1070cc Historic Racer Project
Paint & Prep
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Over the weekend we have finally finished stripping rubbish off the shell and have begun to tidy things up and put things back on.
After the underseal was stripped from the inside around the front seam, the corners, in anticipation of fitting the cage and the battery box, because it looked scabby, it was on with the cage. We did a trial fitting of the Rollcentre cage I bought earlier in the year. Even by richs admission, it fitted very niceley and presented no problems at all. In conjunction with this cage I am using the Mighty Mini aproved "T" bar made by safety devices, this mounts between the two rear legs of the cage and has a second bar that goes down to the tunnel. This bar gives the cage a lot more strength than otherwise and gives you somewhere solid to mount the seat belts. Anyway, after the cage was fitted, we marked the points where the strengthening plates would go, for the feet of the cage. And YES it did make me feel a bit queasy welding 4mm steel plates into this lovely shell. Anyway, as we had fitted the cage first, we could make sure that everything fitted perfectly, and the welding commenced. The rear ones were easy, fitting quite neatly to the tower tops, the front plates however were a little trickier, these were formed to fit tight up to all sides, this necessitated a bit of mucking about, but by the time they were seam sealered, they lookd respectable. A side advantage to fitting the plates correctly, is that if the car ever goes back on the road, these will fit neatly under the carpet, and will never be seen.
The more observent reader will notice that the drivers side door hole also has something in it. It still looks a bit scrappy from the inside, but from the outside, it looks quite impressive.
The bonnet and boot lid have been fitted, the quality of the bonnet was excellent, this fitted very well indeed, the glass fibre was strong and flexible and easy to fit, the less said about the boot lid the better! On a seperate note, I hope to be able to announce a big development regarding availability of Alloy Bonnets before too long. Nothing to report just yet, but watch this space.
Finally for tonight we drilled a great big hole in the boot floor.
I have had a special alloy tank made that will fit in the spare wheel well, to prevent fuel surge I have had a little sump fitted to the bottom. Unfortunately, to accomodate the sump, I have had to sacrifice the spare wheel mounting boss. It has however been carefully filed away with all the other bits I have removed. |
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Unfortunately things have slowed down a bit this week. I have managed to get the rear bulkhead all fire proofed. This was done using fire retardent glass fibre on both sides of the panel. All round the rear parcel shelf and down the sides of the rear wheel arches.
Once this was complete, on a similar glass fibre-y theme, I put in some re-enforcing pieces under the glass bonnet, this was a single skin moulding and very flimsy, the strengthening has made it a lot more rigid with only a minimar increase in weight. As I am a bit pushed for space in my new garage, I decided to put the shell on castors so it was a bit easier to move about, this was very easy to do. I just welded a frame up that located on the original mounting points used in the factory. The shell is now very easy to move about. The biggest adavntage is that I can now move the shell outside when I'm sweping up. I have not been able to give the garage a good clean since I finished removing the underseal.
Once the garage was clean again, I could start to do some of the rubbing down and preperation for paint. This is being done next Monday night, the (the 4th of Dec) This will give it lots of time to dry over Christmas. Hopefully. The alloy doors both came out surprisingly well, considering I bought them second hand and they had been kicking around for a good few years before I got my hands on them. With only a bit of filler and a few layers of etch primer they were starting to look "something like"
The rest of this week has been spent rubbing down. There is practically no filler needed on the whole car, so once it is mounted on the spit this evening (pic coming soon) I can get it all ready for Monday nights fun & games. |
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After a good week of rubbing down and cleaning and rubbing down and cleaning we managed to get the shell mounted on the spit to make painting and access to the underneath and roof a lot easier. The first painting session was completed last night,
The aim was to get a first coat on the bonnet, boot & doors as well as put some paint on the interior, engine bay & underneath.
Once the interior had received a coat of 2 pack, it really started to look more like a car than a work in progress, the paint went on a treat as we had made sure the garage was good and warm before we started.
Considering the paint we applied was only supposed to be a first coat, it made a hell of a difference. Once the paint on the bonnet and boot had gone off, we wondered if they were going to need another coat.
Anyway, now the first session of paint is done, I will have to leave it to cure for a day or two before starting the rubbing down again. Hopefully on Friday we will be able to get the car sides finished, and then onto the roof next Monday. Then it will be a case of leaving it all for a couple of weeks to make sure the paint has cured properly. I would like to thank Rich Hawcroft for his painting skills, and on this occasion for his photographic skills too. I seem to have lost my camera!
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