Rolling shell

Put the front subby back together today. A bit of stuffing around to go over to dewey's place and salvage some good nylon cups for the upper control arms.




Managed to get the subby back into the car by myself without doing any damage to the paint.



Tightened up the ball joints and in went the hubs.



Hooked up all the brake lines, and hand brake cables.

And WOW rolling shell for the first time in years.



Looks like the W & P arches may not cover the 12"x5"s on the metro disks.



It's amazing how much more motivating it is to see it going back togethers. Still feels like there is a mountain of stuff left to do.

Rear subby insteall

Wednesday was a heap of stuffing around for not much getting done.

I couldn't get one of the brake lines off the old rear subby undone where it meets the hose to the trailing arm, despite a good WD40 soaking. So I had to hack it out with a hacksaw blade (the hose part, I had new hoses), thinking I could grip the thread in the vice.

No joy, it was soft and just turned in the vice. Next, hold the nut and try and easy-out. Nope, and nearly broke the easy-out in the process. So off to the brake place to get a new one made. No, don't stock that nut anymore to make a new one. Fortunately had one at home so more suffing around to go get it.

The first place wanted $20 to make up about 40cm of line with fittings I supplied. Forget that. Next bloke wanted $5. Big difference.

Slapped the rear subby back together and into the car.



New cones and hi-los.



Still sitting far too high even with the hi-los wound right in. Hoping it will settle a bit over time.



Almost half way to being a car again.

Stripe & Clear coat

Today I got up early to ride up to brissy to get the white for the stripe from the PPG guys. Should have got it the other day when I was there with the car but forgot.

Got Yo to help me mask it all up.


The weather was threatening the whole time. So I decided just to go with a single stripe to make it easier. Eventually it started to spit rain, so into the garage.






Went to lunch feeling pretty happy, but had actually made a big fcuk-up, yet undiscovered.



I had forgotten to mask the vent hole. When I sprayed the white it got inside the tent and onto my lovely blue paint.

So I had to scuff and retouch some of it. Of course to do that we had to now mask up the nice white stripe. Some choice words were muttered.



Later on it was time for the clear coat.




Some more minor stuff ups with drips from the gun, etc.
Hopefully it will buff up ok.

Makes me realise how much experience matters when doing this sort of work, and how I have none. I was contantly learning by making mistakes. I'm sure a professional would have had a good laugh at me today. Oh well, hopefully it will atleast look pretty from a distance and keep rust from spreading.

Looking forward to having a rolling shell again soon.

[26th Sept 2006]

Painting & Rear doors

Mega update, here we go...

Bought some rear doors off Tony (ConvertableMini) the other day, while on the way back from picking up paint.

Much against everyones advice, I got PPG Galaxy blue (hi JC :D ) base coat and clear coat. Hmmm... shooting dark metallic for my first ever job... ahhh well.

The doors were only marginally better than the original doors.

Got them home in the back of the BINI and stripped them.





One had rust holes that go all the way through the bottom of the door. The other had a big dent that had been bogged and rust started to come through the paint. It also had a corner that was rusty.

Lets check that they fit.



Onto fixing, start with the easy one.





On to the other door.



Next was grinding and POR-15 the bottom and seams of both doors. Quickly etch prime while the POR-15 was still tacky.




Then I ran out of bog so got distracted on prepping the shell for paint.

Today I hit it with the base coat.








It was windy, and this is my first ever attempt, so there was a few runs and a few bits of dust and bugs. But I was never expecting a show car finish.

Tomorrow will be the stripes and clear coat which should really set it off.

[25th Sept 2006]

POR-15 bits

More POR-15'ing. Very fiddley.



[18th Sept 2006]

POR-15 subframe & flare fitting

Took a day off work to do some time on the monster truck.

Angry grinder and wire wheel on the front subby:



Brushed on some POR-15. Photos don't do it justice.



Then to make the flares stick to the car. Got some stainless self tappers.




Also gave the pedals and pedal box a hit with the POR-15:



Lot's of fiddly bits in doing the above. Took up more time that I expected.

[25th Aug 2006]

Body prep

Something about bogging and sanding comes to mind... not a straight panel on the bloody thing. I bet it has at least a kg of bog in it now :D

Anyway, most recent efforts included fixing rust in the bonnet:






Yesterday was another high-build 2k primer coat:




Can anyone spot my major laziness ^^^^^



Also got stripping my front subby and break assemby ready for some coats of POR-15:


Hey JC mate did you drive on that setup? The bottom ball joints weren't even finger tight!

Had to get the engine off the subby by myself. Not pretty, but managed it.

[14th Aug 2006]