Some Other Stuff & Some Moore Paint

Duncan and I cracked on today in a bid to get the car ready for the test at Snett which is now just 13d 13h and 13 minutes away.

We got a fair few sundry items ticked off the to-do list. These included

Tension chain
Empty exhaust ready for repacking
Duncan made and fitted both the main front floor and a spare.
Fit front indicators and front body clips to nose section
Wet and dry off some overspray from a repair on the nose where I nicked the paint
Polish some of the front wing were the overspray was
Fit Front Binnacle
Fill, paint prep and prime both side pods.
Weld in front mounts on the support frame for the clip mounts
Fit rear (non gurney) flap
Fit rear lights.
Tidy up an issue on the rear suspension where the RR wheel was fouling slightly on the upright

Sounds pretty successful huh? Well we had a few trials and tribulations along the way.

Firstly I’ve used clear glass front indicators as I think they look nicer than the yellow ones. the plan is to use yellow coloured indicator bulbs. Unfortunately these indicator lenses are actually reversing lights and oddly much shallower than the normal indicators that you can just see in the rear bodywork in the main pic above. I think I can fix this with some LED indictors although I may need a ballast resister or two.

By far the main problem we had was that the cellulose primer “cracked” and split on the side pods. We think this was caused by a lack of mechanical key (although I was very thorough going over the whole side pod with 600 grit wet and dry, perhaps I should stick to 400) and the cold conditions causing differential drying as the solvent evaporated These even occured when we dusted the primer on. The result was that the whole surface was split by cracks such as these. In the end after a session of re spraying it and watching it crack again before our very eyes, we decided to cut our losses, and let it harden. Tomorrow I’ll flat it back around each of the cracks and respray. Given the time pressure I’m under I don’t need another paint prep and prime cycle… but I plainly I can’t leave it like this .