73 LS-4

Well now that my sidpipes are on, I now have to do something with the rear exhaust cutouts. Who makes the best fitting rear filler panel?

Thanks for any info

Pat Kunz

VetteNut72

ttt - Anyone? I just purchased Hooker sidepipes and have the same issue to deal with. Are there any other forum members that have experience with this?

Zip products lists two parts that seem to be related to this issue:

PFG-086 70-73 Exhaust panel w/side exhaust
PFG-395 70-73 Exhaust panel end reinforcement w/side exhaust

Unfortunately, there are no pictures for these part numbers - the first one is obvious, but the second one is unclear as to it's function or necessity. What did the rest of you sidepipe guys do?

Craig

mike229

http://vanacorvette.com/page36.htm

70 LS1

I have a panel made by Ecklers for this exact purpose if you are interested. It replaces the rear panel and instead of having cutouts for the exhuast, the fiberglass extends to cover the exhaust cutout in the fender. I can take a pic if you are interested.

I decided to not go with sidepipes so it is just sitting in the garage.

68/70Vette

There's been previous postings about how to fill in the exhaust holes.

Many people just glass in the rear panel completely and get rid of the seam between the exhaust valance panel and the rear quarter panel. The result looks very good, but you can't remove they rear valance panel anymore. It now becomes glassed in solid. (Few people would know that this solid glassed in appearance is not stock. Of course you can't seperately remove the rear valance panel, but I'm not sure why you'd ever want to remove just the valance panel.)

The factory sidepipe cars retained the removeable rear valance panel, and also the vertical seam between the valance panel and the quarter panel. The factory rear quarter panels, that wold ordinarily have 1/2 of the cutout for the exhaust, were solid.

I've been able to buy used rear valance panels, on E-Bay, that came from factory sidepipe cars. Ecklers and J&D sell rear valance panels that don't have exhaust cutouts and also have the straight vertical side edges that the factory panels had. When you install one of these panels, you now have 1/2 a hole remaining in the rear quarter panel. I had a fiberglass guy fill in this 1/2 hole. He did a great job. From the back, my two cars visually look like stock factory sidepipe cars; i.e. the rear valance is not joined/glassed into the rear quarter panels.

...I don't want to go into the detail, since it may not be interesting, but my fiberglass guy sacrificed another rear valance panel to fill in the half exhaust holes still remaining in the rear quarter panels! This means that the mounting flanges of the rear quarter panel and the mounting flanges of the new sidepipe valance panel are also just like stock.


..Good Luck. It'll be great to have another sidepipe car on the road. Getting rid of the factory under car exhaust really gets rid of a lot of heating and heat degradation problems and also makes working on you transmission/differential/rear suspension so..so..so much easier. Also, I think the sidepipes just look so much nicer.

lostpatrolman

The rear valance panel needs to be taken off in order to take the body off the frame. It will hit on the rear area of the frame otherwise. The previous owner glassed over the holes and seams on my car. Luckily, the old glass matting didnt bond very well, and I was able to carefully rip it off.

Red73

I bought my filler panel from Ecklers. And I'm one of those bad people that filled in the seams. It took more time to get the panel to fit correctly than it did to prime and paint. Rod

Bullshark

Pat, save time and money and steer clear of Vanacor and Corvette Central (Sheimershim sp?) I tried both when I was looking for a replacement for a cracked GM original panel. They were so bad I had to send them both back cause no way was I going to make them work. Forfited shipping for both ( ~$20 each). I wound up patching the original to get proper fit.

Bullshark

73 LS-4

Bullshark,

Is there anyone that you recommend?


Pat Kunz

70vert

I have the panel with the "ears" that fill in the exhaust outlet. I did not glass in the panel. All these panels are hand laid as the factory never had a need for a press molded piece. I tried several and they all are a PITA, non of them fit. I ended up using a panel from Ecklers and with ALOT of fitting work I ended up with a nice fit. You will not find a good bolt-on piece.

72LS5

Hey Pat what are you going to do with your tips and bezels? If you are interested in selling drop me a line. Thanks

Bullshark

Pat, I have heard good things about Corvette Image (they supply Ecklers now), however I have no first hand knowledge. Shipping was killing me with my trial and error approach so I had to give up

Bullshark

73 LS-4

Thanks all for your replies. 72 LS5, I sent you a message. Bull shark thanks for the info, I'll check into Ecklers and corvette image.


Pat Kunz

Roma

I know this is an old thread, but maybe there are some new Ideas or better fitting Panels available now.
I hopefully can transform in Spring my 69' to a Sidepipe-Car and now searching for a good Solution to close the rear Exhaustholes !
Ideas, pictures, links and advices are welcome

Thanks a lot in advance and happy new Year

Roma

avner

Hi Roma

I bought the panel that fill the exhaust outlet at Carlisle last year from one of the vendors (I don't remember who it was) and it doesn't fit at all, the problem was that I got home (overseas) to find it out.
So what I did, I cut the ends from the original valance and from the after market valance and glass it on the original panel, it's came very good.



happy new Year
Avner

Alan 71

Hi R,
I think that a good solution is to buy a valance panel for an original side pipe car. They are availible.
You're then left with having to fill 1/2 of the cut-out for the rear exhaust bezel on each side.
One of the fiberglass manufacturers sells a little moulded 'lip' that you can use as part of the repair and you end up with the configuration you need to run the 2 bolts on each side that run from the valance to the newly created repair.
There is no doubt that this method is the most work. You can judge for your self if it's worth it.
Regards,
Alan

Happy New Year!

Please forgive me if you've already seen this picture

Roma

Hi Alan and Avner,

thanks for the pics ,your solutions look perfect.

But prior to close it "forever" does someone offers or knows a kind of Interim-Solution ?

If possible I want to save the possibility to go back to stock .

Regards

Roma

baxsom

I have heard some good things about acivette's stuff.

Alan 71

Hi R,
The only way I can see to be able to "go back" with minimal work is to use the valance filler that Red73 shows.
What needs to be done then is that ALL the work required to get a good fit must be done on the valance and NONE on the quarter panels. I don't know how possible that is. I'd think it would take at least SOME fiberglass and paint work on the quarters to get a GOOD fit and seam between the valance panel and quarter panel.
As you can begin to see in Red73's picture the 'ears' on the valance have a very flat look to them while the quarter panel has a very gentle curve in all 4 directions. I'm not sure how you deal with that.
Regards,
Alan

Roma

Hi Alan,

you mean this Version: