MadaboutKitcars

Bit of motivation for you Scottie, there were about half a dozen or so of these lined up at Goodwood today -

Sat

Jones, you wrote:

its really look good those polished steel pieces look great! however i was expecting to see some blood splatter!

Well we would not want to disappoint anyone would we?

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Ouch, that looks like a nasty gash. Which reminds me of a trip to Norway I once went on...

I suppose it is a nasty gash, mind you, I never said it was my hand.........

At least I post real pictures of my injuries

haha thanks for not disappointing, in all seriousness the car is looking good

Steady WCA, I never said it was'nt my hand either.......

Hope your hand's healing Scottie, thought I'd post you a 'get well soon' inspirational picture -

'Field of Dreams'


Classic Jaguars as far as the eye can see.

Thank you Mr T, My hand is healing well BTW.

I bet you enjoyed yourself at Goodwood!

Did you dress up?

Had a great time at Goodwood. Went for period overalls with Lancia/Italian flag badges this year -



Bit cooler than tweeds and a collar and tie as it was really hot and humid this weekend.

Keep plugging away and this could be your car next year -

I will keep plugging away, as I can see how you are enjoying your finished car!

It really is a credit to you, it looks so coooool!

Steve McQueen would have wanted yours if he had seen it!

Mr T I decided to read your build thread again but this time paid a lot more attention now that my project is no longer pipe dreams. Loved the videos too. Scottie you serve as reality and inspiration as to the determination required and focus needed to complete these projects.

Thank you for the kind words jonesy!

When I first started my build, Mr Towed was still hard at work on his, and he inspired me, and still does.

His car is up and running and should act as inspiration for lots of people out there.

Mr Towed has seen it, done it, got the T shirt, and is currently living the dream!

I want the same deal, but its taking ages to get there.

Monday

I was thinking about the Lynx XKSS that was up for sale at Goodwood over the weekend, and it made me wonder what the definition of "kit" car actually was.

In the broader sense, a person has a dream car in mind, and does their best to re-create that car for real.

This can be done several ways, by buying a total "kit" of parts, or just a body-shell, or even make the shell themselves,

The end result is the same, the finished car is either a total "replica" in every sense, or a very very similar car to the original, (if trying to re-create an existing car)

Whatever it is, rightly or wrongly, it will usually be reffered to as a "kit car"

Lynx went through this process with their XKSS, which sold over the weekend for a staggering £384,540, remember this is not an original car!

Does anyone else know of a kit car that has sold for more than that?

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As Lynx make clones of the real thing that are accurate in every detail (including the faults) and the price realised is about 1/20th of the value of a genuine one, that hammer price looks like pretty good value for money.

It's a shame you weren't at the auction Scottie, you could've saved yourself a lot of cut fingers if you'd outbid the buyer...

Normally with Lynx, that is the case, but in this particular instance, this car was fitted with a 3.8 litre engine which was not as original., and also it was built with an E Type chassis/floor-pan, which of course had not been designed when the XKSS's were in production.

That said, This car would most likely handle and be faster than the original anyway!

The reason I did not bid on it was that when it came time to pay,
I would have been in trouble finding the cash!

I shall have to to make do with my old sub-standard Spitfire based look alike!

But, I will be quite happy with that I'm sure.

Tuesday

Well I got another half-days work done today.
I got the car out and put it up on my ramp as I had two jobs to do underneath it.

The last time I was under the car I noticed that the bridge that supports the gearbox rear end had two nut lose on one side and no bolts or nuts on the other.
Considering the car came to me with a years Mot, it makes you wonder......

So I sorted that out, and then made two metal panels to box in either side of the rear tail end, which I had been meaning to do for ages.

(When I bolted the body onto the car at the rear, I had left a 1 foot long gap at either side)

I did that, and now the complete underside, from one front wheel, right the way round the rear end of the car to the other front wheel is finished and watertight.

The only thing I have left to do at the front end is to make some sort of inner wheel arch to keep the water out of the battery box, right Mr Towed?

I have plans for this, and will get round to it.

When this is done, that is all the work to the under side finished, wow!



Here are pics of today's stuff.

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Scottie - Sounds like your "To Do" is getting shorter by the day.

Good luck, Paul.

Wednesday

Today, I prepared and painted the boot lid, in its Connaught green topcoat.

I wanted: a: to see what Connaught green looked like on my car.

and b: had I done enough rubbing down and prep work?

Well I was very pleased with the colour, which is black with a touch of green,
just exactly what I want.

Was I pleased with the job? NO, I had not done enough prep, and I will have to rub in down a LOT more to get it perfect.

Well at least I know now what I have to do, which is as usual, a LOT more work!

The boot lid will be kind of hidden under the rear luggage rack, but the paint job has to be better than I've got it even so. It has to be Jaguar standard
at least, which right now its not.

Two pictures which don't really show the colour too well.

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Scottie, don't look too closely at the finish you've got, nobody else will unless they're concours judges/anally retentive/w4nkers/all of the above. It's the overall effect of the car all in one colour, looking like it was painted in 1950 something that will blow people away, trust me

Give it a damned good rubbing with G3 compound then polish it with Auto Glym super resin and it'll look more authentic than if you'd paid £10k for a pro spray job.

Agreed, get a good depth of paint on it and compound it carefully- you don't think those glassy Ferrari finishes are straight from the gun do you?

Providing you have the depth of paint to play with, compound it until it looks right to you, then polish.

Most of the professional detailers, when faced with a poor, scratched surface, measure the depth of the paint and decide how much they can take off, go for it until smooth and then polish.

Scottie - I'm only just getting to grips with this "prepping for paint" lark.

So on the one hand I am interested in what level of rubbing down / prep work is required.

On the other I know that Mr T & Ian make good points about the work required after paint.

I posted this link on my build thread & although it is about hand painting, it does cover cleaning up the paint.

http://www.rodsnsods.co.uk/forum/tech-features/hand-painting-car-98714

Good luck, Paul.

Mr Towed, IanA and Paul, thank you for the support, I will try what you suggest, but the pics make the paint look better than it is believe me!
I will give it a try though, and post results!

Thursday

Mr Towed and IanA, the advice you both gave was spot-on.

I remember some years back, a chap had a blue E Type, which he entered into a concours event and won it. He was complemented on the exemplary paint on the car, the judges were surprised to hear he had done in himself, but were blown away when he said he had used dozens of rattle cans, to put the paint on thickly, and mopped it back to perfection.

BUT, what was not apparent in the pictures of my boot lid , and I have to be brutally honest, were the ripples, dents, hollows, and also where I had to pull on a giant insect, (which had decided to go paddling) off the paintwork.

This morning on inspection all these things were easier to see, and really not acceptable, so with a heavy heart, back to the drawing board, BUT it is still better than it was, so I am closer to it!

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Nothings easy... but you can imagine the dark colour against the stainless steel.