Harper said:
I was so very glad to read some of your posts over on FF and discover that you hadn't given up on this. Even more so now you're attacking the body work as well.
This is going to be a fabulous car once you're finished
Thanks, i really just needed a very short break from it after the letdown of the nonsense things on the mot and then that rattle developing, I ended up taking the gearbox off again to check a few things and in struggling to even get it back up to a height to get it on had to walk away for a few days because the whole thing had stressed me out so much and was so mentally shot by it all, there was a serious danger of something going through the windscreen :laugh: showed what stress had done to me, when i got back to it a few days later the gearbox was on again in about half an hour. Since then i've just been working under the radar and trying to perfect things. Found a few other small jobs like the o/s inner cv joint tripod needing replaced etc so all that's been done too.
It's never going to be a show car, but having got it out for a wee run and gave it a quick clean over, i saw just how much certain parts were really hurting the looks, made worse by the fact the new wing i painted and fitted looked so clean in comparasion, all over there were several chips and scrapes etc, so they've been tidied up already so set about by far the worst bit, the bootlid. It looked awful when it was last on the road, so it was always going to need done. i found a small rust bubble so knowing i was at least a week away from the MOT again, i just thought it was as good a time as any so sorted the rust and started prep on it.
No wonder the bootlid was such a faded mess, in treating that little bubble i found that when they smoothed over the boot lock, they just painted it. no evidence of primer even, 10 seconds of sanding with a 600 grit and i was through to the bare metal. Basically it's been sanded back to bare metal and had one or 2 coats of paint, that's it. No Primer, no lacquer. I have a receipt in the folder for that job from a previous owner, done in 2003 at a cost of £2100! (including a bad boy bonnet, which thankfully somebody removed and saved me the bother of locating a skip). The standard was awful, somebody was robbed, the overall work was worse than the worst "bad examples" we were shown at panel beating classes at college.
Anyways, when the boot is done i'll replace the bonnet with the shiney non faded one in my garage, t-cut the rest of it all together and hopefully it'll be a lot tidier than it was.
I know from the few short drives in it i've had lately just how good this wee thing can be if all is right, that's been the difference between chucking it in and being determined to make it happen.
