My car was not spec’d with an
oil cooler so the nose of the car was left rather “unfinished” in that there was no division between the main radiator opening and the
oil cooler opening. This bothered me a bit, so I decided to replicate the panel that ERA fits to the car on the small block cars when an
oil cooler is used.
I first started by carefully making a cardboard pattern to mock up the panel, then traced the panel on a piece of aluminum. To get the radius’d form in the back of the panel for the rear attachment points, I utilized the down-tube of my roll bar as I really didn’t have anything else to put the form in it. To accomplish this, I just clamped the aluminum to the down-tube and used two long pieces of wood to keep even pressure along the length of the sheet, then applied He-man strength to form the sheet around the down tube – worked like a charm!
Here’s a picture of the sheet clamped to the down-tube:
Here’s a shot taken from one end of the panel so you can see the formed radius:
Here’s a shot of the panel once fitted to the car – I’m much happier now.
