19?? chrysler sunbeam no 2 (+½ )

WOW updates

I hadnt seen this since there was a gap in your postings Mel.

Just looked back the start to refresh my memory and the distance youve come with it is amazing. keep up the good work, wish I had your skills, I'm panicing about the rust on the daily driver and its not even a scratch compared to this!

Just for you Mel.....

Good work mate as always.

it looks just like a sunbeam only a long way away [/quote]
Yeah I altered my photobucket because the imp club site only accepts tiny pics,will alter it back because I post more on here than there.

Gaffer tape template is inspired, I'm stealing that idea!

That looks like the old "what the hell have Haynes been writing about now? It's certainly not a Mustang" pose. ;D

Great to see some progress, Mel - long may it continue. Hope the family fleet goes well too.

Thanks to all who nominated/voted for the sunbeam in the category of 'slowest build' most anticipated car of 2013

I was very surprised to get so many votes considering the lack of progress on my part. hopefully i can get a bit more done before voting starts for 2014

excuses for lack of progress this month include:

fuel tank replacement on my bosses sons siececento (sp? i can still taste fuel )

mot on the megane of despair - same advisories as last year and a bit of throttle massaging from the mot man to scrape the rough running engine through emissions

mot on swmbo's mundano - wiper blades, major leak of exhaust gases(less sympathetic mot station with added exhaust centre 'would you like us to repair it?'- was just a pinhole fixed with smear of jollop) and the balljoint boots on ebays finest arb droplinks fitted for the last mot had all disintegrated (new delphi droplinks fitted)

also collected potential engine donor g/f's new daily merc kompressor from allllec @rr

retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=bugmot&action=display&thread=142397

there are only so many excuses i can make, so eventually i had to do a bit

rubbed down the ruined vactan and threw on a coat of rustoleum gloss white





next job is the missing bit of inner a pillar



marked out roughly to meet the 'detail' in the pressing.



of course i was very careful to dress the repair piece the right way

disgusted with myself i stropped over to the other bench to put the camera on charge while i had a consolatory coffee.

i then tested a cupful of vactan on a leather sample piece (and my welder )



after i had calmed myself, i reworked the patch



and blebbed it in



also replaced the missing flange on the floorpan.



fairly rough looking mostly due to having to bend double to get in position and being unable to see what i was doing. also I am just a bit rubbish

some zinc on it for now, i will tidy it up when i have a mass grinding session.


next on the list was to re-attach the rear panel where it meets the boot floor, it looked like the mig welds from the factory had not taken

factory look replicated succesfully ;D





all that was left to do today was to cross some things of the list



total time spent 384 hours (not including all the other vehicles)

total spend £2750 (not including all the other vehicles)

friday@work seemed to mostly consist of a protracted debate about people (schoolteachers-mostly-sorry paul :-) ) using a dusting of snow as an excuse for taking a duvet day

having made the effort to go to work and drink coffee in -11 temps, my boss decided we should all go home early ;D

as 'girly night' was scheduled at my house that evening i had already planned on a bit of quality time with my beloved sunbeam and an early start was a bonus


I had a bit of a slow start as i couldn't find my caulking gun - it was laying around it plain sight, i had seen it earlier

after 45! minutes of tossing around i went and borrowed a mastic gun and actually made a start on fitting the roof support back.

apart from it being a bit chilly , the first obstacle i encountered was that the strengthener was suddenly about 10mm too narrow

my best guess is that the top of the car has spread a little since the bar was removed.

brute force seemed to be the answer so a ratchet strap was employed to pull in the top of the car

a large quantity of PU adhesive was squirted on the top of the strengthener and it was held in place with a couple of carefully hammered in wooden chocks.





i then welded the ends in.

lots of fire, and the rustoleum seems very soft



lefthand weld here is a ugly slug to bridge the gap which i will tidy up later - honest




ratchet strap off with a huge clang as it was undone






next was the grinding bonanza i have been putting off for at least a month

sorry no really interesting pics to show what 2 hours of grinding and power filing achieved





my 5yr old daughter who has been fully indoctrinated into the omgsnochaos mentality, phoned me to tell me how concerned she was for my safety - 'come home now in case you get trapped with nothing to eat or drink'


with kettle being frozen and no spare water i decided to follow her advice




a couple more things struck off the list



total time spent 388 hours (including 'but i just saw it 5 minutes ago ' )

total spend £2750 (no heating budget )

Looking at that list it seems to boil down to bung holes, rub down, apply paint. So, MoT next week then?

I'll give you that, you have tried ;D