MadaboutKitcars

Wednesdays work

Well I started out with good intentions, and went out early to buy yet another sheet of aluminium, and on the way back, noticed some logging going on in my area. After negotiating a good deal for a special bottle of wine, I returned to the site with my chainsaw.

(The deal was " Wow! what a nice bottle of wine, help yourself mate")

Well I hacked up enough wood for the rest of the winter, but did not do any stuff on my car. Sometimes life just really gets in the way, but I could not pass up an opportunity like that.

In some of the farm shops around here a stupid little net with a few logs goes for a fiver, (would last me about an hour and a half) based on such prices I must have around a grands worth of timber in the back of my van, not a bad days work.

The downside is, I'm so knackered now that I don't want to work any more today!

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Sod the car for today! The logs can stay out too!

You are lucky to still have a foot WCA.

They say there is no smoke without fire Dave, and I'm sure that "World class accident" is not called that for nothing!
There are some things he does in style!

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I don't want it WCA as I don't have the necessary £650,000.......

Cheaper than you thought eh Towed?

Hey Mr Towed, you better get down that cleaners pretty quick then!

So its a Lister for then is it Nick? :-)

Hahahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!

Sat

Way back when I started this build, I needed to cut the wheel nuts in half on order to get them to fit behind the modded spinner/ hubcap arrangement which I had made.
That meant cutting all 16 nuts in half, grinding them back to shape, smoothing and polishing them to look like they were meant to be like that.. So I put the hours in and did just that.

So far so good, however, although they looked just like shiny chrome, the end bits I had cut and reshaped were just basically raw steel.
That means that a few days in damp or rainy conditions would render them well red rusty on the ends, so I thought I would get a few quotes for re-chroming them.

I reckoned it would not cost very much to chrome a few little wheel nuts.
Right?

How wrong can one be?

One quote was £5 per nut, plus £20 carriage + Vat = £120

Pretty costly , or so I thought, considering a set of new chrome nuts was around 30 quid.

So I sought more quotes, and it just snow-balled rapidly downhill…………….

One quote was £6.50 per nut plus all the bollox
One was £10 per nut + etc

The worst one was £14 per nut, plus the 20 quid carriage, plus the dreaded, which Topped out at a massive £292.80!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I mean 300 quid to chrome a set of wheel nuts??

So chroming was OUT, and I went down another avenue, stainless steel nuts at £80 a set.

But then I realised I would have to do the hours of cutting, shaping and polishing all over Again, and I just will not do that.

So there we are, I could have paid 300 quid to have them chromed and after having the wheels on and off a few times over a year or two, the buggers would still go a bit rusty in the end, wouldn’t they?

So my compromise is to give the nuts I have modded several coats of lacquer, eventually put them on the car and having done that, give them a dusting of lacquer again in situ, which should hold any serious rust at bay, then just touch them up once in a while.

Or, does anyone out there think that the chroming prices are reasonable?

I’m not having them chromed regardless of what answers come back (if any)
But some feedback would be appreciated.

I went to the website, but which one did you buy,and what kind of results did you get Landmannnn?

Here we go again........... :-)

You've got it in one JTVR!

Steady on a bit JTVR,
Drags on too long?

I've been on this site just over a year, some people take two, three ,or even five years to complete some builds,I don't think I'm doing that bad at present.

Like Landmannn says, rushing it does not always help.
I am trying to do a good job with it and that always takes time

Don't be so harsh.

Thanks for the support Nick, I appreciate that.

Hey, thanks for the heart warming words Ox.
I am still hoping to be done by next Spring so I can enjoy the car in the Summer, but each thing I do takes so long!

I think you will have to endure my build until the Spring at least!

So many people take years to build their dream car, but like Nick says, its not a race.

By the way, how is your build going? Did you fit the Monza/Aston fuel cap?
I should if I were you, I did, and am pleased with the results.

Very good WCA very good :-)

PS, I've got a lot more hair than the Hulk has!!!

Monday

A big thank you to Paul (lately) and the other lads that gave support at the appropriate time. Whingeing and whining, has no place on this forum, and I think you all made that quite clear.

Okay, moving on, so today I finished off welding up and painting the scuttle, or rather dash support frame, which is needed to replace the obvious Spitfire H frame.

The frame I have made up hopefully should be hidden anyway, and what I was trying to avoid, was a Spitfire owner looking at the interior of my car, and recognising it as a Spitfire donar.

When I have finished, there should not be one single thing inside the cars interior, which is Triumph made.

Every Triumph thing has been hidden, modified or replaced, to create a one-off Jaguar style cockpit.

I have used mainly genuine period Jaguar parts from the 50's and 60's
which I have collected and hoarded over the years, especially for the day when I decided to build a Jaguar one-off car.

I still have a 4.2 Jaguar E-type engine complete with triple carbs totally, and I mean totally re-built with new pistons and everything, plus a manual gearbox, back axle etc etc. which was to go in my XJ13 replica, but as I said earlier, the company went bust taking my 2.5k deposit with them.

All this stuff is no good to me now as the Triumph chassis will not carry all that heavy Jag equipment.

But what I will end up with will be a super one-off classic car that is ultra light weight, cheap to run, cheap to insure and repair, registered as an historic vehicle, tax-free, and does an awful lot more to the gallon than a Jaguar ever could, plus it will be very quick off the mark too.

Which are all the reasons I decided to build it in the first place.

Of course unlike a Jaguar-based car, it will not be worth telephone number

amounts of cash, but I'm not building it for profit, but to enjoy it.

Here are two pics of the frame:

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Mr Towed and Swifty, great stuff!

Tony T, long time no hear! Did you sort out your probs?
In the end, I gave up the chrome paint idea, how about you?

It seemed to work in the adverts, but it always will won't it.
I don't think it works in reality.

Keep me posted on the Vee Dub progress, I love them and always wanted one, but unless I win the lottery...... Have you seen the prices?

I have no use for it WCA, so the answer is yes.
It has been bored out, has 6 new pistons, new oil pump, crank reground, all new bearings, new timing chain, tensioner, etc

The engine has never been even started since rebuild, but I turn it over with a spanner twice a year
to check that its moving freely.

Swifty, what you can see in the corner of my conservatory is dog hair!

Its the remnants of the summer coat belonging to my dog Roobarb, so its not the sort of bush to get excited about

(unless you are a very special pervert that is!)