MadaboutKitcars

Nigel, were all those invisible until you used the heat gun?

Yes indeed they were totally invisible...

With the heat gun wavering six inches off the bare, plain, surface after 10 or 15 secs a small pimple would appear indicating an isolated void, sometimes a rash would appear indicating a larger area.

This body has a lot of marks, resin drips, mould marks, untrimmed panels etc so I'm a long way off getting to the stage of 'first prep', when I'll go round it again - I was just curious.

Well amagine just painting the bloody car , at least your understanding my point

I'm always open to suggestions from those with experience! I also look to learn from other people's mistakes.

I knew this was going to be an issue after seeing WCA's G46 post on the subject last year.

It is a side effect of using polymers, like flash over rust is for newly milled steel, - just another process to employ, another item on the 'To Do List'.

From another thread - pasted here as an edit so I wont forget:

'With reference to the "voids" in your shell dig them out and use bridging filler to fill them rather than normal filler as it will put strength back into the area, P40 is the well known brand but any fibreglass based bridging filler will do from your local body shop supplies place, make sure you clean the voids out first so there is no dust in them though as otherwise it wont bond, i usually blow them out with an airline then clean with a rag soaked in celly thinners or acetone if you have any'

Nike55 - Thanks for another worked example of how to find the voids.

Your body shell looks a bit like mine in places, so I expect to find a few when I do this.

Cheers, Paul.

Newark 2013

Having just finished a month of 60 hour weeks I thought on my first free day for a month (other commitments) I thought I might seek inspiration by going to the Newark Kit Car show.

I went last year but was disappointed as the weather was typically atrocious and after 120 mile ride my spirits were not buoyed due to the lack of vehicles on display. The exhibition area wasn't Stoneleigh but it was at least dry.

This year was a lot better as there were many more vehicles outside, the exhibition area was about the same, but I spent all my time outside.

I needed to resolve a few minor issues in respect of G46 fittings and was lucky enough to find a few examples of cars whose owners had solved various issues in a number of ways, happily broadly similar with what I vaguely had in mind.

I guess a few snaps might be in order:

Not G46 related but one of my faourites; the Ronart:




A brace of Novas, (Novae?):



The Spartan Club had a Barbecue and an international visitor;



Cruelly, I was waiting for this thing to seize, I suppose happily for the pilot it didn't:



Bit tiring for some:



Ok, a bit G46 related: well, from a hump point of view; (Banham Spyder, from which the G46 doors are similarly derived)



...and from a cockpit point of view:



and from a door hinge point of view:



Something you didn't get at Stoneleigh, a couple of circuits from the Battle of Britain Memorial Fliight, which is odd as I didn't see any Fairthorpes on display (Google it)




Now I have some inspiration, its time to get the car up to the farm and get on with it.

More next month.

Hmm, that Banham Spyder dash looks familiar...



Oh yes, that's right, it's the same as mine

Yes, it looks good in a small car.

Nike55 - pm'd you

Thanks Nick, I've responded.

What was the gold car that you shot the hinges of?

Doh should have been paying attention, banham spyder?

Yep.

Missing Photos

Some might notice that my photos have vanished, this appears to be a problem when moving Photobucket albums around...

Will update and replace in due course..or just do a blog somewhere and link to here..eventually.

Busy Saturday for me. 350 mile round trip to Tribute Automotive's inaugural BBQ event, via Southampton to pick up a spare engine and gearbox (cheers WCA).

'Chargerstang' (Henry) brought his lovely GTO over from Germany and it was much admired;



The spare engine and a gearbox now sit under my workbench and hopefully I'll be rebuilding the engine later this year. The recent purchase of a 1 Ton folding crane specifically for this trip was the only way I could move the engine.

The block weighs 95 kgs, (with pistons and crankshaft in situ)

Cyl heads 15 kgs (each)

Carb manifold (land) 4 kgs

Flywheel 9 kgs.

The gearbox is a lightweight at only 60kgs.....



Unfortunately the engine number does not correspond to anything that I have found on any website (inc Burtonpower). The Scimitar engines started 'SC'.



Most parts are worn and pitted but I will rebuild with a fast-ish road cam or something similar. I'm really looking to maximise the efficiency of the original design rather than go nuts for all out power - if I wanted to do that I'd shove in my XJ6 engine



The gearbox I have is (we believe) from a Cortina - manual, four speed - no overdrive. The spare gearbox came with this little plate:



There have been a few distractions of late, esp toady when this nice Austin Healey rocked up to visit the next door neighbour.. not G46 like in the slightest but no apologies for sharing this:

Looks like those are a reconditioners numbers you have there. That Healy is making my pants tight.........

Lovely Healey. Very nice colour too.

Could well be re-conditioners numbers, they are nothing like anything I've come across to date. Will need to check dimensions and see what stage re-bore or recondition it's at, and crack detection etc.

I couldn't do much work this afternoon - too busy drooling.

It's a kind of light pea green, similar to some of the early Aston Martins, but nicely faded.

Heavy old lump!

And that is the problem with the Essex engine, it's considerable weight. That's why I favoured dropping in the the Rover V8 they are a cheap as chips easily to moderately tune and a five speed box to boot.

My rule of thumb has always been 1BHP for 1Kg so if a Rover lump is 50Kgs lighter then you have 50BHP on your side before you start.

Did that engine come from WCA if so it may be the one he got from me as a far as I know it was the original engine in my car so if reg numbers, chassis numbers etc help let me know and I will did them out.

I love the BN100 my mate had one with a 350 chevy in it, if that green motor pitched up next door to me I would have pulled up a chair and watched it standing there stationery all day. I think I may have just found the colour for my car>

Charman - Yep, that is your old engine. It was moved from under the bench in your garage to under the bench in my garage. When MickeyMo didn't want it under the bench in his garage I let Nike55 put it under the bench in his garage.

One day it will come out from under the bench, get rebuilt and the lucky owner will find out it is a full race modded block pushing out a bazzillion horsepower and all that weight is special high tech re-enforcment to cope with the power...

...or maybe not. Who knows?

bugger!

Hi Charman.tech, if you'd like to PM me the numbers some time I'd be grateful as I'd like to do a little more research.

The philosopy was to keep the mechanical side of the car 'as is' and simply re-body the Scimitar in the manner of sports specials of the day. The point was to retain all the good qualities of a proven design, edit out the bad bits and gently tweek where necessary.

Indeed the Essex is a very heavy lump but its an unbreakable engine which can be tuned, and is certainly suited to the Scimitar, which drives very much like a late fifties/early sixties car and as a recreation of a fifties sports special will be a lot of fun.

WCA - I can dream.

V5C - est arrivee!

Another milestone was almost passed today - my new V5C arrived!

Not bad considering it has only been 3 months (nearly) since the car was Vosa'd. (Full credit to Tribute Automotive for untangling the bureaucracy)

- Unfortunately I appear to have something called a 'Sammo G-46' - so the V5C is on its way back to Swansea!

Sorry wasn't dissing the Essex and it did go rather well in the Scimitar.
However I was told at a race meeting once that the Essex was better known as a "boat anchor"

Interesting point that, what are you going to register it as?