Saturday, February 24, 2007

Mellow yellow

Hi all, well after a couple of frustrating weeks with no real progress things are looking brighter (or should that be yellower?)! While scratching my head about seating positions, steering mounts etc I decided I should be doing something else. So, in every spare moment for the last week or so I have been filling the holes made by the last owner in the shell and prepping for paint.

Hand sanding, electric flatbed sanders, air sanders, and a lot of hard work. The previous owner obviously liked his pop rivet gun, so I have had around 50 holes to fill on the body where the canopy seals to it (presumably for a seal of some sort), and some larger holes on the shell where crude access holes were cut in to get to the hydraulics. These have been repaired from underneath with glass fibre matting and resin, and then filled from above with glass fibre filling paste, finishing with fine filler on top.

The rain managed to hold enough enough last weekend for Sarah and I to scrub down the whole bodyshell, and then this weekend I decided I needed to get it one colour to see how my filling had gone.

The front of the car is probably the worst, so has more work to do, but I have managed to repair some damage to the front edge and restore the body line. Under the hood needs a lot more work, with yet more rivet holes to address, and some larger lazy access holes that need repairing. I also need to restore some areas around the mounting points to the front axle so these can be used - not sure on that yet.

The back of the car, as you can see below, is starting to look ok. Most of the major holes are filled, including the old filler cap (I aim to relocate to one of the wings using an aero cap) and the high build primer has addressed many of the smaller blemishes.
















If I could get it all in primer and smooth by the end of March that would be a real result. Birthday celebrations and the Volksworld show are going to drag me away from the garage but I have a lot of friends coming over who helped collect the car, and lift the shell off the first chassis (see 'Meet Nena' and 'Oh Dear Nena you have let me down' )and it would be great for them to see the progress.

The bonnet, engine lid and side panels all need prepping too of course, and I have started to spread these parts around various garages and sheds for prepping !

Right, better get back to it - Bye for now, Jim