My Type 54 to sort of 47 Conversion

[RoddyMac]

Chuck,
Thanks for the tip on using the sharpie, there are tons of spider cracks all over the body shell.  Luckily the doors, engine cover, and front cover are in fairly decent shape.  In regards to soda blasting, I did get a quote for the doors and two lids at roughly $300.  The blasting place currently has a Europa in, so I'm fairly certain they know the sizes.  But, I could by a lot of sandpaper for $300....

In other news, I didn't do any sanding this weekend.  I went to the All British Field Meet in Seattle on Saturday,  it was a nice turn out of cars, but no Europa's.   Sunday saw me spend a few hours turning these up:



I still have to put some flats on the top flange and test fit them to the doors, but I'm sure they'll work just fine.   The hinge pin is 304 stainless, and the threaded bushing is 360 brass.  I'm into the set (brass, stainless, & nuts) for roughly $40. 

Rod

[Rosco5000]

Nicely done on the hinges Rod.  I was thinking of tackling that project myself as well. 
As for soda blasting, my dad's +2 was blasted back in the day, not sure he would ever do that again.  Maybe there are businesses that are more specialized now a days.  Took all the gel coat off and the pin holes that surfaced were crazy.  Not much fun working through cleaning all those up.  My first plan was to use a DA on my Europa, but it sounds like some long hours.

[RoddyMac]

Ross (and others),
After reading your comment on your dad's +2, I think I'll stick with sanding.  I had a chat with dear old dad last night and he now recalls how much work it was to get the Caterhams wings and nose back to being smooth, flat, and free of pin holes.  So, I'll be spending two days of the long weekend getting dusty and itchy, the goal for the end of the day Monday is to have the body stripped of paint in the areas that require crack repairs and possibly have the roof panel tissued.

Rod

[Chuck Nukem]

If it makes you feel any better Rod, fiberglass appears to have no effect on me anymore. After a while I seem to have become desensitized...

[Rosco5000]

How is the fiberglass prep coming along Rod?

[RoddyMac]

Ross,
It's slowly coming along, I've got nearly all the paint stripped from the main portions of the body tub, and I've repaired nearly all of the spider cracks and 90% of the structural repairs.  I'm almost ready to start troweling on the filler.  Ideally I'd like to have the body in polyurethane primer by this time next month.  The doors and lids can be done later in the year and hopefully be working on in dad's garage (a lot more space).  I found that 60 grit on the orbital sander cut right through the first layer of paint (purple), then with 100 grit I took the original green paint off and was left with the original layers of primer.  I've only gone through the two primers in places that need repair so that I'm not opening up any voids in the fiberglass. 

I didn't spend nearly enough time this past weekend on the body.  But I did make the seat belt reinforcing plates, along with a new set of engine mounts as the first set I made were way too ugly, and I finally got around to turning some lugs for the rear brake calipers.  The lugs are now welded to the rear uprights, so the rear suspension is almost done.  All that's left is to make some sway bar tabs for both the front and rear suspension, then I can do a run of black paint (all suspension pieces, engine mounts, front uprights, rear uprights etc). 


Rod

[Rosco5000]

That sounds like some good progress!  In primer in a month will be great.  When you get time for some pictures it would be good to see the progress.
R

[RoddyMac]

I managed to get some help on the weekend with sanding (honestly she wanted to):



She got most of the purple paint off both the front lid and the engine cover which has sped up the bodywork process.  I had planned on doing them over the fall and winter but I might have them both in primer with the body tub.



In regards to the body tub, it never looks like there has been progress, but I'm down to a few small repairs to the LH sill flange and finishing the vents and fuel filler recesses. 



I did get the rear upper trailing arm covers laid up, and they turned out quite well, now its a matter of sanding the underside smooth to match the factory finish, and get onto the little cutouts I made inside the cockpit to clear the trailing arm brackets.  And yes, the firewall is getting replaced once I plant the body back on the chassis (sometime soon I think).



I also got started on the dash assembly, it doesn't look like much at the moment, but its helped with laying everything out so far.  I'm hoping to make it look somewhat like a Lotus 46 dashboard.




That's all for now, next weekend should see the RH side vent nearly finished and the fuel filler recess cut into the side panel.

Rod

[BDA]

Your sanding helper seems like a keeper to me!

What are you planning on doing for the dash?

It looks like you (and your helper) are making great progress!

[Rosco5000]

That looks GREAT Rod!.  I can't wait to get going some more on my project but summer holidays keep getting in the way.  Great work!

[RoddyMac]

BDA,
I'm attempting to make a dash similar to the Series 1 cars, the attached pic should hopefully show what I'm planning.  The piece of wood attached to the dash supports at the moment is the face of the dash, the center panel pieces have been measured and will be mocked up this weekend.  I was kindly supplied with a set of CAD files for the aluminum inserts which I'll use for the tach/speedo panel and the glove box, but I'll have to make up my own template for the center section. The dash top is going to be the tricky bit to build, I'm still trying to come up with an easy way to make it.




Rod

[BDA]

I don't know, that sounds like quite a job!

Good luck!

[RoddyMac]

I managed to get two full days of car stuff this weekend, though the first part of today was doing an oil change on dear old dads MGB.  The rest of today consisted of fiberglassing, filling, and sanding.  I'm slowly running out of repairs to do, but finding more and more pin holes, so there's lots of filling and sanding in my future.  I also made a plug and made up two fuel filler neck recesses.  I bonded one in today, the other will have to wait for later in the week and I did get both side vents glued, filled and glassed in.  Things are moving along, and I might meet my goal of primer by early next month.




Rod

[BDA]

Looking good, Rod!

[Chuck Nukem]

Just a heads up as I recently had a sanding revelation. I bought a Dynabrade DA and I have to say they are worth the money. If you have a compressor that can hack it there is no going back to electric. I bought the model marketed to the guy who sands "8 hours long, 8 hours strong" and they mean it!

That duct looks great Rod!

Your firewall looks like mine!