rear spoiler mfgs
 

Hello,

time to get the drill out, my son wants the wing on his car. question though on mfg's. ebay /ames, I see 4 suppliers. Ames, Parts Place, Tamraz and CARid. are they all basically selling the same wing with different prices or is there actually any differences? The Ames catalog seems to indicate there's a new "better quality" run of wings out so that must mean there's old poorer quality wings out on the market unless that's just sales hype.

just wondering if anyone's bought one recently and or any insight on how many suppliers are actually making them or if everyone's getting them from the same source.

Just know last time I looked a real GM "wing" (as opposed to a spoiler/finger smasher) was multipeice and the repops weren't

I've found two choices for the rear wing. I just sent one back and have ordered the injection molded plastic spoiler. The first was the fiberglass. The underside at the pedestals was all out of shape and the ends of the wing curved down too much. Hopefully the plastic one is better. Currently waiting on shipment from the manufacturer. Projected to ship end of June.

yeah I know. I had bought an original wing at a swap meet back in the 80's that had popped apart and at the time I wasn't sure how to go about gluing it back together, then some guy came over to buy some parts off me and spotted the wing in my parts shed and made me an offer I couldn't refuse at the time (think I got $100 for it, what a deal!) I kick myself everyday for letting it go.

hammertime - where are you getting this plastic one from? I really don't feel like 20 hours of fab work like I had to do with the complete pile of trash 69 wing I bought from PP a few years ago. what a fiasco that was. wing stood probably 2 inches too high and the pedestals were hollow. I ended up filling them with resin, then cutting them down, then endless hours of sanding on the pedestals to get the contour right to match the deck lid to bring the wing tips down to the quarters where they're supposed to be. I figured it wouldn't be that much of a deal if/when the 71 wing was off since the ends are in the air and not so blatently obvious when it was wrong.

okay, I guess it helps to read the ads and answer some of my own questions.

Parts Place claims they make their own new fiberglass wing which is best in the market

Tamraz says theirs is injection molded plastic

CARid says their wing is fiberglass and made by a company called RESTOPARTS which they claim is best in the market

Ames - doesn't say who it is other than it's a new process so I'm going to guess it's a PP wing?

"best in the market" propaganda claims aside, this looks like 3 mfgs to me. Mike, which fiberglass one did you have you were unhappy with? I'm a bit leary of this plastic wing. what does it do after cooking in 100 degree sunlight for 5 hours at a car show or all day in a parking lot?

A third party that owns the car ordered the first spoiler from OPG. I talked to Year One as they were offering the fiberglass and injection molded spoiler. The tech person at Year One said the feed back on the injected spoiler was better than the fiberglass. Year One was currently out of stock. They offered to call the manufacturer of the injected spoiler to get a ship date. They were told the end of June for delivery. So I looked else where and found that Tamaraz on E-Bay had the injection molded spoiler in stock. So the third party ordered it from Tamaraz. Only to find out that they were also out of stock. We just got a notice that the spoiler has been shipped. Hopefully the spoiler is being shipped to me, where the car is. If it is I'll have more info for you.

I received the spoiler today. This one is probably as good as it gets. I compared it to my factory spoiler and it matches pretty well. The pedestals are separate and bolt to the spoiler. The shape of the pedestals appear a little wider. The spoiler is light but pretty sturdy, Can't say how it will hold up with time. Maybe someone else has this spoiler and can chime in. I'm betting that there are only a couple manufacturers of this spoiler. This one has the Parts Place label on it. Here are some photos of the spoiler.

More photos compared to my factory spoiler.

If anything I'd say the repop looks too good, the real ones never fit that well. See how the gaps vary on this one ?

Hmmm, that setup looks decent. a given the lines aren't sharp on the pedestals, the repop 69 wing I used was the same deal with things not terminating in a point like a real one.

are they long screws that go up from the bottom under the deck lid, then through the pedestals, then into the wing so the pedestals are just squeezed in between? my only real fear with these is the plastic factor. do they droop and turn into playdoh under serious sun baking on a hot day.

All the bolts are short. The openings on the underside of the pedestals are large enough to use a socket and extension for the bolts that attach the spoiler.

I decided to install studs where the pedestals mount to the deck lid. Not a lot of thread contact and the short bolts didn't work for me. I put some blue locktite on the studs. Studs are what the factory went with and it's easier to install.

when I had to customize my junk PP 69 wing I went with studs as well. The only fix I had on the fitment was to cut at least an inch off the pedestal height to bring the wing down to contact the quarters. Of course that removed the entire bottom structure where the bolts were supposed to attach. To solve that I filled both of the hollow pedestals with fiberglass resin, then shaved them down and then I tapped in holes for the studs with plenty of contact surface for running the stud up into the pedestals. royal pain doing that, those things got nuclear hot while that resin cured. I'd probably do it in stages if I was to repeat the process.

well, I pulled the trigger on the extra expense getting the Tamraz plastic wing and then waited 5 weeks for them to actually ship it after having to get ebay involved. anyways, it came in yesterday finally and opening it up, my first thoughts were it looked pretty nice. however my second thoughts which really bothers me is that after picking it up and it weighing next to nothing, alarmingly, squeezing it reminds me of an empty 2 liter bottle of pop. I'm really surprised how thin and flimsy this feels. as in, it feels like it's going to turn into soup sitting on the car during a hot summer day. No way I'll need to even worry about tightening the torsion rods to lift the deck with it under there since it weighs nothing.

I thought about drilling a hole into it and filling it with expanding foam (like great stuff) but I think it would literally balloon up with the pressure since the material is so thin.

Hammertime Mike, how has your wing held up? You made the comment it seemed sturdy. I don't think I would use the same description for what I'm seeing here. it feels like if I leaned on it after an install I could bend it right down to the deck lid!

gto4ever, Your right about how light the spoiler is. Maybe rigid would have been a better description on the spoiler. It supports itself and holds it's shape, so far. Sturdy implies strength and durability. I went with the studs because it was thin. Like you said, there's no worry with the weight when it comes to opening and closing the deck lid ! Currently that car has been put up for the winter. Never did get anybody else input on the spoiler. Good luck with yours !

I figured I'd follow up with this. Finally got the car done just in time for winter! I was a bit worried using the factory template for drilling the holes so I marked them up first, then laid the wing over the top and was very pleasantly surprised it lined up perfectly with all 4 holes. I didn't even need to egg out a single hole to get all four screws started after drilling them. as far as weight, It stays up without adjusting the deck lid rods, but just barely so I may try moving one of them one tab tighter. Best part was I didn't have to do anything but prime and paint. I didn't see any divots or waves that needed fixing. worst part was figuring out how to hang and paint it without missing anywhere. I made some stands on hinges and was really worried about ripping the threaded inserts out of the wing but everything held up fine.

overall, very happy with it and it feels rigid enough now that it's mounted. still need to see how happy it is after baking in some summer sun but can't test that out til next year.

Glad to see the spoiler has worked for you. We'll only know how well it holds up with time and exposure to the elements.