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[Osku]

Hi ther every body I'm new here and I have been an Ferrari3 owner from the late 80's. The Ferrari3 is a Bonito made in Finland by Euran Lasikuitu in the early 80's. I would wery much like to start an discusion here in English, as my Dutch is non existing. I do speak several other languages well including Deutsch Finnish and Swedish.
My bigest interest is on the detailing like th headlamp plexies and door fittings that have atleast on my version some serious issues in quality. I do not know if this is becaus mine is made in finland and something was lost in translation or that it always was that un profesionally made. Also if the issues was on all the bonitos I would like to know how people has resolved them.
My 3 biggest issues are:
1 door fittings and water proofing
2 Window seals and fittings
3 Headlamp Plexies.

I think the finnish version used a different windshield as the orginal Bonito from Fiberfab but I'm not sure.
At least my windows upper corners are sharp as where the ones I have seen here are different. Or was there on modification made by Fiberfab at some point?

I have the orginal brosure from the finnish compay so I will attach it at some point so you can se how the version looked like.

[Wilmer]

Hello Osku!

I have resolved the problem with the doors. I have not yet tested my disign but i am hopefull. I started out with the disign made by Herman (also a forum member)







I made the corners round so the rubber will not twist.

Made a mould of the doorcard:


filled in the corners:





Filled it with plaster, smoothed it out and painted it:



from the mould i made a positief



cleaned of the Gellcoat from the door





and with a lot of polyester resin i clamped it down:



then i made within the car a small mould and rounded the corners with polyester







and made the door all nice again









Still havent got the car ready so it has never seen water. But my gues is that the main problem with the bonito doors are that de doorcards shut against the rubber so the water will soak truw.

[Osku]

That thing you are doing to the door is something similar as I did, But basically to get it working I went the way an audi door is constructed leaving an outer and inner formshell bolted on a frame of steel. I also made a complet frame raound the window and all that work it it still siiped in a bit then I realized that some of the water actually came throught the door between the door inner piece and the upholstery cardbord. I fixed that by gluing the plastic film in the holes of the door behind the door ubholstery. Then I realized also that the door hings them self led some water to the cabin so fixed that it helped a bit but still in prolonged heavy rain it came in and the carpet got wet. Finaly I gave up and fitted it with gutters, that works but I still feel like I cheeted. I used the car for several years and run throught 3 engines 1 x beetle and 2 x 911 engines. Now I'm building an new 911 engine to fit it and will go through the body ones more.
As I have some issues with the rear of my body being so heavily modifyed I thought I would make a form out of the rear and make the whole rear end as a flip from new galsfiber. The rear on my car has the orginal form but is both widened with som 20cm and lengthened with som 15cm the wheel arches have been moved back with som 7cm all this to incorporate the 911 suspension and engine. All the remodellng has made the rear panels prety heavy and filled with plaster. So redoing them with form could be a goo idea.
The last 10 years its been collecting dust in my garage and last year I started to collect stuff to get it running ones again. I have deside to get it right this time and that is why I'm here talking with you guys. The 911 engine is now in parts I'm collecting the budjet for that one and serching for the parts I need but its on its way.

How do I attach pictures here as I could share some pictures with you, starting wiht the brosure I mentioned.

By the way are the forms existing still in central Europa. Becaus I know that the Finnish form with wich my car was cast still existed a few years back and propably still do. Becaus if they do not, these forms should be rescued. I have the guys telephone number and he was the guy who made them back then. I think he wanted something like 2000 euros for them a few years back but I did not have the space to store them nor the money to spend on them. If they still exist and if he still want the same money I do not know.

[Wilmer]

We use websites like http://www.photobucket.com

Then copy the http link of the picture to the forum using img tags. Are you used to work on forums?

I'm really curius to you bonito! Always fun to see other mans projects!

[Osku]

This is the broshure from Euran Lasikuitu with the Finnish version of Bonito with the name Ferrari 3

[Osku]

The dash is atleast from a BMW 320 that was used here. And can you confirm that the wind shield is different?

[Osku]

Here is my car its got a 911 porsche rear suspension engine gearbox and breaks.
The rear is lengthened and widened to make this possible. the front is alo slightly modifyed but that is minor.

[Osku]

So basically you have answered my question in that aspect that the orginal Bonito had the same issues with the doors, you mentioned that someone had made the modification you are doing did it work did he get it to stay absolutely dry or just somewhat dry?
I gave up on the frameless glas and made a frme around the window as the smal gap between the glasfiber and window was also leaking.

Then the second question are the lamp plexies any better on the oginal Bonito? or are they also just straigth pieces of Polycarbonate cut in form? I had atleast serious problems with dirt insekts and watter geting behind the plexi and that looked like shit. Is there a solution or is that why most of the people have installed other headlamps?

One more nuisanse are the seals for the windows the are realy hard to get a nice fitting on. My car has glued windows with some deco stripe but that has not been the best solution for a performance car (the deco strips seem to take flight occasionally when speeds exceed 200) and they do also not look that professiona so something should be done about that too. On the other hand the windows them self sit god and water tight.

[Osku]

I realized that the broshure had still the old front window the same as I have seen on your web site here is my front window and this came like this from Euran Lasikuitu. Realize the sharper corners.

Here you can also see my plexies wich caused some problems to mee so I made an aluminium frame round them and used some boutul to seal it. This was the best back then I could figureout and it still anoys me. The car is so nice but the devil is in the details.

[Wilmer]

Damn nice Ferrari 3 you have there!!! And nice powerplant to a flat 6!

About the doors.

The guy did manage to get the Bo nearly dry. He also put on raingutters
and put a flexible rubber between the topside of the door and the body
(the flat horizontal side of the bodywork).

The headlamp covers are preformed lexan glas peeces verry rare to get hold of



The same guy has a mould for vacuum casting new headlamp covers but
there are no companies here in holland that can make good castings out
of it. Here in holland there may not be any weard light deflexions in the
covers as it wil not pass M.O.T that way.

The best way to fit them is to spray the inside edge (first 1 or 2 cm) of the
coffer black and then with black windowsealend gluw them on your
bodywork,

You have a different front window then the original Bonito. The Bonito club
Holland has made brand new window rubbers for the original glas but for
you its no good. You should try to find out what car brand and model your
front window is from and see if that brant still makes new seals or repros.

[Osku]

So it seems that most of the people just invent something and the problems my car has, goes all the way to Fiberfab and are not something lost in translation. Eccept for the lamp plexis that looks realy nice, I could live with the ones that does not go trhough MOT as I could always get around that problem one way or another, the ones I have now already forces me to do some tricks on the MOT. So more important for me is that the reflections are nice and that the edge is cut nicely in form , it would also be of essens that the material is from such quality that it wont scratch to easily.
I have been talking with the Geman Bonito club too and they speak about some copys made in holland what are they talking about?
Are they of what kind of quality? Or are the just the ones you are refering to?

By the way I have realized that Bonitos use often something that lookslike the beatle engine lid lock on the doors, how does that work is that a good solution?
I have been wondering about how you open the pasanger lock from the inside of the car or is it just a case of you don't

By the way how is it with the side windows and rear window do you have some seals for those? and are the the same?

[Wilmer]

The covers the bonito club germany is talking about are indeed the same
ones. He has made some sets in the past and the quality was perfect no
reflections and fits both the long and short nose bonito's as typ 1 and 2.

The door handles ( vw typ2 transporter rear hatch lock) were adviced by
Fiberfab the builder of the kits. There is indeed the problem of locking the
passerger side. Maybe you could fabricate the push button of a beatle
lock into the transporter lock thatway you can lose the keyhole. Otherwise
everytime someone wants to get in from the other side you have to unlock
with the key. I persony do not like those kind of locks, there are many
alternitives. You know your way with fiberglas maybe you could fit audi 80
(1986-1990) handles in the door, make a mould of a audi door and transvere
the handle cup to your ferrari3.

I think the rear window is the same. Post the mesurements on the forum and
i will check with mine. The window is of an opel record coupe C i believe.
The side windows (door and body) are fiberfab originals. But its flat glass so
every car glas company can replicate them.

The door windows fit inside a steel frame that sits insite the door an can be
removed. Its nothing fancy just a u profile ( inner dimention 10mm) welded in
shape. The upper rail is slightly bent to match the roofline.
As for the window rubbers in the doors, there are universal veltlined rubbers
in a u shape that fit perfectly. I will look up the website tomorrow.

the small side window rubbers are a bigger problem. I believe the ford fiesta
rear side windows match the lower rear bend of a bonito window. You then
have to cut to size and fulcanise the two halves together with special rubber
gluw. But wether its the ford fiesta mk1 or the mk2 i do not know...

[Wilmer]

http://www.rubbermagazijn.nl/collectie/ ... -2mtr.html

Also keep in mind. This topic is gooing to be moved to another section of
this forum. Its now placed in the for sale section. The moderaters have not yet seen this topic.

[Osku]

I could fix it with newer door handles but I would like my design to reflect an more classic look from an earlier eera. So from the apperans here the betle handels I have are fine they just need an indent behind them and that again does not look cool. I was looking at some Fiat and Alfarome handles but some how the small knob from the trensporter was also from the right eera for my car and suited my eye. But as mentioned earlier, this time when I rebuild my car, I want the car to feel like a car not just run and look the part. So the thought of running round the car to open doors is a no goe.
About the way I constructed my doors the last time was I made a steel frame that holds the window mechanism crank , door locks and hinges togather and bolted the two glasfiber panels togather from both side on that one. This was otherwise cool but the door is slightly too heavy for the GRP on the body and feels like it could doo with some reinforcement on the body too. This could also be a good idea from the non existing safety aspect as now I have an side impact bar that is mounted in nothing and will mostlikely endup in the cabine in case of acccident. So my Door feels solid but the car does not. Has some one reinforced the hings or refabricated them, they seem to let in water and as they are to separate pieces they tend to be cause to some of the unprecisely with wich the dor closes.

The front lid I newer understood how it should be seald as the upper gutters are so shalow that one can not fit an seal on them. The only thing I did was monted on hose in both the corners of the deebest section infron thus leading some water atleast out. To get an nice fit on the body I throw away the inner piece as it just made teh panel too thick and laminated my hings direct on the outer shel wich I smoothened on the outer edges and glued som carpet in the center. Has some one an solution on the front lid how should it seal, as space is something the car is limited on and it would be nice to have atleast some storsge place for small weekend trips.

The only lid I'm happy with is the rear hood that works and is simple, but it has a problem too with leaving water in a pool in the spoiler indent and that makes the caar look dirty after the first rain on that spot, has some on made some holes in it and a gutter in the enginbay becaus I was thinking about this.

By the way are there any pictures on the Plexies that where made in holland and how they fit the car and what problems they had?

About the front window I just read on the net that a Finnish Glas company have now days the molds for my fron windsheld and it was custom made so it seems that I can order the glas from there and they should be able to make them for a resonable money, as they already have the form. So I havetocontact them and finout how it is and what they can doo.

Bye the way it is a bit hard tochose the right palce for the discusion when one does not speak Dutch, well I hope I will find it when they move it.