B.RAD Posted May 11, 2019 Share Posted May 11, 2019 Perfect colour that Gary! Looks like a mega lobster!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman Posted May 11, 2019 Share Posted May 11, 2019 Plenty of body prep to come then; you're going to have lobster coloured dust following you for months! Will look superb once done though. And at least with grp, there's more of us on here that can offer advice etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KugaWestie Posted May 14, 2019 Author Share Posted May 14, 2019 A visit from my good friend Chris Lowe tonight for a couple of hours means some progress has been made with the body. I quickly established last Sunday that the radiator needed to be repositioned, so after a run through of what I had looked at with Chris the rad and fan were removed and put aside to be revisited later. After lots of discussion, measuring, adjusting, looking, standing back etc etc, some decisions were made. The first one was to ignore the basic fitting instructions in the “build manual” and go it alone. After a couple of hours work this is where it got to The main problem was around the rear wheel arches, particularly the area above the wheel where the body curves towards the boot both above and behind the wheel position. A rather spooky moment after around 90 mins of tweaking happened when we both went for a tape measure at the same time as we had both spotted the problem. The arch on the drivers side is approx 35mm wider/more bulging than the passenger side, making it impossible to get the body sitting nicely over the rear wheels. If you look at the above photo carefully you can see it. This body is going to take a lot, and I mean a lot of work to make it look half decent. But the progress achieved tonight is that the body is positioned and clamped in place from the rear of the car up to the sill behind the front wheels. The next step is to leave it to settle for a couple of days and then glass the boot floor/bulkhead panel to the rear of the body and then fix the boot panel to the chassis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KugaWestie Posted May 18, 2019 Author Share Posted May 18, 2019 So before starting to glass the bodywork together I decided to see if there was a way to get the radiator to fit. I made a dummy up Once slotted in behind the nose it showed up some problems I thought about how to tackle it and came up with a plan to modify the radiator. So I set about the dummy. By lopping 3 of the corners off I got it in Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KugaWestie Posted May 18, 2019 Author Share Posted May 18, 2019 Here is the modified dummy. I will get the rad modified next week and also get some mounts sorted at the same time for the fan. Originally I had the fan fitted behind the rad, but in order to make it all fit now it will have to go in front of the rad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KugaWestie Posted May 18, 2019 Author Share Posted May 18, 2019 With peace of mind that I could get the rad to fit, I decided to start glassing the boot to the body Just some 2” wide strips to start off Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KugaWestie Posted May 22, 2019 Author Share Posted May 22, 2019 The pink dust has started! I decided to have a go at a few mould joint lines with my DA polisher and some 180 grit sanding pads. Front wings and nose area As you can see some holes have appeared that need attention. What would the grp experts recommend for filling these? P38? Flowcoat? Other? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KugaWestie Posted May 22, 2019 Author Share Posted May 22, 2019 I have done a bit more glassing in the boot area, and now fixed the interior boot panel to the chassis. Next was to start having a look at the rear bulkhead I got it in position and marked it up for trimming Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KugaWestie Posted May 22, 2019 Author Share Posted May 22, 2019 Once I had the rear bulkhead trimmed to shape, I slotted it up behind the main body and used some drywall screws to hold it in position I then decided to break out a tube of Tiger seal and bond it around the edges the best I could. To finish this panel off it will need to be glassed along the top joint. The sides and bottom edges will also be glassed to the chassis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KugaWestie Posted May 22, 2019 Author Share Posted May 22, 2019 I finished off by trimming the edges of the boot aperture to remove the rough edges and mould lines The next job is to make some panels to join the bottom boot lip on the main body to the chassis (black flat plate you can see above) and then down to the boot floor to make it watertight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin Parker (Red Spider) - Yorkshire AO Posted May 22, 2019 Share Posted May 22, 2019 27 minutes ago, KugaWestie said: As you can see some holes have appeared that need attention. What would the grp experts recommend for filling these? P38? Flowcoat? Other? If it's air bubbles in the gelcoat, then normal body filler will do, if you've gone through and got holes, then it will need glassing from behind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KugaWestie Posted May 22, 2019 Author Share Posted May 22, 2019 19 minutes ago, Robin (Red Spider) - Yorkshire AO said: If it's air bubbles in the gelcoat, then normal body filler will do, if you've gone through and got holes, then it will need glassing from behind. Thanks Robin. I realise that any holes will need to be glassed first. So far I have just exposed air bubbles in the gelcoat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KugaWestie Posted May 25, 2019 Author Share Posted May 25, 2019 I made up a panel to close off the rear of the boot floor area onto the chassis and main body and have since trimmed it. I have also made some end pieces for it that need to be trimmed and glassed onto it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KugaWestie Posted May 25, 2019 Author Share Posted May 25, 2019 On 14/05/2019 at 21:41, KugaWestie said: A visit from my good friend Chris Lowe tonight for a couple of hours means some progress has been made with the body. I quickly established last Sunday that the radiator needed to be repositioned, so after a run through of what I had looked at with Chris the rad and fan were removed and put aside to be revisited later. After lots of discussion, measuring, adjusting, looking, standing back etc etc, some decisions were made. The first one was to ignore the basic fitting instructions in the “build manual” and go it alone. After a couple of hours work this is where it got to The main problem was around the rear wheel arches, particularly the area above the wheel where the body curves towards the boot both above and behind the wheel position. A rather spooky moment after around 90 mins of tweaking happened when we both went for a tape measure at the same time as we had both spotted the problem. The arch on the drivers side is approx 35mm wider/more bulging than the passenger side, making it impossible to get the body sitting nicely over the rear wheels. If you look at the above photo carefully you can see it. This body is going to take a lot, and I mean a lot of work to make it look half decent. But the progress achieved tonight is that the body is positioned and clamped in place from the rear of the car up to the sill behind the front wheels. The next step is to leave it to settle for a couple of days and then glass the boot floor/bulkhead panel to the rear of the body and then fix the boot panel to the chassis. The eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed in the above photo that the bonnet was not sitting down flush with the body. This is because it was fouling on the top of the air filter. I sorted this out today Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KugaWestie Posted May 26, 2019 Author Share Posted May 26, 2019 End panels trimmed to shape and tiger bonded into the boot closer panel Once that had gone off I glassed it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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