Petrol cap drain mod

Hi

Well that's 95% of the rubbing down and filling complete, the rest I will leave to the lads in the shop, although they will say that I have managed only 80% when they find lots more that I have missed no doubt.

Its surprising what you can feel when you rub your fingers over the paint, I never noticed the 2 dents in front of the windscreen until I started sanding.

I rubbed these areas down and filled, another bad area was the union jack flag recess, trapped moisture over the years had lifted the paint, this was a bit more difficult to get too so I had to use a pointy tipped sanding machine and managed to get into the corners.

There was a section of crazed paint under the recess and when I sanded this down I found a nice little dent so that was filled also.

I have finished the front section and repaired the damage caused when I removed the grill mounting brackets, I will have to re-use these as I image that having a Jag grill re-chromed will cost around 4 to £500, maybe more; if there want to charge £120 plus for a pair of 6" light plinths so I guess I shall call Bruno and see if he can get a hold of a wire Kallista grill. Unless anyone has one for sale, give me an email if you have.

So thats me finished as they are only open till 12 tomorrow and I am going away on Monday for a few days but hopefully the priming will be complete on my return.

I received a timely email from Terry B this morning reminding me about the filler cap drain hole modification, he mentioned it a long time ago and I had completely forgotten about it. It's pretty obvious when you look at the filler recesses that water will build up there and the chances of getting into the tank are quite high judging by the quality of my filler connection.

I had made the piece of pipe when Terry first mentioned the fix to the problem and unbelievably I managed to find it straight away.

It is only a piece of 10mm copper tubing around 50mm long and deeply swaged on one end, I had completely forgotten about this mod and so I have not ordered the rubber tubing for the drainage, I rectified this straight away and have 1m of 10mm i.d silicon tube coming. I shall find a convenient area and drill a 12mm hole to feed the pipe outside and problem solved.

I marked off the best place in the filler recess and drilled a 10mm o.d hole, it is slightly off centre as the recess is positioned to the side of a downward curve which changes where the water will lie.

I managed to use a pointed hammer and shaped the inner edges so that the angle of the swaged pipe end will fit into the shaped hole, this makes it flush to the bottom so all of the water will run away.

To secure the pipe in place I mixed up some Araldite and glued the pipe into position.

Once painted you will think it was built like this.

Won't be till next week till I see the progress so till then.

See ya Paul

Body work

Hi

I made a number of purchases while away in preparation of the re-build.

I was not happy with the way I had edged the step with the wing piping, it just didn't look right.

So I looked around the rubber extrusion section on the Woolies site and came across the tee section R942, I ordered 2 metres for around £11 inc p+p and it looks great quality.

 I haven't got round to fitting it yet but hopefully it will cover the join between the wings and the step nicely.

I also found on ebay a nice set of Lucas L516 side lights.

The chrome is quite good and should polish up nicely or would have if my plans had come together, what may change my plans for lovely chrome is the cost of chroming itself. I have also bought a pair of matching L516 side light plinths.

I managed to get these for 99p plus p+p with the idea of getting them re-chromed, I have received replies to 2 quotes so far, the first was £80 plus vat and postage and the other is for £120 plus vat and postage, not a chance in hell of me paying that, so a change of plan.

The plinths haven't arrived yet and the idea was to shape them to fit the wing by either filing away material to make the curvature or bending the small amount required to fit the wing, if this is not achievable I shall then buy the rubber mounts available on eBay for £13. If they fit the wing and look good then I am going to have them and the side lights colour coded to the white pearlescent I plan to have on the car sides.

The chrome will come from the headlights I bought, these are used but the chrome is in perfect condition, I picked them up on eBay for £65 and they look great, I was going to have the original ones colour coded and have even sand blasted one of these but after spotting these I put a bid in and won them. 

The pickup truck finally arrived yesterday, 4 hours late which made it a wasted day as far as the paint prep was concerned but it gave me a chance to clean the engine up a little as it has become a little dusty.

I had asked for a pickup with a winch just in case, but the engine picked up with a little choke and I took the car out to turn it around in prep for there arrival, I had to fit a seat first but that was no problem. 

I was very pleased with the driving experience although I will have to get used to no power steering and basically just the power. A V6 2.8 engine driving something that weighs less than a pair of shoes will take some getting used to.

The pickup arrived at 2 in the afternoon and I got another chance to drive it, this time it was onto the truck, up what seemed very narrow ramps.

I lined it up behind the ramps and promptly stalled the car as I tried to get the speed just right, so I backed off gunned the engine and flew up the ramps, just like to say I made a damn good job of overhauling the brakes as the car stopped perfectly, thankfully !!

I followed the pickup down to the paint shop and because it is a private industrial estate I had a good drive around and it was great, just like a go kart.

I was down at 9 this morning and got straight to work, it may seem strange to some seeing as I am paying for a respray to be done and doing a lot of the work myself, but I want not only to learn body work but also to  be a part of the spraying of the car.

I've been given a spot at the back of the shop on the ramp and got started on the back end with 180 paper on the DA sander.

Not much wrong on the back end, a dint or 2, the wheel arches and where the spare wheel rack bolted on was a little dented. 

I sanded the paint off and filled with the Dinitrol aluminium filler then sanded down until all was smooth.

I am really just doing the rough work as the pro's will finish of my work to get it perfect.

When finished here I moved around to the side, I removed the scuttle so as to get the engine bay edges sanded, I am also having the scuttle colour coded to the body, I had painted it with hammerite but they are happy to spray this as well.

Apart from the lower edges where the wing meets the body there were only 2 main parts that required attention, I always new the front where the headlight was resting against the body and rusting was a little bad but after feeling all over the side I found an area around by the door that was a little dented. I think maybe the door may have been opened a little to much and bent the body a little.

I sanded down these areas, filled and sanded.

Not much more done today, I moved around to the front and got started ready for tomorrow, I managed to sand most of it and have a couple of areas that need filling, these are the damaged areas I made when removing the grill brackets.

A  good start today and I shall finish the rough work tomorrow and the lads can get on and do the fine filling and sanding.

see ya Paul

Painting

Hi

Home again and its been car car car, not just the Panther but the Audi to. 

Lynne could not get on with the Audi, in fact she never drove it since it was bought, apart from around a car park where she decided it wasn't for her. So while I was away using the internet and the ships phone I managed to provisionally sell the Audi and buy a new car, hopefully one Lynne will like and drive.

We drove down to Northallerton in North Yorkshire to have a look at it and after a test drive decided to buy it.

It's a Merc SLK 200 Kompressor with only 19000 miles on the clock and packed with options and lovely grey nappa leather.

When I got back it was straight down to the paint shop and as I expected all of the parts were finished, safely wrapped in brown paper and in the loft, I unwrapped one of the rear wings and the red looks fantastic.

It's all arranged for the flatbed to arrive tomorrow at 10 so I shall fit a seat and see if I can drive it on.

Just as I asked a lot of photos where taken.

Mick polishing up the primer

Guide coat on the bonnet

Using the new £600 gun for laying down the lacquer.

The pearlescent finish looks great and I can't wait to see them all unwrapped, very pleased so far. 

So big day tomorrow can't wait.

see ya Paul

Priming

Hi

Well I have spent most of the day in the paint shop working on the rear wings and doors, most of that time was spent sanding and filling. The lads in the shop had plenty of work on so it was down to me, which I did not mind one bit.

The rear wings were no problem as there was very little damage so just a few little areas to fill, I blacked the wings out with a shadow / guide coat and rubbed everything down with 180 grit. The drivers wing had already had this treatment from me a few months ago so required very little work, the passenger side had only one coat so required a little more work.

The main work for the day was the doors, the passenger door had a slight bump to the skin on the very  bottom so my mission was to get rid of it. 

I used a DA sander to take the paint off along the bottom and up popped a rust hole that was not visible from the surface as it hadn't developed yet.

The bump is in the middle of the door at the very bottom and the rust hole is to the left at the bottom. I used a grinder on the steel of the door skin until I reached the main rust area and ground it out. The bump was really just a dint from behind the door, I used a tin smith's hammer and tapped down as best I could and sanded the material away until I had it virtually smooth. I mixed up a batch of filler and thinly filled in the sanded down area and the marks from the hammer.

I had a bit of a problem with the other door as the rust problem I had where the quarter light enter's the door had come back, I thought I had got rid of the rust but I guess not. I was a bit more aggressive with it this time and ground right down until I found the source and removed it. 

I treated both rust problems with rust converter and let it soak in to reach any areas I may have missed, unfortunately I never took a photograph, I either forgot to, or was to embarrassed about missing it the first time around. I filled the ground area with the aluminium filler and sanded back, this took a couple of fills to get it level. The same area on the other door was fine I guess I got it right on that one.

I does not seem much for a day's work but as I am still a beginner it took a bit longer than the pro's.

I rubbed everything down with panel wipe and Mick got stuck in and gave them a couple of coats of primer.

  Rear wings, looking good.

Passenger door, all filled and rubbed down.

Drivers door, hopefully I have cured the rust problem.

Unfortunately I won't be here to see the blocking off of these parts or the paint going on as I am away back to work on Sunday, but I shall give my camera to one of the lads there and hopefully he will remember to take some photo's.

Well that me back to work on Sunday, hopefully all of the paint work will be finished  on my next leave.

See ya Paul

Paint Shop

Hi

Not a lot done this week as I had a paint brush and a couple of litres of white gloss put in my hand, so everything in sight has been prepped and painted and still not finished.

Managed to get back on the car and started on the wiring, I knew I had one repair to do as I caught an indicator loom in a rotary wire brush and ripped the outer sheath off, so this was the first job.

The repair was simple on the single wire as I slipped on a shrink wrap sleeve and shrunk it in place, the other wire was a twin as 2 wires went into a single bullet. To fix this I snipped the bare wire and fitted a wire connector and crimped the ends then I tested the indicators to ensure the connections where good before covering the wires.

I had bought a couple of meters of 12mm shrink wrap in preparation a long time ago and got busy stripping all of the tape from the front loom. I then slide on the shrink wrap over each loom section and shrunk in position.

You can also see in the photo that I removed the brackets that held in the grill, and this was not an easy job as I ended up having to grind of the heads of the screws which scored the aluminium surround which will have to be filled.

I carried on the wire sleeving on the rear wiring which where looking a little weary.

Looks a lot neater now.

I was removing the wings yesterday and noticed a bulge in the side paneling, I had noticed a difference when I was originally rubbing down the sides and thought it was a weld, that was a long time ago now and it has got a lot bigger.

After a poke around I started pulling out rust, so out with the grinder and I cut a section of the siding off.

You can see the hole in the box section that I poked through, I scrapped out all of the rust and after a feel around underneath I found a drilled hole that I had missed, maybe this never had a rubber in and allowed water ingress. Once cleaned out I sprayed in rust converter then siliconed a patch over the hole, this is not a load bearing section but just to hold the side paneling in place.

I then made a paper template and cut a steel patch to weld in place.

I tacked this in place.

Then welded up.

I sprayed with acid etch primer then gave it a good coat of stone chip paint.

I warmed up a tin of waxoil and poked the tube through the hole in the box section and gave it a good spray, I have had a look around to see if I had missed any other surprises and thankfully I could find no more.

Well its finally happened and the paint job has been started.

I am having it done by the same business that did the work on my MX5 and they made a very nice job on that so I have been through the colour cards and have picked 2. 

The main colour is to be a Mitsubishi Red Pearl.

The second colour is to be Nissans White Pearl.

Tony the owner of the paint shop came round this morning to help transport the parts to be painted.

The plan is to do all of the parts that can be taken down and to spray with the red, then when I get back from my next trip away I shall have the car transported so work can be started on the body.

Once the body is painted red the doors will be fitted and then we can mask up to paint on the White Pearl.

I have spent the day at the paint shop as I am quite friendly with the boss Anthony (holding the wing), so they don't mind me being there, learning the job and helping with the sanding.

The front wings where up first.
I had already given them there first coat of primer so it was just a matter of sanding down and filling any areas that required it.
When happy Mike started the first of 3 coats of primer.

The primer will be nice and dry tomorrow when it will be blocked down before moving onto the other part's until they are all ready for the first coat of Red.

Looking forward to tomorrow.

See ya Paul