Well, After a year away at the panel and paint shop, Elsie has returned looking rather resplendent with no dents and a shiny new coat.
A big thanks to the guys at the Nowra Smash Repairs for the excellent job they did. It was good to have a team of guys who obviously took pride in their work on the job. Whilst 12 months seems like a long time, that is the arrangement that we had in place. In return for them having an “in betweener” to work on in the quiet times I was prepared to wait and the value for money was hard to beat.
So I’ve now taken two weeks leave from my day job to get Elsie back together with all the good bits fitted.
Job one was to do a walk around the car and take note of any little imperfections that needed attention. A few minor scratches on my interior and engine bay paint work needed attention so these have been prepared and (weather permitting) will be resprayed tomorrow.
The front wheel bearing were not something we were happy with. Whilst they would have probably passed the registration inspection, there was just a little too much play for our liking. So, thanks to brother Paul for doing some research and coming up with the right tapered bearings. The thing to remember with these is you have to remove the internal spacer from the hub, otherwise the hole thing is pointless. Anyway, these were fitted with a bit of Lactate bearing compound to account for some minor wear in the internals of the hub and fitted back to the car. No play! perfect!
The underside of the turret was still just in primer so a coat of POR15 was applied to ensure rust was never going to be an issue. It was decided to also apply this product to the main section of the floor to give a bit more durability. This product is expensive but from all accounts it does the job better than most and it dries off to a high lustre hard surface.
That all done it was time to start fitting some panels. The two rear guards were offered up after we went around and passed a tap through all the caged nuts to make sure they were nice and clean. New white beading was marked and whole punched to cater for the bolt, and all in all they went back on with very little struggle. Two hours and both guards were fitted.
I will be posting more of the process over the coming few weeks ….
A Minor Matter of Patience 