Not updated for a while, although have been escaping (being sent) into the man cave for a few hours every day (except one). Pretty much as anticipated though – not much to show for it. The car has been going various shade of grey, with the odd bit of shiny thrown in. I’ve been filling dings, dents and depressions, then rubbing most of the filler off again, along with my nice epoxy in numerous places.
On the NS door / wing join, I wasn’t happy. Trying to get the NSF wing and door to line up required the wing to be set out a bit – basically all of the bolts that join the wing to the inner fitch panel all were at least half a hole off, maybe more. I tried building up the front of the door and rear of the front wing with filler, but there seemed much too much. Then the door wouldn’t open. As the front edge of the door closes the gap when opening, it did it so much that the outer edge of the door hit the front wing. Deciding that I was chasing my tail, probably bodging one thing which then caused a second issue, that in turn needed a bodge. So nothing for it – I ground all of the filler away and took a long hard look. The back edge of the front wing was bent inwards slightly, with a bulge in front of that, where the inner stiffener / panel that mounts to the fitch panel is. I guess that in building up the rear edge of the wing, I had got too much heat int it, resulting in distortion. So, wing off, BFH called in to tickle (together with a bit of pipe wrench massaging of the trailing edge), and the wing looked a lot better. When it was bolted back on, I could then get all of the bolts to mate up and very little filler needed on the door or wing.
I managed to remove yet more of the filler after this photo, so there’s not much needed at all now. Result.
Still haven’t received my square foam, intended to go on the front of the door, so that when I fill over the join, the filler doesn’t disappear and get stuck to everything. Nett result, lots of gouging filler from where it shouldn’t be.
That isn't a 1/4" of filler on the door, just filler on the return. The filler is less than an mm thick
Doors (drifting out hinge pins, so that the door alignment remains set for now) and wings have been on and off so many times now, but at last, all seems straight enough for another coat of epoxy. When this is done, I can try a guide coat and see just how flat I’ve got things so far.
First, noticing this
It was clearly time to clean the garage floor a bit. It still isn’t clean enough to spray topcoat, still but will do for epoxy spraying for now.
So, a couple of very thin skims on the rear edge of 1 door, a slight skim where I tapped a high spot down on a front wing, and all put to bed, ready for another epoxy spraying day.
. In better news I now know how compressors work, recognise that the venting I have (not me personally, just the compressor) is not due to a cracked pressure switch, but to a failed non-return valve. The small-bore pipe that runs to the base of the pressure switch is there to unload the compressor after the motor stops & make it easier for the compressor to restart. Pulled the NRV apart, fiddled with it (not the type that you can disassemble) and put it back in the compressor, I have now ordered a new NRV.
.
