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It's been a little while since I updated so what have I been up to? Well it's been lots of incredibly dull filling, sanding and priming. In fact it's been so depressingly dull I have taken no photos at all as it's just repeating the same thing on different parts of the car. The garage was also an absolute tip, so I have had a big tidy up.

I came across the bumpers in the tidy up, and I remembered that I wanted to change the way they mounted to the body. When I first bought the car, the bumpers were full of expanding foam and rotten wood. They were also fixed to the car using wood screws. This simply would not do, so I thought about different ways to mount the bumpers in a more stealthy and more secure way. As I had removed all the foam and old wood, the bumpers are now much lighter and of course hollow. My solution is quite simple: make a u-shaped bracket at each mounting point out of sheet steel, weld a captive nut on the inside, fibreglass the u-bracket to the inside of the bumper, then drill a hole in the bodywork to bolt the bumper on from inside the engine bay/boot.

So it was out with the old CAD (cardboard-aided design) - I mocked up the brackets then re-made them in steel. I then drilled holes for the bolts and was getting ready to weld them up. Then the welder wouldn't feed the wire through, so I gave up and went inside.

CAD templates made...



...and replicated in steel.



Holes drilled and nuts ready for welding, once I can get the poxy welder to work...

Jon wrote:

Small question:

Does anyone knows what kind of water reservoir that is? where is it sourced from? (left in the picture, below the battery )

Goldeneye that looks like an expansion bottle from a 1300 Allegro. I've got a dirty old one kicking about for the cost of postage if you want it? Drop me a PM if you're interested.

Have not had a lot of time this week so this is once again a short update. More sanding, more filling and I was able to get the captive nuts on my brackets welded up round at Tink's. I gave them a coat of paint and have started to make the brackets for the rear. I have made sure that the new brackets will not coincide where the old rusty wood screws once were. More soon.

Brackets looking all shiny and nice.



Cunning use of Sharpie pen to show where to site the brackets at the rear.

MrBounce wrote:Goldeneye that looks like an expansion bottle from a 1300 Allegro. I've got a dirty old one kicking about for the cost of postage if you want it? Drop me a PM if you're interested.

Thanks for the offer and the pictures, but unfortunately my pipe work will not fit to that bottle (more and larger hoses) , so i will keep the current one in place.

More bracket work has been going on. Andy mended my welder so I made more card templates then used the majority of the steel I had left to make up the brackets for the rear bumper. I drilled them and welded on some nuts before spraying them up - the first one looked a little bit splattery but I soon sorted that out. Whilst these were drying I mixed some epoxy resin and stuck in the brackets for the front bumper. I shall fibreglass over the edges as a "belt and braces" approach. It should be dry tomorrow so I will mix some up in the morning.

Brackets made up (before drilling).



New brackets in primer.



Front bumper brackets stuck in with epoxy resin.

Another quick update - I have glassed in the first set of brackets (one side only) which all went ahead with no issues. Would have done more but need more paintbrushes... I also made a captive bolt bracket for the pedal box to replace the really thin and badly-made brazed one which came with the car. More next week!

Brackets fibreglassed in.



Pedal box captive bolt bracket. Not perfect, but FAR better than what was on there!!

I am not impressed by the welding, it doesn't like the metal has fused.This might cause problems when the welds break loose and it becomes impossible to seperate the parts. It looks like you use a DIY electric arc welder. It would be better to find a MIG welder with CO2 bottle and wire gun.

It's a MIG Hans. I am still a beginner. There's plenty of penetration - it just isn't very pretty.

It's been a little while so it's time for a quick update. There has been much prepping which is incredibly dull and boring so it really isn't worth writing about or providing photos. Then Shaun came over, brought a couple of things with him and this happened...





First 2 coats are on; now time for a flat back before adding more. Starting to look more like a car again...