small progress

[richardvg]

Three months time...that should be a maximum two week job.Its all stripped already.

Dont forget the BARCOTE ....ISOLATER

[frix]

hi Richard, well i dont know what Barcote is but Mark has put on a coat of sealer, like a varnish i think? 3 months is proberly a long time but as i wasnt in to much of a hurry so they are fitting it in between jobs. Paul

[frix]

hi guys, just a quick update, as you can see the cars back from stocks and looking good. Nows the fun bit of putting it back together! cheers Paul

[Whirlybird]

Fantastic to see what can be done when the effort has been put in.

it looks great.

Looking forward to the updates.

[richardvg]

According to my glass fibre bible, traditional body filler should not be used. Instead resin mixed with talc or micro balls fills the gaps.

I can assure you that this is exactly what bodyfillers and fine stoppers are manufactured from.

Use a good twin pack fine stopper on thin cracks ,with a small v-groove ....it will be fine.

One of the problems with the method you are using is that you could get cracking elsewhere due to the weakening of the wall.

[frix]

Believe me a lot of effort, the pics make it look a bit pink, i will try and get some more when the suns not shinning which im sure wont be to far away! If you want to see it before i started the work, have a look in the restoration section at the heading At last shes stripped. cheers Paul

[richardvg]

LOOKS GREAT THOUGH !!

[vintaylor]

looks great Paul.. Congrats

[Mysterae]

Looking good! Any reason why you didn't change the colour when you had the chance? Keeping it original?

[frix]

hi Alan, in some way i was trying to keep it original and also i love red, i had 2 MGB GTs when i was younger and they were both red. If you have a look at Esprit in every colour you can see pauls s2 (before he sold it) to me it looks stunning in red. Cheers Paul

[peteyg]

Looks great Paul. Shout if you need any help with 'where the bits go' and I'll do my best to help.

Pete

[mikec2126]

mm - nice job indeed!

[frix]

Its been a long long time since i last posted an update, where does the time go?! so i thought its time to update you guys where i am today and whats planned.

So pretty much everything i need to finish the car has been bought and is either on the car or in my spare bedroom! Although i didn't work on the car as much as i wanted to last  year, i wanted to get everything together for the big push,. That doesn't mean nothing has been done, in fact quite alot has been done, two of the big jobs that were done was the gearbox and engine rebuilds.  

Now for the purest this is not going to easy for you and you may want to sit down?! Let me assure you this car was always my dream and i hope ive done it proud, remembering that the car was pretty much a wreck when i bought it and being told that it was a good spares car! 

 Let me start with the interior, so ive made a slight modification, instead of the black cloth and leather interior, ive decided to go with charcoal grey alcantara and black leather with silver stitching. The front brakes are being upgraded to four pots and groved discs. The oil cooler will now be placed behind the radiator, the radiator is now a 3 core with kenlowe fans. Theres also a ECU for the timing on its way and all of this because (and this is where i beg forgiveness) the engine has had an upgrade at Lotusbits, it should now produce between 250-270 HP. 

So last week i took the car up to Mike at Lotusbits for him to have a good look over and check what ive done is correct, the next stage will be for Mike and his guys to drop the engine and gearbox in, Ive asked Mike if i can spend some time with him and his team when this happens and he's kindly agreed. Theres plenty more planned for the next few months and i will keep you updated as it happens, things should start moving at a pace now hallelujah!

 

[Frickin_idiot]

Wow, this is the first time I've seen this thread but it looks like you have done a fantastic job so far!

[frix]

[frix]

Thanks Kev, I shall post a few pictures of what it was like when i first bought it.

paul

[Frickin_idiot]

It doesn't look too bad! Are appearances deceptive?

[silverfrost]

Lovely job on the restoration, I lok forward to the pictures when the final push comes 

[ChrisJ]

Very interesting read. Looks like my kind of interior - can't want to see what it looks like when installed.

Interested to read about the Lotusbits upgrade - might look at that for my Excel once day.

Keep up the good work.

[Rolls]

Awesome to see the progress - very motivating...

 Although the 2012 start date does give me the 

[silverfrost]

Pull your finger out Roland and set yourself a deadline of 24 months or less, my last project is reaching its 7 year point , still with not much done on it