This picture is looking down on the rear valance inside the spare wheel well. You can just make out two slotted holes below, and to the right of the fasteners. There are three of these fasteners, (allen headed setscrews with locknuts below) and the next photo shows this better.
With those three fasteners removed, it's now clear what happened. The slotted holes were to allow adjustment, but the panel is very slightly too deep to line up, so I suspect that the compromise to make it fit was to offset the panel slightly to the right to avoid opening up the slotted hole into an over-large inverted T shape.
The effect is that the rear panel is offset slightly to the right, and my observations are that most early Roadsters seem to be the same.........
Here's the nearside gap......immediately below is the offside gap, and you can just tell the difference.
This has been niggling for a year. The remaining fasteners on this panel are four cross-head self-tappers with penny washers which locate vertically upwards into the wood frame.Two are outboard of the over-riders and two are inboard. Tonight I had then all off, and using my pin chuck to mark up, then Dremel drill, I slotted the seven holes and relocated the rear panel centrally. It was one hell of a fiddle, but now I can rest easy
The best part of this exercise though..........is still to come.............
