14/02/2007
7hrs
Bodywork finishing
After 2 weeks of bad weather I finally made it to Nostalgia today. They have made good progress with the finishing. At the rear of the body the boot lid thickness has been thinned to make if appear more like metal than GRP. This is not purely cosmetic it aids the fitting and profile of the boot lid. The rear dumb irons and over riders have been reset to improve the clearance so that they do not foul the boot lid when opening it. This involved remaking the mounting plates by re-welding the mounting studs to the plates to move them further out. Reworking the holes in the body work and fitting new improved grommets around the distance pieces. The boot lid has been shaped and profiled to match the wings and the rear of the body and a constant gap to fit the boot well opening. The rear wing seals have been fitted. In future Nostalgia will recommend bonding the seal to the rear of the body when the wings are fitted rather than fit them at finishing time as the build manual states. I had asked for the petrol cap to be recessed (French Inlaid) rather than mounted direct on to the rear as I had originally mounted it. This was to make the petrol cap less obtrusive yet retain the period feel of the cap and ensure that any edges around the hinge of the cap were SVA compliant. I saw the result today "fantastic" exactly as I asked for and as I had imagined it.
The "B" Posts have been adjusted to improve the alignment rear body with of the doors. the doors have been uniformly gapped and the locks readjusted to take in to account the realignment of the "B" post.
The bonnet is back from being remoulded. The spreader bar at he back of the bonnet has been shortened the bonnet put back in the mould to compress it and the spreader bar rejoined. Some filler work on the bonnet and the scuttle has resulted in a perfect fit.
The body overall is being rubbed down and filled with a metallised filer to remove tiny imperfections and any surface ripples in the GRP and rubbed down again, Followed by a finishing filler and more rubbing down to get he final finish. Chris has spent all day working on the bonnet surface as above.
I have spent most of today working on the air induction system . i had obtained a short rubber pipe from SNG Barratt to match the outlet of the air filter this acted as an adapter between the corrugated extension pipe from the air flow meter and the can of he air filter. The next bit tool me ages to work out. how to connect the inlet of the air filter to the inlet pipe and route to the area ahead of the radiator. The inlet pipe has a trumpet end followed by a straight section of pipe then a tapered section of pipe I needed to bridge the inlet of the air filter via 2½ bore pipe to the 2" bore of he trumpet and pass it through the wing valance ahead of the radiator. To cut along story short I ended up making an adapter by cutting 3" from the trumpet end of the induction pie and 2¾" from the air filter end (You end up with a conical shaped piece of pipe). The bit in the middle can be thrown away. I removed the plastic trumpet from the pipe and drilled a 2" hole ahead of the radiator to exact size of pipe, not the bell end of the trumpet. I fitted the pipe securing it with Jubilee clips to the trumpet. This also retains it in position I then modified the the conical piece of pipe to fit over the trumpet and thus from a adapter to which I connected the corrugated pipe. The end result works but is not very elegant. I think it may be possible to make an improved version with black plastic drain pipe fittings. We will see,
The last part of the day I started on the fitting of the
vent box doors for correct operation and gapping. After removing the
doors and fitting some dummy seals around the the opening, fitting 2 new
spacers to the hinges I refitted the doors. The doors were too far forward.
After talking to Chris I found that it is necessary to grind some metal off
the rear of the door supports so that they can be fitted further back.
At this point I ran out of time and headed home.
Total Hours this Month = 7 hrs
Total
hours to date =
2038.00 hrs
