The Build
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Friday 6th April 2007
Not much garage action for a while, I run a course twice a year which takes over my life for about a week, then I had a 4 day golfing break in Spain. Played like a spanner but the weather was nice :-)
I'd had a bit more trouble getting the engine running again - it would start but rev for a second or so then die. It took me almost an hour to work out that it was coz the fuel tank was empty. Doh! I'd only stuck a bit in there and forgot about it. So it lives still, although it's about time I got the oil leaks sorted - I have got the clutch cover gasket now.
I decided to have a stab at finishing off the seat I made. After about an hour of hacking away with a carving knife followed by some elbow grease with the surform I had it trimmed down. I then used up most of a 50m roll of gaffer tape covering it. I had considered getting it covered properly but decided there wasn't really any point. I can still get that done later if I'm worried about the appearance.
The next bit of work was making a start on the bonnet bulge. I started by sticking my foam bulge in place and covering it with parcel tape to stop the polyester resin eating it.
Once that was done I cut a couple of pieces of the chopped strand mat to size (leaving a good overlap around the edges) and mixed up some resin. The mat seems fairly stiff and non-conforming but as soon as the resin soaks into it it moulds nicely to shape. I just used a 2" brush to apply the resin and smooth it out. I applied 2 layers of mat and left it to go off. I was surprised how much heat was generated, it became too hot to leave my hand on there. I wasn't sure how thick this would be so decided to go for it and apply a third layer with a smaller piece of mat that just big enough with no overlap.
Saturday 7th April 2007
Peeling the bulge off the bonnet was easy enough as the resin didn't stick very well to the parcel tape. The heat had been enough to deform the foam blank so any thought of hanging on to it in case I wanted to make any more went out the window! Here's a pic of the thing peeled off and turned upside down. It was at this stage that I realised that 2 layers of mat would have been fine! The thing's quite heavy.
The next job was to trim it down to size using a combination of tin snips for the thinner bits and angle grinder for the thicker bits. I also used a flap wheel on the angle grinder to feather the edges down a bit and then mixed up a small amount of resin to 'glue' the bulge onto the bonnet. It was obviously a nice fit but I stuck my lump hammer on top to make sure it stuck down tight.
Sunday 8th April 2007
With the bulge now firmly glued on I set to with my electric drill and a small flapwheel to smooth off the edges. It's still going to need a lot of work getting it ready for paint but at least it's looking how I'd envisaged it. There are a couple of bits where the edges are delaminating a bit but I'm not too worried about those.
Last job of the day was mixing up some gelcoat and painting it over the whole thing. It needs this as the surface has the raised fibreglass strands, it'll also seal the delaminated bits. I can then sand this down and see what finish I end up with. It may well need some filler, but it shouldn't be far off.
Monday 9th April 2007
Sanding down the gelcoat took a lot of time unsurprisingly. Didn't need much filler in the end though and I'm happy with the end result. When I take the bonnet off I'll trim nack some more of the original bonnet to enlarge the hole the bulge is sitting over.