August Bank Holiday Weekend work & Sale of parts!

A great weekend's work was acheived in that we did useful amounts of work on the car bodywork. The sanding down of the doors and the Bonnet continued with more painstaking sanding of the edges and curves of the bonnet. The centre power bulge and the channels down either side were left well alone as weve been advised to use a heat gun gently on these areas to remove the paint as the sanders (a) won't fit in these small areas, (b) may affect the curved areas if the machines are used in a particular area too long.

All set up and ready to sand!

Some of the first layers of paint starting to come off to reveal the base coats

Closer detail of the base coat starting to come through

The red layers on the sides of the bonnet were largely gone by about an hour or two later, we used coarser grit discs to start with moving to finer grit once the base layer became visible, again keeping the sanders moving and not in the same place.

Further work on the centre section of the bonnet

Centre Section devoid of paint at the end of the session.

The centre section was gradually worked up to just short of the edge of the power bulge and then round the edges, the remaining red will be lightly heat gun stripped so not to cause flattening of the fibreglass. There was one side effect of all work and that was that everything was coated in a layer of red everywhere. Masks and goggles essential!! 

Big news flash was that I'd also had encouraging news in a phonecall to a gentleman who is an experienced restorer of Marcos’ and had seen my chassis for sale via the CMI classifieds section, so I began dialogue and huge interest was apparent, so I’m pleased to say that after a viewing hosted by my dad, I managed to sell the Chassis on following a huge amount restoration work that we had paid to have done and the re-painting actioned shortly afterwards, off it was packed into the van to its new home.

Also of interest, were the sale of the rear axle I had recently overhauled with Dad, together with some hubs and drums and a head light fitting we had going spare.

We also sold some triumph wishbone parts also so some extra space made in the garages and fortunately some more cash made in order to press on with the bodywork (I’m tentatively saying that I want to respray in 2018!!) Will that be a goal too far? It all depends on a number of conditions being met.

What is good is that the parts I sold will help breathe life into another Marcos currently off the road. 

Engine Installation May Bank Holidays 2017

Following the extensive rebuild of the Second Essex V6 engine going into the Marcos initially it was time to install into the chassis which apart from giving the obvious signs of progress allowed us to make some room within the now cramped conditions inside the Garage, towards the end of the last post, I was bolting most of the front end of the engine back together including steel timing Gear and all the seals.

A new Manifold was sourced ready powdercoated in Chrome and was added to complete the setup during the installation it was discovered that the Carburettor purchased to go onto my rebuilt engine was not infact the DGAS Unit that was advertised, it was a DGMS requiring Manual Choke system. This unit has been put up for sale in order to acquire the proper item.

The engine is now back together and shortly after this photo was taken, the new clutch plate was put onto the engine and re-attached to the back of the engine with the Gearbox and then bolted into position. in order to align the parts, gaffer tape of all things was wound around a wratchet to the right circumference to create a means to align the clutch and flywheel.

The Picture below shows the gearbox and the Engine mostly together with a few more bolts to go in.

To keep the engine largely sealed from above from dust and debris the old 40 DFAV carb and filter were re-attached to the manifold.
at this stage the crane was brought in to lift the engine into position (I had a rather large headache from a birthday party the night before) so the next hour and a half of installation into the Engine bay were interesting with the air blue on one or two occasions when things didn't quite fit!

There was an issue during installation with the clearance of the front of the engine against the passenger side base rails of the chassis which was sorted with minor adjustments of the engine mounts themselves the engine was craned up and then back in once we had found suitable clearance within the bay.
Once the engine was back in the results were excellent and not only represented a huge step forward, but also begun to allow the ride height to be lowered due to having some weight on the chassis from that cast iron lump up front.

There's still some adjustment to do as is obvious with the image where the front wheels are out of alignment, the steering rack isn't in at this point until all body remedial work has been completed.

As you can see the ride height has already altered and the modifications to the rear arches now fully in fibreglass as per the rest of the car, are looking great all of the moulds for them are currently being stored within the bodyshell.
I will shortly add the next load of works as a seperate post, as this will be the sanding down and preparation of the remaining panels and the bonnet.