HOWTO: Front under body shield repair. | FerrariChat

HOWTO: Front under body shield repair.

Discussion in 'Technical Q&A' started by wkumari, Sep 27, 2011.

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

  1. wkumari

    wkumari Karting

    Jul 15, 2011
    169
    Northern Virginia
    Full Name:
    Warren
    #1 wkumari, Sep 27, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    I have an '08 F430 Spider with skid plates to protect the bumper / front underside. Unfortunately, even with this there are occasional scrapes and bumps.

    Overtime this has cracked the flanges on the bumper that the under body shield bolts to (see Picture 3). There did not seem to be an easy fix for this, and it annoyed me, so I finally decided to do something about it.

    I fabricated 2 hockey puck type widgets (Picture 2) on a 3D printer (Picture 1).
    I raised the front on jacks (haven't been able to justify the space for a lift yet) and removed the shield bolts, then placed a puck in each corner. The cut / slice out of the cylinder allows it to nestle into the corner of the frame (although I ended up trimming off the corner for the passenger side to make it fit better (Picture 5)), placed a bolt through (Picture 4) and tightened it up (unfortunately I forgot to take an installed picture, but it is all flush and the gap is gone).

    The puck itself was fabricated out of ABS with 50% fill (see Picture 6). If I were to do it again, I would make them smaller and trim / bevel the corners more.

    The last picture shows the tools needed -- 10mm socket, small tap (although just drilling the hole slightly and then torquing the both through would probably also work)
    Image Unavailable, Please Login
    Image Unavailable, Please Login
    Image Unavailable, Please Login
    Image Unavailable, Please Login
    Image Unavailable, Please Login
    Image Unavailable, Please Login
    Image Unavailable, Please Login
     
  2. voicey

    voicey Formula 3

    Jul 29, 2009
    1,197
    London, UK
    Full Name:
    Aldous Voice
    Nice printer!
     
  3. saw1998

    saw1998 F1 Veteran

    Jun 8, 2008
    8,237
    San Antonio, Texas
    Full Name:
    Scott
    Very efficient solution to this problem. You should optimize the design and sell them.
     
  4. docf

    docf Formula 3

    Sep 14, 2008
    1,445
    Florida
    Full Name:
    Gary
    I totally removed the wood screw design per Ferrari and had a countersunk design whereby a recepticle was glassed into the lower bumper, glassed and supported into the bumper. Machined screws went into bumper/aero undercover without problems ever since.

    Wood screw design per Ferrari is very poorly engineered.

    Docf
     

Share This Page