen, at least not without a huge amount of work. Hand laid stuff looks fine from the topside, and it is way less expensive, but it is more work to fit and install. Also, keep in mind that the hand laid front clips do not include the inner fenders, so if you do not have any good ones to use, you will be out a pretty substantial amount of money for those as well. My memory of the Ecklers clip, is that it does not have the headlight reinforcements installed either, but I could be mistaken on that, as it has been a while since I did one.


Regards, John McGraw

wmf62

a well built one-piece is a heck of a lot stronger (if only due to its inherent thickness) than a press-molded and all its separate pieces... i could probably stand on my front fenders, i defy the naysayers to do the same to a press-molded fender...
Bill

tdishon

Since mine is a restomod and can't go back to original, I think the one piece might be for me. I have modified my inner fenders to fit the SRIII frame and new suspension better, flattened the firewall and widened the rear a few inches.
Funny thing was I noticed my factory fenders flexed alot and I was going to add some glass to the underside to stiffen it up a little.
I also had a crack to repair at the joint on the driver side top wheel well. I hear and see at shows this is a common issue.

wmf62

John
i have no idea how one-piece frontends are made now, and as you can see from the parts spread out in my yard pic, it wasn't truly a 'one-piece' as they took the easy way out in producing a 'one size fits all' top surround' and separate lower panels and wheel openings in order to not have separate molds for 58-61 & 62.

if you need inner fender panels, then you need inner fender panels, so i don't understand what you mean by the extra cost.

and, no, there were no inner headlight reinforcements, i can't see why any would have been needed as the glass is VERY thick in that area.

as a matter of fact, the extra glass thickness is probably the biggest headache in a handlaid when butting to adjacent pressmolded panels... ya gotta build up or grind down, or both...



Bill

65silververt

Just make sure you research who to buy from. The last thing you want is to purchase one of the units that is going to end up off-gasing and causing bubbles in your freshly painted front end.

tdishon

Would Ecklers be a good choice?

John McGraw

Bill,

Everybody I know, that uses press-molded front ends, buys a complete, jig assembled front clip. The price of these clips include every single panel in the front end, already assembled to a complete unit. The only point I was trying to make, was the handlaid front clips, do not include the inner fenders. If you do not need them, then that is fine, but if you do, you still need to purchase them. That does not make the price difference as great, when you include the price of the inner fenders.

I am not trying to change anyone's mind. I understand the allure of the lower priced parts, but I still choose to use the press-molded parts. I feel that the use of these parts adds additional value to the car when it s sold, and I like the easier fit-up and slick underside. Most of my cars are as slick on the underside as the top, so the use of handlaid parts would make the amount of work necessary to get that look to be excessive.


Regards, John McGraw

tdishon

Ecklers has 15% off right now in an email coupon.
Regular price on the front end is $1,199. Total to my door with coupon and shipping was $1,250.

Corvette Image is $1,650.
They may even be the same part, just different distribution?
Still waiting for a fax back from Sermersheim. They don't answer the phone.