Cycle wings sorted, bending bonnet...

So this week, in case you were wondering where the cliff hanger would take you... I went for the "sorting the fibre glass" bits.

I started by fitting the cycle wings proper:

Both fairly straightforward, although the wing piping on the rear was a new and interesting challenge. Think I got the best of it, although at the top I need a larger profile piping as it doesn't quite fill the gap. That's a "tomorrow job" though. Good enough for today.

(The rag is for decorative effect)

Next up, starting to fettle the scuttle. Earlier in the week I knocked up a quick drawing and printed it 1:1scale, which proved the perfect template for drilling:

Holes drilled, buttons fit nicely

(The missing one is for a horn which is on order - don't want to have to rely on the steering wheel button, as the plan has various options for steering Pre and post IVA, some for which may or may or may not have horn buttons etc.)

Mirrors next:

(Cheesy grin reflected back : check)

And so, the next big task would be sorting the bonnet, but that would have to wait until the weekend.

I was cautious about this step, after all you only get one shot at this! And it's incredibly visible once done.

I sought lots of advice, and the best seemed to come from Peter, who told me about marking datums for the radii, and then utilising cylinders of appropriate diameters for the scuttle end and nose cone end. Well, here goes nothing...

(Use of large CO2 bottle at the nose cone end)

Seemed to work exceptionally well, big thanks to Trev for the extra pair of hands and helpful suggestions - both of which were testament to the overall successful result.

(Trev's grin summarises the success of the moment - looking good)

A few more tweaks, bends, dressing with the file, and fitting the bonnet catches ( and removing the horrendously sticky nitto Dento tape... Glad to see the back of that stuff!) and the result looks like this:

Delighted with the look so far.

So Sunday was about painting these bits.

Unfortunately that didn't go quite to plan, as I was running behind time, and decided that using an air-powered sander would speed things up. ( Each and every single panel I had rubbed down by hand previously, very tedious and labour intensive). However, as I found afterwards, the sander tended to scuff and "chatter" at the surface, rather than smoothly remove material. So unfortunately it ruined the surface of the nosecone :-( and I didn't realise until I had blown the dust away from the very last section. This meant me having to do the whole thing again, by hand, with a coarser grit sand paper and work up, through various grades and guide coats of satin black. Instead of saving time, it actually cost me about double, which is incredibly annoying to say the least! I finished up by getting some primer on, but still not sure whether I've successfully covered up my error. Oh well, time will tell. Best invest in shares in a body filler supply company before the next blog post...

Doubt the photo shows it, but this is the nose cone towards the last few coats. I've optimistically put quite a few coats on (6) in the hope it will rub back smooth

The motivation to get the painting finished is driven by the weather- now its October it is getting colder all the time. Even today, at ambient temperature of 15°C it was taking far longer for the primer to go off, about 30-40 minutes, whereas in the height of summer at 23°C it was no more than 10mins. I think there's about another 2 weeks left before it gets too cold to spray, and you start getting weird effects like blooming and crazing/cracking. So fingers crossed I can get it done in time!

To add to the misery, whilst the primer was drying I drove the car around the yard a bit, it was running really rough. First problem was of my own doing - took the air filter and MAF off to fit the bonnet,(d'oh) after re-fitting the MAF and vacuum pipes it settled down a bit, but still was lumpy and misfiring. Oh and the clutch is still iffy.  Humph.

So, still lots to do. Against the original list of jobs, I'm 81% complete, but the snagging list is presently growing!!!!

Check back next time and hopefully there will be more fortuitous tales to be told. Still having a wonderful time though, and the light at the end of the tunnel is definitely visible. It's true what they say - the worst day in the garage is still better than the best day at the office!!