25 April 2021

Priming work W/E 24th April 2021

 So, its getting petty exciting right now, as were are now at the point of the main body tub priming point, the main works have been done on the setup of the body and I've just received the latest images of the sheeting up protection of the car before priming took place, last I saw of the car, it was next to the spray booth with the body tub of the ex 'The Saint' Marcos famously driven by Roger Moore in one of the episodes which was a surprise as last I saw of it it was in storage at MHS.

So below are some of the photos of the priming stage. 









I can't believe how good it feels to get to this stage, It has been nearly 11 years since I bought the car and it seems like to get the bodywork sorted has been a painstaking time of both no activity, to the last 7 months where I've restarted everything again, thrown the kitchen sink at it and gone full steam ahead! 







The progress is looking great and I can't wait for the next set of pics over the next couple of weeks showing the final colour and the re-setting of the doors bonnet and bootlid before we press on with the internal and external fitments. 

Hope you enjoyed this mainly illustrative posting, I will be back with more updates very soon. 

Gazza


Final Prep and Priming! Its getting real now!

 Since my last update we've had an 'easing of restrictions' somewhat from the latest COVID Lockdowns which enabled me to book a day off and travel down to the region to see the car within the bodyshop before heading to my dads for a 'Garden lunch!' 


By this point, the car has had some modifications to the bootlid fastenings where Joe at redline has now enlarged the holes so that the mounting bracket can be adjusted in any direction and a nice shiny set of new bolts and washers have been put in to aid fastening, the boot still needed some upward adjustment so that the oval cut out for the fuel tank filler is round when both surfaces come together. 

The  car has also benefitted from filler layers to smooth out some more sections of the topside area where further remedial works have taken place. 

The bonnet although attached to the car is still having corrective works carried out to smooth out the roughness of the underside fibreglass to allow for a nicer painted finish which is in the long run much easier to clean incase of any fluid splashes of oil etc. 

The below photos show some of the late setup work and priming. 


Extra large image shows the guttering strips in situ for shut line adjustment. some good lines showing already. 







At this point there is still a rusty old headlight cover bracket in place which will be ground off and any holes refilled for mounting of brand new items. 

Bonnet is not fully down here for those who notice a large gap and change in height. 

 This was as of Thursday 15th April so the next photos show the final sheeting up and in to primer stage which I'll illustrate within a further post. 



Bodywork prep Ongoing.

Throughout February and March, the rubbing down and filling and continued fibreglass working has been carried out to prepare for the priming stage of the rebuild, there has been a lot of setup of the doors so that the shut lines are kept as close as possible, the passenger side hasn't been too bad, the drivers side was more complex to resolve where the roofline was ever so slightly higher, even though the actual frames were used to calculate the height for the roof to be bonded in to the main body tub way back in 2016/17.

The Bonnet in the shots has been put on with an exacting temporary plastic tube mounting so that the shut lines can be appropriately calibrated for when the car is primed. 

Below are some of the remaining Fibreglass preparation photos. 








This view shows the leading edge of the body tub, the edges used to be badly chipped and generally untidy, these have now been recrafted in fresh glass fibre and profiled. 

After the initial positioning of the doors and their window frames, the original Ally guttering strips which attach to the aperture just above the window frames, were taken over to the car and attached so that a further adjustment could be done to allow a reasonable amount of clearance between the frames and the strips themselves, these strips are quite rare as apparently the original type of material doesn't get made now however, that didn't stop me looking for some more! and I soon enough found two suppliers who hold stock of the type required and at varying different sizes. At this points the bodywork is starting to look very much improved in texture and is very smooth to the touch a testament to a lot of work that Ross at BARC has done. 

I'm starting to look into all the metal work that has to be drawn up to fit when I get the car back. stainless steel side skirts, Pedal boxes, battery tray coverings lots to fit back on, together with existing metalwork that needs to be repaired and re-plated.  

07 February 2021

Bodywork Prep Jan 2021

Firstly, Happy new year to you all. It has been a strange Christmas and New Year period with the lockdowns and the changes to plans.

Since the last post, the car has had a lot of remedial work carried out to the bodywork to complete items that were unfinished and correct a few fibreglass issues that were a little 'dinged' around the edges.

The main car, minus the bonnet has been shipped over to the Bodyshop courtesy of longtime friend Terry and has now had the majority of it rubbed right back, even the colouring on the roof has been taken back to the base.




Due to the current restrictions in travel and contact with others at this time, My comms with the bodyshop are mainly via phone or email so I've added pictures below of the current progress.

 





A few more pictures below showing some smaller areas of the car. 




Whilst this work has been going on, there have been further remedial works on the bonnet section, after taking back the filler layers on the bonnet it was found that there was a lot of cracking, fractures and areas of damage to the bonnet that have likely been caused by repairs to earlier accident damage, the bonnet is still with Redline at this time having holes filled on the underside where the Air filter has rubbed the bonnet bulge over time.




The areas where radial cracking was located are marked out on the bonnet in the black dots, these are being drilled out and filled with new glass fibre.

In addition to the repairs extra reinforcement has been added to the back edge of the bonnet to give strength to the rather thin sections currently in place. 

Dad has also repaired the mounting brackets on the closing panel that sites under the main dash panel this section houses the electric window switches. A number of these mounting points were rotten and have been replaced entirely. 


That's all for the time being, there will be more updates shortly as the body work is about to have the first filler coat added so I will add further pictures very shortly.