Carbon skinning

With the car at the body shop I decided to get on with some carbon skinning, this is not something I have much experience with but I have played with it in the past. As I am having a carbon roof skin made there are several non structural items I want to match to the roof.

The basics of skinning is to lay resin, let it tack and then lay the carbon. With the carbon laid the resin is then applied layer by layer, once built up the clear resin is then wet sanded and polished to give a deep gloss shine.

This is the start of two of the items started;

More roof and some progress

The roof being the area to have required the most amount of work it is finally at the stage where the mould can be taken, it has taken many hours of sanding and filling to get to this level though I am very happy to be here now.

With the roof in primer, wax and release fluid has been applied, this will allow the mould to be removed when it is dry.
With the wax on the roof, the gel coat was then applied.

The gel coat is white which you can just make out on the roof. Once the gel coat had gone tacky we then started to apply glass chop strand mat and adding resin with 1% catalyst ratio resin. This gives a nice slow mix and we hope will not change or sag the roof.

Once this is dry and the extra supported have been added we will then start making the carbon replacement roof. Already quite excited.

I hope to add another post soon

Back from the powder coaters

Recently the car has been at the body shop and the guys there have been busy getting on with what I want while I have been busy with other stuff. I have been feeling a little bit down about the project probably down to the money pit it is becoming and also the time it is taking... Any how I got a call from city powder coaters in Birmingham saying that the fist batch of parts are now ready to collect, I though this would be something to really pick me up again and it may just have done that. The finish of the parts is really good and very well done.

I hope you enjoy the photos. I may start to assemble the sub frames soon. I do think I have some parts I do not need and some are not there so I may still have them in my storage or they are part of the second batch. I will be wax oiling the inside of all the frames to ensure they don't rot away as I plan to keep the car.

from here they are to be stored for a while and I will also be placing in my bushes where needed. I am very pleased that they powder coaters took their time and produced a stunning finish.

The wheels are RS Drift and came in red when I got them so I shipped them off to be gun metal grey which I really like them in.

At the body shop

Well not much to report, the car has taken another trip after many hours of sanding and is now at the body shop.

I hope that this will now really start to move as its been a long time in the making

guide coat

Just another update of some of the guide coat going on the read half, as you can see the shape is looking as it should

Also on another note I also started to cut the foam for the seats I am going to be making

Sanding smooth

Since the last few updates not much has changed that is worth updating but it's been a while so a progress update is due. The hours of sanding have now left me with an almost perfect roof and soon it will be done I'm sure.

One of the biggest issues was the filler was not thin enough and was dragging so I thinned it down with GRP resin which makes it much more workable. This helped a lot

I had a couple of issues when I mixed too much filler and then applied it in an area which was dented, unfortunately it was too much and produced too much heat, this caused the roof to sag, once dry I had to press the roof out which meant the filler had to be broken out and replaced.

Smoothed rear section in progress

Front section 

More filler being added 

This will continue for a while but once ready I will get an update going.

Engine build P2

The engine build continues with the hussey copper head gasket being annealed and coated with wellseal to ensure a good seal.

With the gasket in place the cylinder head was bolted and torqued down the chain guides, chain, chain tension, and the cam went in.

I then set about rebuilding the oil pump, I cleaned it all and then installed all new parts to ensure the pump is as new. The pump was installed followed by a new light solid mass crank pulley. (managed to get it in the oven to help it to fit, was still quite tight but its on, the other half wasn't happy as I squeezed the pulley in while the dinner was in the oven...)

Engine build P1

Today I took some time to relax and start on the assembly process of the engine as I have a nice pile of new parts.
The first thing I started to do is to clean all the components, even where new as I wanted to be sure everything was clean and without any contaminates.

With the parts clean I started to gap the rings, which I found did not need too much work but in general opening by about 0.10 mm.

Before fitting the rings I installed the gudgeon pin and spring clips then laid out all the parts in order ready for assembly which certainly looked like a camera moment

I like taking the time to gap the rings but always hate fitting them due to the risk of snapping a ring but I am relieved that they all fitted without any issues.

A photo of a ring top ring in place gapped correctly for my needs

Here is a piston fully build ready to go into the engine

With the piston and rings all in place I decided that I would get them all built up and then using a piston ring compressor installed the pistons into the block

The lower half of the engine bearings were installed and then placed together

Then lastly for the day I decided to put the cylinder in place but it is not fitted as I will need to lift it off and apply the copper gasket correctly

Engine balanced

Recently all of the engine components took a trip to auto sprint for some balancing to ensure the best running and performance.

The parts sent were, pistons, con rods, lightened flywheel, sprung plate, crank, crank pulley

The results found that the difference between the lightest and heavyset con rod was 30g which is a huge difference consider they are stock and would have been fitted by BMW without any balancing. The clutch masters flywheel was also out of balance and was drilled to bring it back into balance.

The crank pulley was perfectly in balance as was the pistons.

On the picture you can see the drilled balancing on the flywheel and the grinding which has taken place on the crank and the sides / bottom of the con rods.

I hope to be able to clean everything and start building the engine very soon

Blue comes home

With the day job picking up and overspilling into the weekend I thought it wise to bring blue back home to enable me to get on with the work when I have some spare time.

With a few friends we struggled to pull the car onto the low loader and I loved the way the car looked just how I wanted on the back of the truck.

With the car home I set about sanding the roof, all I can say is this is going to take a while with a few hours here and there

I plan to get this work done as quick as I can so I can start thinking about more exciting jobs like paint and carbon fibre...

Engine tart up P1

After spending quite a lot of time cleaning the engine block I was able to mask it up and apply the first coat of engine enamel.

While the engine was drying I turned my attention to the alternator which I had stripped, cleaned and painted a few weeks ago, with several coats cured I rebuilt it

Convertible boot

Spent today out and about mostly, managed to spend a few hours in mini matts scrap yard finding bits for both my MG and the mini and also managed to collect from someone else 2 brand new front screens ready for cutting


Over the last few weeks I have been thinking about the boot I had made and the fact with the car slammed on the floor the boot hatch will only open to my chest which makes this almost useless so I was left with the decision to either weld shut the boot or find another way of making a boot.

I decided that I would look into the convertible boot as a fitting, I spent some time at the himley hall show looking at the metalwork, hinges fixinxg etc and also spent time talking with matt again. We both thought it could be done quite easily.

I cut the sections I needed from the back of a crash damaged mini and brought them back to the unit with me.

Firstly I spot welded the top section of the old tailgate in place and roughly chopped the bottom section off, I will be rebuilding so will need to trim it back further once I have the seal from the dealer.

I then removed the hinge brackets from the rear end I chopped out and welded them to the car, this was quite easy to locate and fix in place.This would have been even easier if the spot weld drill was not already blunted to start, maybe I should order some more...

Next I had to modify the strap and catch bracket as the rear of the convertible is a different shape, so after modification it was welded in and it works well. I spent quite a while moaning about the supports either side the they were too long, then I realised they were connected to each other so when I pulled the two cords together not surprising really they were the correct length.

New convertible boot fitted and I like it a lot, I am going to leave the top fixed I think though with me that could always change. Just have one more catch to weld in and its done

Thank you for reading