65GTO

Ecklers nose for my 62 arrived today...

OK.. for those that have followed my various threads on my 62 nose project (car for wife... does not need to perfect.. currently has a badly beat up 61 nose on it), recall that I decide to go with a Ecklers. Reason; Although I bought inner fenders and a hood from J+D Fiberglass, and am extremely happy with the quality (plug... do not hesitate to use them), their noses for the 62 year only, and they have no reason why themselves, do not fully wrap around 90 degrees at the rear of the engine compartment / hood opening It goes only about 45 degrees around the turn to the cowl. Unfort, due to the hack job on the nose on there now, I need that full 90 degrees turn into the cowl area.

There had been some threads if Ecklers has lost their quality on noses. On some of those posts I commented that about 18 years of so ago my brother and I replaced his 67 nose (still has the car) with an Ecklers nose, and we were quite happy with the quality.

Anyway... the 62 nose.... first impressions (still in shipping box)

What a disappointment. On a scale of 1 - 10, 10 being fabulous, it is about a 4.5 barely.

About to head away for the weekend, but later after the weekend will post some pics. What a damn disappointment (I am holding back real feelings here). Should have went with J+D and made it work.

Just for starters...

The fender tops look like they took a mold from some fenders that already had the dreaded 'fender droop' on the top of the fenders. So I guess that is their nod to 'original look' to have fenders already sagging on the top.

There are some dimples / indentations. Think like a golf ball or hail hit a metal car. That is the shape. Yeah.. .they can be filled in with 2 part puddy.... but hey.. why they are obvious imperfections in your molds.


Contour of fender top at the areas intended to be the 'splice / graft' area. Passenger side fender splice line looks OK. The driver fender the splice line has a huge rise and dip in it about the 1/2 way point down the splice line. It is a stiff, solid area with rise / dip clearly molded in it. So now that will tend to pull up on the butt / splice area. Got to make that work somehow. Cut out as much of that rise as I can or the body work will be too high as it lifts / pulls up on that area.

There are noticeable waves down the length of the fender tops, and around the left fender blend into headlight area. My 'body man feel' hands running down them confirms the eyeball view. Looks like one should plan on lots of prep time.. How does one spell 'many hours of high build primer and blocking'.

I do get it... the 62 nose is an odd year. A one off. A vendor probably does not sell many and we should be grateful at least some vendors make an attempt to supply them to us. Not much return on their investment for volume sold. So I am trying to not make this a 'vendor beat down'. We need them, they need us. It is a 'relationship'. But more attention to quality should be paid.

I could go on.. but that is my initial impressions I have on my mind.

I am disappointing enough that I may go back and order a nose from J+D and fig out later what to do with this Eckler's nose.

Just venting a little I guess. I will pour my end of week beverage and calm down. Make that a few tonight.

Call the vendor on Monday or Tues and see if what I am seeing is 'normal'.. especially that splice area.. that concerns me the most. The other stuff is just more prep work than i would have liked to see. It will all shake out with a lot of high build and block time. The 'fender top droop' is also a bummer. It looks like the fenders on my 59.. dip in the middle. That is a disappointment to see and puts me in the position to have to 'work' all those lines to take raise the sag up or just live with it. Man.... should have went with J+D fiberglass.

Cheers - Jim

warrenmj

Can't you return it?

wmf62

my Eckler's frontend, circa 1980... it was kinda swaybacked too...
Bill

R66

Have a beer or mixed drink for me. We need to share the disappointments of the suppliers, even if they are supporting vendors, so they will get better.

To their defense, in this Capitalistic country it is no longer good quality and honesty to make a profit, but lie and deny to compete in the Free World Trade Association.

Hope Echlers doesn't sue you for deformation of character, in Illinois, you would already be in jail and lose all you own for expressing your "Freedom of Speech" or any other constitutional right.

I agree with Mark, you must let them know you are not happy, even if you decide to keep it.

Frankie the Fink

That is not even close to defamation....; its not an 'intentionally false' appraisal to harm Eckler's. Its his personal observations of the product he paid for and received...

65GTO

Thanks Guys... yeah.. now I am worried that I cannot express disappointment with observations least I get sued. i will alter my post until I have time to post some pictures when I get back from the weekend.

Bill.. yes.. on your pic.. I see you filled in the fender top droop it looks like. The waviness will block out with some high build primer.. not too worried about that.. but the quality could have been better. The dimples can fill in with 2 part puddy.. not so bad they need bondo.

Bill long time ago for you I know, but did your drivers side splice area (the diagonal splice line from the cowl turn in to the door top) have a large rise and dip in it ? The passenger side seems the correct contour. Unless the intent here is I am trimming back 2" off that splice line and that area is intended to be sacrificial so dips and rises are ok. But I am being generous.. they do not know exactly where one needs to make the splice line, so all of it should be usable. And it is only the driver side having the issue.

Thanks all. catch up after the weekend. Get some pics and share with the vendor next week. have a phone discussion with them.

Anyway... A few margaritas in store tonight to settle me down.

GCD1962

Are you sure it is a '62 front end? For many years Ecklers sold the 61' as a '62. I had one. When the body work was done a few years ago. It was pointed out that it was a 61' as it did not have the radius over the wheel wells. We did get the correct ones from another source/

ricks327

Does Eckler's manufacture the product?

Kerrmudgeon

They used to manufacture all their glass parts right there on A1A in Titulsville way back when and the quality was top notch. I wonder if they've farmed out the fabrication to some other cheaper company now. I'm saddened by this turn of events, and hopefully their reading these threads and will do something about it.
Personally I wouldn't have even unpacked it! Send it back, and tear a strip off their *** as well.

wmf62

I have had 2 different one-piece frontends on my 62 in the lifetime I have had it. the 1st was made by Acme and was a true POS and I didn't know enough to get the 'sag' out of it, and the finished product showed it... that one I installed by making the joint from the corner on the hood opening to the top edge of the door opening using a homemade bonding strip under the joint. it worked well and I never had a problem doing it that way.

the 2nd frontend was the Ecklers and this one I tied in by going around the corner to within several inches either side of the cowl vent opening and within a couple of inches below the windshield and back to the door opening. this one I also used homemade bonding strips to back the joints. and it worked well too, although if I had to do it again I would run the joint from the corner to the door opening; easier...

as to the waviness of the joint area, I wouldn't worry about dips as they can be filled when the joint is 'finished'. rises can be aggravating, but if they aren't severe, they can be ground out and filled with new glass.

all-in-all, aggravation aside; I am happy with the Eckler's glass, I think I could literally stand on it with no damage (not gonna try it though...). back when I got mine, Ecklers was making their own glass, I don't know who is doing it now.

I don't know how they are building them now, but if you look at the picture of the pieces spread out on my lawn, you can see that the top surround was generic 58 - 62 and you had to cut and splice the unique 62 cove and wheel opening pieces in place; a REAL PIA...; but ya gotta do what ya gotta do....

one piece of advice, set your hood on and bring the glass up to fit the hood before 'gluing' things together; I had to end up lowering the front edge of my hood to fit flush, and that was a PIA (and too late..). also, make sure your inner fender panels where they contact the underside of the surround are not pushing the glass upwards at that point.. (another thing I learned the hard way...)

I hope there never is a need for applying all this 'knowledge' a 3rd time...

if I can be of further help, let me know

Bill

wmf62

I was not aware of them selling a 61 as a 62; my experience was that the top surround was 58 - 62 and the cove and wheel well openings were separate pieces, depending on the year. see my pictures.

Bill

Frankie the Fink

That is total, unbridled crap - you are entitled to your personal opinions and observations - a little something called the Constitution and there are a LOT worse reviews on here than anything you've written. If such things were open to litigation you wouldn't ever see a 1 or 2 star review on any Amazon product and the Yelp website would be out of business tomorrow.

In any event I don't know if the piece is press molded or hand-laid, I know the hand-laid pieces can have terribly thick glass around the cowl making it hard to mount windshield wiper bezels, washer nozzles etc. Jusplainwhacky on here went through all that; I don't know where he got his front clip from though...

wmf62

[QUOTE=Frankie the Fink;1594325088
In any event I don't know if the piece is press molded or hand-laid, I know the hand-laid pieces can have terribly thick glass around the cowl making it hard to mount windshield wiper bezels, washer nozzles etc. Jusplainwhacky on here went through all that; I don't know where he got his front clip from though...[/QUOTE]

with my bonding strips I place, I had to countersink the backside in order to get the nut on the washer nozzles..

BUT, thick can be good...



Bill

GCD1962

I bought mine in the early 80's and it was once piece from the front to cowl. Even at that time it took a lot of work to get it right This last time a few years ago, I got a NOS top piece and used Corvette Image pieces for the fender and front pieces.

dahogan

I read that too and said "what", and I am a lawyer.

MOXIE62

Maybe you can do what they did in 58. They added a steel bar under the fender shape like a "Z" that ran the length of the fender. It took the dip out of the fenders. You can buy the bars today but I think they are made of fiberglass. The way mechanics lay on these fenders to work on the engine, I'm surprised all C1's with double headlights are not in this shape.

65GTO

Hi All: Some pics. Pretty busy day with work so not a lot of commentary.

1st Pic... built in fender droop... just like my 59 with decades of sun on the fender tops. Need to look at reflections. Hard to see with photography. The fender droop is a real bummer. I do have some spare braces but i would not think i would have had to prop up the fender on a new nose to get a decent line. Fender droop right at the cowl area as many of the old fenders droop at the point past the cowl. So looks like the mold was pulled from a fender that already was drooping in that common fender 'droop spot'.

Next pics... seam graft line. Driver side has a lip / bulge up. See shadow. It does rise that much as shown by the shadow. Passenger side does not.

Pics of the 'dimples' hard to make out so pics of no use unfort.

The above are quality of mold issues. Again... would have expected better.

Next pics... I was wondering why the what seems like grey primer bomb had been painted here and there. Then outdoors while taking the photos saw the backside of the primer spots... attempt to cover up (dare i say 'hide') a very thin gel coat layer. That is the insides view of the fender with just the sunlight on the fender.

The poor quality molds I get.. the guy laying up the nose that day has no control over the mold quality. But spraying on the gelcoat layer they absolutely have a QC hand in that. I guess I am not getting that 'minimal prep work', '21 mils of gelcoat' feeling from my vantage point. Per Eckelers website...

"The result is the finest quality fiberglass body panels that fit right the first time and with minimal prep work required. Eckler's Corvette fiberglass body panels are painstakingly reproduced from the original GM body panels. Eckler's Corvette overbuilds every fiberglass mold with heavy reinforcements to ensure consistent quality and a superior fit. They are NOT built using a chopper gun as with cheaper imitations. Eckler's Corvette utilizes only the best automotive grade resins with 3 layers of 3.5 ounces of mat and 21 mils of soft sanding gel coat. Eckler's superior hand-rolled fiberglass process eliminates troublesome bubbles and frustrating waves. "

Anyway... need to get back to my real job. If I keep this nose I am looking at a ton of prep work.

Again.. i am not looking to 'vendor bash' here. We need our vendors and we need to have them be profitable to give incentives for even more vendors, and Ecklers as a vendor has been great to me. I have had a couple issues with orders... not product quality.. more order admin type stuff in the past (as one will if one places enough orders) and they have stood 110% behind all i have ordered to date with them (and that is much, owning 3 vettes). But this nose is way down from the expectation of the product description extolling the quality. As I noted.. the mold is what is is.. I doubt there is enough of us ordering 62 noses for a vendor to invest in a mold new pull off. But the shoddy gel coat laying, then hiding it with some spray bomb (or dusting on some gel coat) is not acceptable. The layup guy (or gal) owes it to do their best craftsmanship each job.

MOXIE62

I wonder if the press molded would of come out better.

wmf62

that is really some shitty glass...

the rear corners aren't a problem if you make the cut from the corner of the hood opening.

the sides look like a sack of potatoes, but are fixable with a lot of TLC.

yes, press molded should be better (although I have never used anything but hand-laid). press molded is going to be more expensive, so it's a matter of your skills and how what your time is worth.

Bill

GCD1962

The biggest problem with fiberglass body parts is that the molds must be remade after a certain period of time. We used to make Hoods and fenders for Cameros. We knew it was time to make new molds when we started to get complaints of fit. What happens is that the molds continue to shrink over time and they can not hold tolerences. Another problem is that it's a crappy job and place often hire a body and give them OJT. Unless rolled out correctly you get air bubbles and dips. Gelcoat also needs to be sprayed correctly.