Lotus Elan, range rover, TR7, Streetka, mx5, minor,

Bit more on the TR, although there were no holes like on the drivers side the seam between the wing and lower front panel was swoen on the passeger side so I decided to cut that out and seam weld a piece in as well, there was also some slight accident damage.
So the slide hammer was deplyed to knock it straight and the new picec welded in, not the pretiest but strong enough.

Areas with surface rust were then given a coat  of converter.






After this i continued with the prep of the spoiler,  a few spots of filler and further rubbing down has got me to  a point I am pretty happy with.





Next step is to fit the spoiler, PU adhesive is great for this sort of thing where you are joining very different materials so I will be using that, then it will be another coat of primer and hopefully topcoated over the weekend.

Took the TR bumper off, good news is the  body was fine, bad news is I forgot it weighs around 20kg and dropped it breaking one of the end caps which will cost £50 to replace, at least you can get them.




I did save some money though, one of the rear lights had the studs pulled out of the lens, but I managed to find a spare in the loft.



It's Currently in the dishwasher


Finally need to repair the beam, the lip the skin slides under has rusted away, I might even go mad and cut a load of lightening holes in it, it is simply massive being about 3mm thick.


Also managed to turn the large depression in the rear panel into a series of much smaller ones which should only need a light skim of filler, plan is to seal the panel with epoxy primer prior to filling though.

Lights after the dishwasher, they have come up like new.

Thanks for the feedback, just managed to buy a complete new bumper for £30 it doesn't look as rusty as mine either, only problem is I need to drive to king's Lynn to collect it, Fortunately I can still get a van from work so will go up weekend after next.

I'm thinking of getting a new hole saw and cutting loads of large holes in each of the beams should be able to keep most of the strength but aim to reduce the weight by around 50%

I also started it up yesterday as I had robbed most of the ignition system and re-fitted it when the minor broke down, after sitting there for about 3 months it started on what must have been the first compression, and unlike the range rover on 80's Lucas efi, idled perfectly when cold as well (it has SU's). I'm thinking of trying a potentimeter in the temperature signal on the Range rover to give me something like a choke function, it starts fine, is fine  after it's done about a  mile from cold but in between it is clearly much too rich. I understand the fueling on them is analogue and determined by a combination of resistances in the ecm, I might even try replacing the  resistors and capacitors on the spare (faulty) ECM I have to see if that makes a difference.

That Diet Coke is good for cleaning stains off of concrete, BTW.

Nice work,
John

Today, I did a few odd jobs on the range rover, firstly replaced the oil pressure switch, pretty obvious why it didn't work, the top was smashes off, most Likely I caught it when changing the steering box. Next up was to fit a lumbar cusion to the drivers seat, I bought a blow up cussion ages ago for a couple of pounds, took the back off the seat, released a couple of springs then slid it behind the wire frame.




After this I also put a piece of leather between the cusion and the wire frame fir protection, put the back on and it works a treat.

Finaly I polished the bonnet, at christmass I replaced the back 3 inches of the centre due to rust, it was too cold to paint really and I used it too thickly to blend in properly, so it looked like this.





There was though plenty of paint on it, so half an hour of various grades of wet and dry then G3 on the polisher got me this.




If you know where too look you can still see the join as the colour didn't quite match but It certainly looks better than it did with the rust.

Finaly I did a bit more filling and priming on the TR, hopefully as it's warming up a bit I should be able to get the colour on this weekend.

Thanks, nice to hear people enjoy reading my ramblings, working from home is a mixed blessing you can' really get stuck into any major or dirty jobs but things like painting where you can do half an hour here or there when I would normaly take a break work well, plan is topcoats today, want to get it more or less done as a truckload of timber is arriving friday for garden projects, the ramp makes a superb workbench for long timbers.

Oh, that must have been a little blow to the system after all that effort. But as you say, can be fixed...

Spent most of the last few days building a pagola in the garden for plants to grow over, we appear to have run out of spacecat groind level!

Finished that this morning so I re-painted the TR.







Still not a perfect match so I blended it over the door and I'm re painting the bonnet next anyway. Decent paint went on much better and no flecks this time, I can start putting it back together now.


I,ve also been trying to improve the awful finish on the minor roof, I painted it in a rush up against a wall and it shows. So I've been filling in the deeper marks with a brush, flatting it back to a level surface and airbrushing any thin areas, not finished yet but it's looking promisimg.

I've slso been driving the Range Rover with the new oil pressure switch and now when its hot the warning light comes on at Idle!

I doesent come on at the 850rpm idle but does in drive which pulls it down to around 550rpm, no knocks, rumbles or clackety lifters so I don't think there is much wrong. Might try tge TR switch or even go madcand change the oil(wonder if there may be fuel dilution from a leaky injector)


Finaly i got this out for the first time since February. Supringly it started straight up everything works and even the tyres were still pumped up.





Just need to repair the bootlid but might actually finish one of the others.

A couple of steps forward and one back.

Polished up the minor roof.






It started out looking like 120 grit, with loads of marks and scratches in it, I've use a combination of a brush to touch them in and an air brush to cover thin areas, nowhere near perfect but also massively improved.

Then I started on the TR,  polished up the rear and put the lights and number plate on.






Then started on the front, polished up the new paint, finish is pretty good.







Still not a great colour match to the wing but if you look closely the door is bluer near the rear where it's been blended into the wing already, I think its primarily the door wjich is the problem,  I might end up painting the door eventually.



After this i decided to look at the blisters on the front panel.






Dug one out and its some sort of reaction where it has been filled not rust so I set to it with the DA.






Followed by some epoxy primer.







This is where it went wrong, it didn't seem to be curing, then i realised why, I'd forgotten the hardener, wiped it all off with thinners which in turn pickled a few areas of the underlying paint, so I've left it to dry out and will set too it with the DA again.

Finaly picked up the new rear bumper today, much better than mine, still a fair bit of surface rust but no holes and the plastics are in perfect condition.