MadaboutKitcars

Looking forward to the wing/door modification. I would however like to point out that if it is simple and brilliant after all my hard work you will be taken off my Xmas card list!

Hey Steve,

All we are going to do is cut back the inner skin on the bonnet, re bond it and add glass to the leading edge.

I am hoping to do the last of the glass work on my one this week end so will update when done.

Any updates?

Hi Steve,

I have done a bit more on it, Pics are on my camera at work so will try and get some sorted at weekend.

It's not far off the primer stage, the hot weather has slowed things a bit and I have been doing some maintenance on the workshop, new compressor, wiring painting etc.

Ok,

Some pics for Steve regarding the gap issue on the door to bonnet.

So I just taped a very thin strip of alloy to the out side of the edge, just to act as a former.

I had cut back the inner frame of the bonnet by about 20mm, then glassed a couple of layers of matting in.

This left me more material than I needed so just whizzed down with the air saw and finished off with a sanding block, still a bit to do but going in the right direction.




I also got the centre panel in the bonnet a bit better,I have seen them left as they come from Tribute and IMHO it does let the front down a bit.

Before

After (work in progress)



Still a lot to do but the customers 250 will now take precedence over my own car, my bugger will have to go on the back burner for a while.

Thanks Jeff
Does the door clear the bonnet when it is fully open?
The only way I could seem to make it clear was to give the trailing edge of the bonnet more curve.

Bonet on bonnet gap looks a lot better.

Yes it does Steve,

The passenger side was really bad to correct, the curve on the bonnet seemed more pronounced that side.

Both doors open fully with out catching, they are tight, really tight but they do clear.

My passenger door wasn't too bad, it was the drivers door that was far worse!

Well I have it all to do on the Blue one again, happy days eh ?

I am so impressed with this build. As a newbie learning as I go I love the tips and pointers on here. So jealous of you guys with fully functioning workshops, opposed to me building on the drive! But hey, no point in whining, just got to get on with it and do the best you can.

Keep up the good work mate.

Could it be that as the clamshell is just a fibreglass shell that a few mm here and a few mm there would change the profile of the sides?

So on one its the passenger's side and on the next the drivers side.

Especially when the fad is to cut a slit and pull one side in.

I think it is more to do with how much bonding paste is applied to each side to hold the inner skin on, on my bonnet it was deffo thicker one side to the other.

The cut is needed both sides to pull the bonnet in line with the sills.

Mine was cut on one side only - which explains why the front offside wheel catches the arch slight on light turn whereas near side is fine.

Any progress?

Some progress to report,

I have taken two weeks off from customers work to push forward with the car, it was the only way it was going to get done really.

The panel work was 99 per cent there it just needed a final skim of slop to level up a coupe of panels, the only thing I did do was delete the roof vent, I have had an alloy one made for the rear screen.

Some pics.
1st job was to cut a panel out and bond it in to the vent space, I thought this would be easier than trying to glass up the hole from inside.



I also needed to make sure my new door frames were a decent fit to the aperture, it made sense to do this before paint naturally.


Next was to get the Polyester reface on the car, followed by guide coat and then 2k high build primer.





And then on to the panels, boot lid inside.







Flow coated the inner bonett.

The flash on the camera is making the colour look a lot lighter and redder than it is, it is more of a Maroon , I will take some outside tomorrow and see if they are better.

That looks fantastic Jeff. Look forward to seeing it in proper light.
Bob.

Looking good.Did you ever get any finished photos of the blue car, with wires and interior?

Best colour yet on a Koupe. Reminds me of the 250 hot rod.
Looks spot on without trying too hard and first to have proper window frames. It all makes the difference.

Proper door handles too.

Nice work!

I haven't spoken to him in a while Steve,

I think with the cold weather it has slowed him down a bit, I will send him a message and see what's what.

Fantastic work

Sure there was some

That's looking very pretty Jeff ...The colour looks great .. really like that choice .....window frames look very nice too ..some nice little touches ..

Amazing what a few dozen rattle cans can achieve ...

Yeah,

Halfords do some good cans now, but my favorite is from Motabitz.