My very last restoration!!!

[Steve]

In the words of my wise old uncle Bill from Glasgow ' the only thing worse than gettin auld is no gettin auld'

I would just build her to new stock specs and use what you save to put a few extra gallons through her....mind you, Im a cruiser not a fighter so stock is more than enough fun for me. My days of thrashing cars are well and truly over but yours may not be

[newsatten]

Yep I’m captain slow as well,
I think I’ll forget about the motor for a month or two
Concentrate on getting the body fully level and in epoxy
Once this is done I can pull it apart and start getting it ready for colour
To be honest I’ve been messing around with the motor as I’ve almost nothing at work at this time to get on with !

[newsatten]

Well I’ve finally managed to fully align the front end metal,
Still got a few small tweaks to make but overall it’s pretty sharp,
I’m currently about 6 months behind schedule so looking very unlikely it’ll be done this year,
Ces’t la vie

[Steve]

Looks absolutely spot on....all that hard work was worth it.

[mygasser]

better to have it right than have it on time mate. you always do it right so.....

[Stu]

Looking excellent.

[cadboy]

Great job and well done
She looks GOOD

[newsatten]

Virtually finished the gapping now , just the nose panel to finish off, this is being a right pain, stripped it twice and twice it’s moved and cracked after about a month?
Tried two different epoxy’s neither worked,
I’ve been trying to follow guidelines from the US but obviously I can’t get the particular type of epoxy recommended, so thought sod it and try the old way,

I’ve ordered a full replacement interior from Legendary,
Slightly premature I guess but took advantage of a sale this weekend,

[newsatten]

So following a good old blocking session last Saturday I’ve actually now started the primer stage,
I’m trying out a new twist on 2k this is apparently a hybrid 2k and has some kind of epoxy additive so it dries with a proper sheen,
I guess in a decent workshop one probably would appreciate the shine as it highlights wobbly bits a tad better,
However it flats lovely dry long blocking with 240
Is fairly easy going,

[Matt74]

Looking good.
Wouldn't mind trying that primer out. Do you have any more details on it?

[newsatten]

The turd is now in 2k primer , still got the hood to primer and still shaping the Bull nose ,
But not far off now !



The primer is a mid priced product by Silco
M8 , i suspect the slight sheen is the result of Styrene being present,
It lays down nicely and over fully cured Epoxy it’s very good,
However whether I’d Bananarama! over sanded old paint ??

Thing is theses days compliant EU countries are seriously controlled and all the decent chemicals are banned!
However this and a lot of the other stuff is manufactured in Eastern Europe and Israel etc so one never really knows what one’s getting !

[newsatten]

So I’ve been doing a nose job today ,
Got a small amount of fitting but generally yeah all looks reasonably good!

[newsatten]

The lower front panel is a second hand one I acquired as my original had so rust through on the underside
This replacement has suffered previous accident
And sits a bit Bananarama! on the right side,
So this will require a bit of faking but nothing serious,

The amount of work is actually surprising me,
I’ve done loads over the years but this thing is a nightmare really,
I’m over 1100 hours so it’s going to be well over 1500 to finish the thing!
Currently losing the will to live!

[Matt74]

I'll keep that Silco primer in mind. Thanks.

I feel your pain when it comes to restoring cars. I'm putting mine back together and it's painfully slow as I'm having to restore a lot of the parts before reinstalling them and I'm having to be so careful I don't scratch the paint.

I have another car that I want to get back on the road but I've decided to just get it road worthy and use it rather than restore it!

[newsatten]

Think that’s very sensible given the current state of the market,
The Fred in a shed type of restoration has always been a labour of love type of thing,
But this has always been the only way older normal cars can realistically be restored,
Full body and paint now is 10’s of thousands, mechanical work easily 10 K on anything now,

Theses days we see run of the mill cars being restored and bills approaching 100k etc, absolutely mental and a huge money pit,

I’ve already restored absolutely everything that’s not being replaced on my Turd, I’ve got boxes of stuff everywhere!
But doing this way the nice part or restoration is seeing it come together and it’s quite quick as it’s just like a big kit !