Wings

Now its go a bit warmer I've been doing a few of those jobs I've been meaning to get round to and others that needed finishing off. This weekend I managed to finish off the brake lines and fuel line, a bit of work on the rear hubs, repainting the rear chassis and spring plate and fitting the new rear shocks. Last week I got the front wings on, I had a problem with the captivated nut to retain the headlight ring on the left front wing. The old bolt was stuck in, the paint shop was supposed to remove this but instead they just cut it off, this mean I had to drill it out and fix in a new nut with epoxy.

Wing Drilled Out

Nut Glued in with Epoxy

I also fitted the drop glass in the door and the window mechanism. Finally on bank holiday Monday I fitted the rear wings and the CSP LED lights.

The next major job with is a minor cause for anxiety is to get the doors to fit correctly. I found an article that takes drastic measures in which you adjust the body using the main body mounts, I'll post a link when I fit the doors if all goes well. After that is done I can fit the running boards and bumpers once they have been powder coated.

My plan for the next couple of weeks is to fit the stereo (once I figure out how to fit the glove box liner) and speaker wired, new carpet and finish off the wiring.
I'm happy with the way that the black handles and headlight rims and quarter light posts are working with the green, but I am starting to think it needs the bonnet and side trims adding to break it up.

Glass at Last

After ordering the new tinted glass in July 2013, the last piece finally turned up in January 2014!

So far I've managed to fit one front opening quarter light in the drivers door but cant fit the door windows because I am missing the channel guides.

Then this weekend me and John fitted the main windows, this is a job I've sort of been dreading after hearing that the windscreen can break! The hardest part on the whole process was fitting the rubber seals to the glass and we ended up fitting the rubbing in the middle of the alley way in the pouring rain!

As well as dreading this job, I've been wanting to get it out of the way so that the padded dash can fitted and finish off the electrics. Also the big protective boxes the glass arrived in have been taking up space and now they are gone I can have a sort out of all the parts to be fitted.

The read quarters went in without and trauma, as did the rear; the one that cause a lot of swearing was the front windscreen. We proceeded with caution with this as I didn't want to wait another 6 months for a replacement. To explain the lead time, the glass is tinted and turns out is special order. I revived the rear windscreen a couple of day after ordering it, then the majority of it turned up in October but when it arrived at the suppliers warehouse it was cracked so had to wait another 3 months for a replacement.

The front windscreen finally went in after 4 attempts! After big sigh of relief and a quick trip to the tip to get rid of the boxes, the next stop was the pub and celebratory pint (or 4). I was hoping that my idea of de-chrome with black handles would work and I'm happy how well they look in contrast to the green. 

Fitting the windows is one of those jobs like the headliner that really transforms the car and the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel is glowing ever brighter.

Smooth Ride

So I got the bug home and made a start on the front suspension, end of July I went away for a couple of weeks before I made any real effort and now its mid September and things are progressing but a bit slower than I wanted to, but its been mostly due to me making the most of the summer weather.

New Steering and Brakes

New Brakes and Spax shocks

So I've got the front beam off and that was truly rotten. While I was waiting for a couple of parts I had time to paint the interior floor pan and fully seal it. The fun started with fitting the new ball joints.
I went to my friends Brian's house who showed me what to do and we used his 20ton press to change the top two ball joints. We couldn't as hard as we tried get the lower ones out, I took them to work and discovered that they had a 60 ton press which pushed them out with a BANG! after which I changed my pants. That weekend I rebuilt the front suspension and fit the new brake system and new steering components. One of the mods was cutting down the Pittman arm to clear the narrowed beam.

Pressing Ball Joints

Modified Pittman Arm

A looked good until I turned the hubs and the torsion arms wobbled, indicating the inner bushes had not been installed in the new beam. So ordered the bushes and once arrived I managed to get them in after an hour or so and that's where I'm at.

Wrapped Steering Column Cover

Gave a few parts to the powder coater guy and should get those back next week and been vinyl wrapping some plastic parts with carbon effect vinyl courtesy of Mark. I'm feeling positive about the weekend and should get most of the electrical components and wiring in and finish a few other odd jobs before the trimmers come to fit the head liner.

Framehead(ache)

So the bug went in for the last bit of welding to have new frame head bottom plate and napoleon hat fitted. The way it went was that the body was lifted off slightly to made things easier. This was the only bit of major welding I didn't do myself as I have no electrics in the current lock up. I was sat at work and received an message saying there was more rot in the frame head, I thought the worse and started to look for new chassis as the frame head is a ball ache of job to replace. Any way I went down to the work shop and it was just the beam saddle on the frame head and was repairable. and looking at the job as a whole, he has done a great job.

Rotten Beam

We had a minor trauma on the way home when towing her back to the lock up when the door opened narrowly avoiding a Tesco van coming the other way!

I was away for two weeks and had ago at removing the beam on my own but it was clear I needed a long bar and a fat man to remove the bolts. So holiday done and a fat man turned up this evening with a big bar and we managed to strip the beam down. 

axle off

It was a fairly productive evening as I also managed to paint the inside floor with some red oxide. The next job is Hammerite the interior floor and frame head and get the torsion arms to work to be cleaned up ready for the new ball joints to be pressed in.

Bad of arms

Restart

So its been a while since I've done any work but the cold winter months have put me off. The plan is not to get the last bit of welding done at the end of this month (March 2013) and then I can crack on with the suspension and brakes. Here are few photos from the end of summer when it came out our the paint shop.

Patch Primed ready for stopper

Final Prime

Base Coat

Finished wings

Other bits

Finished Bonnet

Close up of the finished roof in the sun

Finished shell back at home

Body Work and Engine Continued

I was down at TVR this afternoon and one side of the body has been primered ready for filler and skimming so this is a quick update with some photos. Also I picked up my engine parts from the machine shop after a crank polish, valve grind, a wash of the parts and a couple of valve guides so again just a few pics. Should hopefully have the engine case sent off for an align bore this week.

Repair

Primer

Ready for filler

Head Ports Matched to Inlets

Case cleaned ready for A line Bore

Reground valve like new

Polished Crank

Body work Part 1 - half inch of kipper

My plan is to get down to the spray shop every day an take a few photos so over the next couple of weeks there will be not many words but lots of photos. Work started today and when I got to the spray shop I was told it is a shed. Lots of bad repairs, panels and holes bogged up with filler and seam sealer. The lower rear quarters are bogged up with a half inch layer of filler! The result in filler over original paint an rust under the filler coming through, so a lot of the panel has had to be stripped back down to bare metal. He did reassure me that another week or so of prep and it won't look so bad! So any way here are the photo's from today.

gutter cleaned up nice

1/2 inch of kipper!

bad ding bogged up, filler now gone

hole in the rear

Bad Repair

same hole upside down for some reason