Day 2 - taking more bits off

OK, so it's in the workshop, and now it's time to prep it for painting. Which basically means deconstructing it further, and feeling like I'm going backwards instead of forwards.

Having said that, it's also a good time to start improving some of the elements on the car. The standard fuel filler cap, for instance, is a complete travesty and should only be considered a stop-gap measure until something better can be fitted. So once the fuel tank came out, I drilled the four rivets and a new fuel filler cap is on order from Meridian. They do a nice flush-mounted alloy filler cap that will sit far better with the overall look of the car.

Mind you, as I was drilling these out Frank glides past and screams "be careful, you're drilling into the car" or some such thing, which is precisely what I was thinking. I might need to become a little less tentative.

Other activities included removing the standard bonnet clips, as they were dodgy and a bit tacky. These will be replaced with the rubber style clips that are slightly larger, but are less obvious and feel like they might actually hold onto the bonnet.

Other tasks included rasping out holes for the windscreen wipers, removing various bits of rubber, and taking the rear splitters off.

The other thing that became apparent was that I need to think longer and harder about the paint scheme. It's all very well and good to say "I want green", but what about the rest? The rollbar, the front suspension, the windscreen surround, the splitters etc. If I chrome stuff, do I go shiny or more like polished aluminium? Do I want the engine bay painted complementary colours etc etc? So more thought required.

But, it's moving forward. Next week should see the last jobs done before it gets sent to the painters, then there'll be a hiatus for a few weeks, during which time the parts from the UK should have arrived, so at least I'll have some new toys to play with.

....and once more back to Perth

Well, nothing was happening on the car, plus I was getting a little concerned that there was little that I could really achieve until the car was painted. I mean, I was bolting in all sorts of things, but not torquing them up because it all had to come out again once it was ready to paint, so why not paint and then build it once? Could take a long time otherwise....

So the car came back to Perth yesterday, bolted onto the painting frame and on a trailer. It was an extremely odd drive, with the nosecone about a foot from the rear window and just over the roofline of my brother-in-laws car. Also got a few looks from people passing by.....

Anyway, it's now back in Frank's workshop - this weekend I'll be in drilling and prepping, then it will be off to the painters. The intention at this stage is still to paint it Hothouse Green, but I'm wondering what that would look like with copper threaded through it. Might be more trouble than it's worth, but I'll have a chat to the paint guy and work something out.

Once that's done, I'll be able to put things into the car for real and stop pretending ;-)