MadaboutKitcars

Good effort. What happened?

My guess is that a cutting disc on your grinder shattered? Or was is a kit car related knife fight with the wife?

If only it was that exciting Chris! I was on my back doing up the rear wheel arch body kit bolts in my micro machine sized garage when the fibreglass headlining decided that leaning upright was not it favoured position. Instead it was on the express route of joining me on the floor via a pit stop visit to my head.

On the flipside, you now look like geralt of rivea (well a bit)

Battle wound? No, actually a bit of fibreglass kit car trim fell on me, but I don't like to talk about it...

Lol awesome, I wasn't sure if anyone would get the reference....

I had to Google it as I'm far too old for computer games.

Never too old for computer games! My 73 yo mum plays them!

Haha as I can't carry off that look I have aided best I can the healing process to minimise scaring. Timing couldn't have been worse as the beginning of next week I have some critical presentations to potential clients in the conservative world of financial services consulting. Ah well

So unfortunately whilst changing the belts there was a hose that didn't look quite right upon further inspection I noticed it also was rubbing against a belt. As I investigated further there was a small 'ting' noise as it popped off and with it the metal pipe it was attached to. Followed by a gushing of fresh coolant across the cramped garage floor! Needless to say some choice language ensued.

Once I had stopped the cars bleeding I was able to look in more detail, some muppet had fudged a repair and rather than replacing the bypass pipe and inlet pipe when it had broken originally they used a thick fuel pipe and forced it onto the remains of the mounting on the unit. It had corroded through. So a week shopping about I have bought the correct new parts and when this unexpected hangover finally subsides I will fix the unit and top again with new coolant. Just annoying that I have to replace the coolant that is only 7 days old! Things brake and on a car that is over 25 years old it's part of the course just wish it had happened when I was replacing the radiator and hoses and thus coolant-less.

No pictures as of yet but if I remember I will take some and retrospectively post some.

Have a good weekend all

Added picture - as you see a bit of difference from the new one on the left and the any bit will do piece on the right. The right picture was my quick bodge of how to plug the leak with anything in arms reach, as you can see a pencil and a latex glove.

Sooooo firstly ashamedly I have failed yet again to take pictures, my phone and tablet had both died but having spent the morning sorting out the first mow of the lawn this year and servicing the mower I pressed on to the reward... working on the car.

I was determined to get the boot finally sorted and I can say that today I am pleased to say I have completed the task! So very pleased, I have created a KISS solution for the hinges but they are just as a mock up the final ones will be much smarter and welded. I am determined to get this on the road by Stoneleigh and I will tweak everything once it's on the road.

I'll post pictures tomorrow...

Picture added not quite tomorrow as promised but a few weeks later, appears I didn't take many photos. The reason for the ballast is I had bonded the inner skin to the boot lid to give back the subtle curve.

My wife is up north today (Saturday) so I have decided despite the weather I will try and get some work done on the car.


The first job was to get the car turned around and top off, for today is about the rusty sill repair. That done got the car in at an angle to give me as much rear room as possible - the joke is some plum in his haste removed the wing mirrors! Luckily no mishaps 😃


So to work I want grinding the paint back to see how far the rot went, this was a nice surprise a) turns out it's an original panel b) the panel was actually not bad and the rot was on the outside panel with just surface rust on the structural inner panel. I drilled out the spot welds, then cut the rusty panel out. Next I cleaned the surface rust off slapped on some Kurust and made a quick trip to halfords for some zinc primer to stop the rust coming back and some weld through primer.



So first I taped off the area that I will be welding too, sprayed the remainder with the zinc primer in thick coats. Removed the tape and sprayed that area with the weld through primer. Next I got the new panel and started to drill the new spot weld holes.



Now was the time for a break, next up cutting the panel for a snug fit and then weld up the new panel... end of part 1 and time for lunch and a good cuppa

Part 2 - Slow & Steady

Our ventured back outside to tackle the next steps, I spent my time trimming and offering up and then re trimming etc. I remembered something that I had heard before, it's easy to trim a bit off but very difficult to add a bit back on. Eventually I was happy and I was ready to apply my novice welding skills to the challenge. I went with lots and lots of butt welds along the top and good solid plug welds along the bottom and down the sides. It's not perfect but that's okay as it's no longer going to be on show but if it had a been a quick skim of filler would have sorted it I guess.

Next jobs completed were welding up the old wing mirror mounting holes in the door and a skim of filler. Following that the dreaded task of removing the lower door rubberised stone chip protection. Once complete I did the first round of filling in the swage line, once completed I decided to down tools for the evening wanted to watch the footy and glad I did! A great England comeback in the 2nd half.



Well that's it for now, got some house DIY to complete too this weekend so not sure if I'll be able to get back out there again.

Next job to tick off is the final bonding! Finally!

Jones - Good to see you were able to do your own welding repairs.

Good luck with the bonding, Paul.

So today is the day...

...well I only bl**do gone and done it!

Thanks Paul I needed that for today.

Yep that's right I bit the bullet and bonded it all together. Now for those experienced of you will say so what? Truth be told I had been putting it off and putting it off. There was a huge sense of no turning back and I kept wondering if that's right and this has been going on for a while. Yesterday I did a dry run through but it did not prepare me for just how rapid the epoxy went off. Some might recall that I had purchased some different bonding epoxy than that was supplied by Tribute. A superior product? yes. A ridiculously quick setting time... ummm yeah. I was lucky I had planned to do the two sides separately otherwise it would had been crazy!

Not much camera action today so this all I got, I had already started removing the tec screws in case you think I had gone crazy with the drill.

That's a good start

Congratulations on getting the bonding done, it is a great milestone in the build.

Good luck, Paul.

Looks great! Can't wait to see it done! What are your plans for the interior? And colour of the outside?

Drummajor, thanks the hard slog of sanding begins!

Thanks Paul, I am certainly relieved that it seems to have gone OK too I have given the car a really good tug and shake and not one creak

TynoPrime, Many thanks and welcome to my thread. Regarding colour that's nice and easy its going to be a 'midnight' blue probably metallic too, I have toyed with the idea of having an off white stripe too which will be painted rather than vinyl so the jury's out on that one.

Regarding the interior I have many ideas and it will be simple but usable for long jaunts as I have intentions to visit friends who live on the continent and happen to require me to drive some amazing mountain roads... but first we'll see if I (read, my wife) can live with it for any distance at all.

I have just picked up a used albeit nearly new exhaust that I will hopefully fit over the weekend in between sanding sessions again weather and wife permitting. At this stage everything is about getting the car on the road and everything thereafter can be done over the spring/summer to identify any floors that need addressing before painting.

Be very careful with seat choice, I am on my third set . Some seats look great but are not great on the bottom or long journeys.

Good advice there. Can you suggest which ones look right and are comfortable?

Only advice I have is, measure, measure , measure .
I firstly got some really nice looking black with red stitch cobra seats.
Sat in them at stoneliegh all ok, but to fit them in the car they had to be bolted straight to the floor., as they sat too high in the car. Then after driving a realised my bum was too big.
Sold them.
Re fitted original seats
Then bought some more , wider seats. They looked the dogs, fitted them in the car ( a nightmare) I was too big!!! I was looking over the windscreen!!
So now back to original, re trimmed seats that fit and work perfectly.

Measure and try everything.

Ps I am 6ft 6 which was most of the problem

Drummajor what style were the last ones? That gave up so much disappointment?

Thanks for that. I have the those in my ebay watch list - I agree they do look good. May as well delete them!

Perhaps we could lower you??
Im thinking a foot off below the knee would be a good place to start.
Bit of glue and sticky back plastic and job done.