7 replies to this topic

[bridiered]

hi all,i need to find out the gauge of metal to use to patch various holes in my stripped mini,any ideas??

[dklawson]

I think that depends in part on the age of your car. For the Mk1 that I have I found the sheet metal was between 0.035-0.040" thick. In the U.S. this corresponded closest to 20 gauge metal.

[bluebottle]

i dont know if you have them in canada, but a handy source of car thickness metal is the local sunroof fitting centre, they have lots of sunroof sized bits of metal ,which over here, they are happy to give away.

[philster]

i always use 18's gauge where ever possible as this is closer to the original than 20's guage which tends to be weaker. What u normally find is with say replacement panels they use 20's gauge instead of 18's because its easier to form.

[bridiered]

thanks people,i will definately try the sun roof guys but i do have a friendly trailer shop nearbye and ive just called them,$3 per square foot 18 gauge seems pretty cheap though.by the way petrol is 93 cents canadian per ltr @36 p !! and were going nuts at the price as its got so high!!!!

[philster]

36p! i wish the cheapest over here is about 79.9p unless you use the higher octane optimax and then its nearly 90p

[Woody]

WOW indeed as Philster says 36p a litre,
just one request Bridiered..... could you post me some

[Woody]

Oh yea , back on topic , you can get a small tool (snap-on do one) that you use to check the gauge of the metal on varios parts of your mini , so that you can use a simular gauge to repair it , the tool wasent expencive and the snap-on tools are probably cheaper over there (i buy my snap-on spaners one at a time and pay weekly) :grin: