92 replies to this topic

[Darcini]

yours finishes short I think?

Yeah finishes short

[FLD]

PMSL!

[-JK-]

I'm very interested in this as I've got annoying bubbling on my rear clam that just won't go away (the respected TVR/Lotus bodyshop that repaired my car park incident has tried twice now, and failed spectacularly ). I'd be after a direct replacement keeping the boot etc. intact. Saving a bit of weight would be a bonus You can definitely put me down for one if you can make a straight copy of the original suitable for road use and being kept outside in the British weather I'd probably also be up for replacing the front clam as I've got some bubbling on there as well (not as bad as the rear). And how about some new doors? (Yes, I've got bubbling on one of those as well )

[Stik]

So someone actually has bubbling worse than me! I feel very sorry for you. Likewise, if it really will end up that cheap, and we can get the ball rolling within the next month or so then I'm definitely in for a rear clam

[davemate]

Windowed coupe back keeping the boot, and an OEM replacement front clam. How does carbon kevlar repair in comparison to the oem material?

[MAXR]

The clams I saw looked excellent. The finish was smooth & ripple free, however it was not painted & I don't know how much sanding & prep work had been done to it. The clam would be wet laid, so the weave would not be good enough for leaving bare. Personally, a way forward may be to get around say 5 people to stump up for the mould (£400 each) Those 5 would own the mould & take an ongoing percentage of each clam sold say £50 each per clam. Therefore the sale cost of a rear clam would cost around £750+(5x£50)=£1000+ delivery. I would imagine sales should be at least 8-10 per year. I don't really know how many copies from the mould can be taken? I can ask the question. It would be even more advantageous, if all the commission from the first 8 orders taken (8x 5x£50)=£2000 was used to then produce the front clam mould. Again £50 commission being paid on all future front clams too for the initial 5 stake holders. OR Someone just bits the bullet, commissions the mould & Sells them from the web/eBay shop. A lightweight replica of the OEM clam. With a single skin ultra lightweight track clam.

[Stik]

I will happily be involved in the initial run and chip in for the mould(s), Maxr's suggested financial arrangement sounds like a good idea to me

[jonnyboy]

Did you weigh a clam? Its one of those things that sounds good but ultimately are you saving any weight over a GRP one? It would be touch and go. If I got some serious interest in doing a rear I would consider commissioning a mold. The fronts already well underway so you could have a product from that within about 3-4 weeks from now. A light front and rear clam would cost about the same as you are getting quoted there for one rear. Plus no complicated financial arrangements....

[alanoo]

Did you weigh a clam? Its one of those things that sounds good but ultimately are you saving any weight over a GRP one? It would be touch and go. If I got some serious interest in doing a rear I would consider commissioning a mold. The fronts already well underway so you could have a product from that within about 3-4 weeks from now. A light front and rear clam would cost about the same as you are getting quoted there for one rear. Plus no complicated financial arrangements....

Mvs does a rear one, so I'm not sure there is any interest for you in doing one

Still I'd love lightweight doors and eventually sills

[The Batman]

door skins are not actually that heavy

[alanoo]

Yep but spare doors are very hard to get in France, and I'd prefer not to butcher my OE ones

[The Batman]

wanna butcher my black ones? alread striiped alot of wait from it though!

[Stik]

I'm not all that fussed about saving weight (although it would be nice), I just want a new rear clam that doesn't blister!

[jonnyboy]

Did you weigh a clam? Its one of those things that sounds good but ultimately are you saving any weight over a GRP one? It would be touch and go. If I got some serious interest in doing a rear I would consider commissioning a mold. The fronts already well underway so you could have a product from that within about 3-4 weeks from now. A light front and rear clam would cost about the same as you are getting quoted there for one rear. Plus no complicated financial arrangements....

Mvs does a rear one, so I'm not sure there is any interest for you in doing one

Still I'd love lightweight doors and eventually sills

We have shall we say a different manufacturing process to MVS. The clams are rub down spray and will save many hours of bodyshop time as we have incorporated prep into the mold. Makes the mold cost twice as much but the product is as good as OEM and will in fact require less prep than the OEM clams. I'm very much looking forward to presenting the VX clams as nobody has really bothered to try and manufacture them as well as we have. The clam we took a mold off had £800 of prep done!

Elise Parts have some stock of the Exige stuff we have done now so its well worth asking Geary for a peek if you are in their area for an idea on what they are like. I understand you are in France lol.

[Stik]

Jonnyboy, are you saying that if you could get some people to commit to it then you could get 100% like-for-like rear clams manufactured, ready for painting, for under £1000? How many people would you need to commit to make this viable? And when could we start actually fitting them to our cars? I really wanted my vx sorted for summer this year. Basically this boils down to: i'm sitting here on a pile of cash trying to work out how best to spend it on fixing my car, so if you, or MAXR, can actually do it then i'm ready right now to give you my pounds Also, if it works out better to simply buy a new front clam off you and paint that, rather than sand down and respray my current one, then i'd probably do that as well

[jonnyboy]

Well the situation at the moment is that I will have a mold ready for the front within 3 weeks so theres no problem there. The rear we could get onto in 7-8 weeks time as we have an Elise front to sandwich inbetween. I've held off doing a rear VX clam as obviously they arent is as high a demand. If we got 4 or 5 people wanting them that would justify doing the mold. Just offered that as an alternative really as I have no problem investing in the tooling and thought it might be a tidier/cheaper way of achieving what everyone wanted ie you you can take either full road versions or lightweight versions of the clam.

[Stik]

Well it looks like you've got at least 2 or 3 people interested from this thread alone - personally i'm happy to pay a premium if you can't get enough people interested in the short term and recoup that over the course of a coupe of years as you sell them, similar to MAXR's scheme

[MAXR]

I will visit the company next week & report back.

[TheRealVXed]

Would these be insurance applicable / can you make a GRP version that would be? Might bring the amount of write offs down...

[jonnyboy]

I supply clams on a pattern basis yes. The decision is with the repairer normally if they do regular insurance work. I will be able to get them to any repairer in the country within a week so yes the number of write offs should come right down. They do have to be VERY good though for bodyshops to use them. The places I have dealt with are unbelievably fussy (quite rightly of course)