MadaboutKitcars

Good grief!

Talk about blue on blue!

You rarely disappoint Mr T! Well done!

I'm still laughing now thinking about rubbing the phallic area down, and nervously looking over my shoulder, lest I be thought a pervert!

Tuesday

Well today the warrior spent an awful amount of time making shims, and trying to shim up the near side door once and for all in a decent position.

At the end of the day, I still had not got it how I want it, and haven't done the drivers side yet!

The bloody door must have been on and off many, many times, still not right.

On another subject Landmannn wrote:

"It doesn't look like the exercise machine has had an outing recently either!"

And Mr Towed wrote:

"Both compressor and home gym equipment look suspiciously like man-toys that a chap has to have, but doesn't actually intend ever using..."

Well, many times in my build I have posted pics of the work the compressor has done, sanding ,cutting etc. But never posted pics of what the exercise machines have produced.

As I don't have any pictures of the door I worked on today, Here is one which proves the exercise machines do actually get a good workout too!

This was after a 6 month target workout on upper arms last year.

Mr Towed and Landmannn take note!

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Well I knew I would come in for some stick after my posting, and you lot certainly did not disappoint!!

Especially my close friend and fellow pervert WCA :-)

At least its now widely known that the compressor AND the home gym kit gets used quite a lot.

Wednesday

Put another coat of paint on the boot lid, and its improved it, now the depth of shine is coming into play.
I had always intended to put several coats on, and I think this is three or four at present.
The picture does not show it too well, but I will flat and spray again.
Like JagTVR says, this is the easy panel.....

Don't I just know it!

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Absolutely WCA, it seems just about anything innocent can be turned into phallus's, pornography or muck of some sort!

But it keeps us all amused and happy, which is what the forum is all about. (I think)

Thanks Ollie, still lots of work to get even that little panel right yet!
At least I know what is involved now to get the standard I want.

Like everyone keeps telling me, its not easy, and there are no shortcuts!

Don't I know it!

And you want to do it ALL OVER AGAIN Mr T????

Don't start that again! :-)

Thursday

I spent a lot of time yesterday shimming up the drivers door, and at times I felt I was going round in circles.
I think I now have it as good as it can be given the way it came.

I also looked at a lot of the pictures I have of these cars, (concentrating on the door gaps) and while the door gapping is good on the originals and some of the more expensive re-pros, on a lot of the lower end re-pros, it wasn't perfect at all.

So I came to the conclusion that in this area, I will have to make compromises if I want to finish the car in time for Stoneleigh next year!

Already, in order to get the doors half right, I have filed out the fixing holes so much, the bloody bolts are almost pulling through, so now I have marked the best position of the bolts, and when the doors come off next, I will have to glass up the holes and re-drill the again.

The alternative is to use enormous washers, which really is not ideal.

Now to the boot lid saga.......

When the last top coat started to dry, I noticed huge scratches appear across the panel, they seemed to come from no-where, and just get bigger.

You can imagine my joy on seeing this! Talk about nightmare on Elm street!

These were really deep scratches that looked as though Freddie Krueger
had been practicing with a Stanley knife while high on cocaine.

I think at some stage, I must have picked up a bit of grit on my worn-out 400

paper, and thinking I was putting the icing on the cake with gentle rubbing
on the panel, I completely wrecked it.

Well.......... So last night, being a bit chilly, that gave me the excuse I needed to fire up my wood burner, and toast the living daylights (and solvent) out of my boot lid.

I parked it right in front of the fire and it baked for hours, so today, I was able to flat it down and re-prime it.

Looking at the picture this time, its plain to see that the bottom half had such a good shine because the surface was true, and now the top half hopefully will be the same.

After lots of flatting, the "true" bottom half was still green, but the wobbly top bit went all leopard-like.

Anyway. its back in primer, and with my newly found "oven" I can speed up the process a bit.

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Yesterday

Yesterday I did a bit more towards my van project.

I suppose this project is yet another fuelled by poverty!

I've always really wanted a VW camper, but for two reasons I could not have one.

First reason. a VW camper would not fit under the hedge archway over my driveway, and most importantly, I don't have the "telephone number" amounts of cash that theses vans seem to command these days.

They start at around 6 or 7 grand, and go up to 45 thousand odd,

So I bought my Jap micro-van last year and here we go..........


I cut the grille area out, glassed in the alloy surround inside the aperture ,
and cut out the triangular bits themselves, to allow airflow through the grille.

I also glassed the steel mesh onto place.

I the re-assembled the whole thing and screwed it back together as it will be eventually.

Whilst I liked the result, I have had a rethink on the colour scheme.

I have been heavily influenced by the "two-tone" look, and wanted the "V" to be cream, but the grille shows up too much, (and in reality should not really be there)

By chance, last night I happened to watch Wheeler Dealers, you know the one, where some wide-boy chunky oaf buys a total piece of crap, and the mechanic spends a fortune and half his life making it sale-able?

It was an old program and they were doing a split-screen Vee Dub.

It looked so nice in one solid dark colour, that I think I will do my van front all in one colour too.

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Wednesday

Ouch! Ouch! This is becoming painful!!

But thanks Gary!

Much more defined, and Hulk Hogan is a fat old bugger that's let himself go!

Also, you'd never catch me wearing a woman's head-scarfe!

Changing the subject (said he desperately)

Here is a deliberate red herring:

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Don't be silly WCA, that cartoon figure is nothing like you!

You don't have a moustache for a start!

Thursday

I would like to thank all the people who went to so much trouble to take the piss!

Taking the piss is a most important part of the forum, and we would be worse off without it!

So thank you all, even you WCA....

Right, I flatted down the boot lid yet again and re-sprayed it today.

I am pleased with the result, and I don't think I can improve on it much with more paint, but after letting it harden, I will mop it to as good a finish as I can.

Well that will be most of the painting done, I only have the bonnet, the doors, and the complete car body left to do, that should be a doddle judging by how easy the boot lid was. :-)

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Me too Ox, but I'm not looking forward to actually doing it!

They are welding goggles as the shine is so bright from the painted panel....................

Paul, thanks for those links, there are some really nice cars on that site, I enjoyed seeing them.

Reference DVLC, that's what I was trying to tell you way back about the system, the more questions you ask, the bigger hole you dig for yourself in the end!

Like you say now, keep it simple!

Good luck with your application.

Well, its had about 5 or 6 coats now. I had not really intended to put that many on, but with each coat, I noticed more blemishes and marks, which had to be flatted out, also with each coat, the finish got better.

It is not perfect, and there are one or two marks still there, but they are very hard to see, and I will live with that.

Would I take the car to Goodwood with that boot lid?

Yes I would.

I now have to get the rest of the car to the same standard!!

No Mr T, I don't think it is yet. I just wanted to see what the colour actually looked like on a panel, and also see what kind of a job it was going to be doing the whole car.

It took a long time and a lot of effort just to do the one small boot lid to a reasonably good standard.

I can now see the formidable task ahead of me to get the rest of the car up to that standard.

Logically, if I can do one small panel okay, then with enough time and effort, I can do the lot.

I will get there, but it is a question of time and effort.

Its sweet Danny! looks like its half asleep!

Yeah, putting some sort of cooling grille in has to be a good idea.