Messing with front spoiler

Thanks guys. All good stuff.

Here's a picture of a pair of pliers my father made for forming the edge on the fenders of his race car, back around the time I was born. It's been
just sitting in his toolbox for about 55 years.​

IMG_6472.JPG

It was used on .050" aluminum. It could be used on steel of significantly lighter gauge. The trick to using it is to not get 'greedy'. Take many, light passes, overlapping each squeeze by about 1/2. (It's the same way with hammer forming.)

Brian
 
Here's a picture of a pair of pliers my father made for forming the edge on the fenders of his race car
Nice, I like it. To do the same technique on steel, you might make a tool like that using a pair of Vice Grips for the pliers. That should offer more clamping load without killing your hands. I made a similar tool to form the raised bead around the aluminum piping for my intercooler. But I made it to fit in the jaws of my bench vice so I could use the force of the vice to do the "squeezing". However that was mostly to accommodate the significant loss of grip strength I have from nerve damage. The vice offered a LOT of clamping force though.
 
carlspoiler.jpg

3/4" x 3/4" (or aluminum u-channel (or c-channel if you prefer), $11.00 for 8ft at Home Depot, formed in the correct arc would be the yellow line above. You could trim one or two of the three sides and bend back the remainder to fit to the body mounting points.

The black rectangle is the side view of your spoiler material, maybe an extruded polystyrene sheet foam.

The red is a slit you can slice into the top edge of the foam, which would receive the upper lip of sheet metal that you have showing in the pic.

If you choose to use a much thinner material such as a 1/8" thick sheet of generic abs plastic like what would be used in a tub surround or backsplash, then the bottom channel needs to be a much smaller U or C. Or perhaps some 1/2" plastic sch 40 plumbing pipe with a slot cut down the length, the slot would receive the plastic sheet. The top edge could be retained to the existing metal in any number of ways, screws, adhesive/velcro, or those clips with the knurled head screw that hold screens into a screen door.
 
For now, I put on the stock metal spoiler from the rat. Looks OK at a quick glance but is about an inch or so skinnier than it should be. I see another trip to Home Depot is needed to continue on this project. I'm surprised car manufacturers don't make chin spoilers as consumable items that would easily come disattached when hit. Fiat made the four mounting bolt points pretty strong and thus the spoiler will bend rather than release itself from the car.
 
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