My Type 54 to sort of 47 Conversion

[BDA]

She's coming along very nicely! More shop envy!

Keep it up!

 

[RoddyMac]

A bit of an update, the day finally came and the body is now blue.  Saturday morning this was how it looked:



And by the end of the day it looked like this (though the pic was taken this morning):



Today the freshly painted body was reunited with the chassis and rolled out into natural light.  It certainly photographs well, but it will need to be resprayed.  The paint didn't cover as well as I had hoped, so there are a few light spots.  I'm honestly not too concerned, the plan is to assemble everything as best I can, fit the doors, get it running etc, but leaving the windscreen and rear glass out (and interior) then wet sand when the weather gets a bit warmer (March/April) and re-spraying.  Here's a few pics:





I'm glad my helper suggested using the same blue as my old Eleven.  It certainly looks good on John C's car, and equally as good on my S2.

Rod

[jbcollier]

Congrats!  Looks beautiful.

They may both pretty on the outside but it's what's inside that counts.  There you have me cold!  If it is any consolation, I have to repaint mine as well.  Matter of fact, it has to be completely stripped as the prep work wasn't done properly.

In every life, a little rain must fall.

[BDA]

Roddy, I'll take your word for it that you need to respray it. It certainly doesn't show. Hopefully another coat will do it.

John, I'm sorry you're having to repaint your car! That's a huge job to do over!

[Bainford]

The Europa is beautiful. It's a shame about the need to repaint, but the colour is gorgeous.

[Rosco5000]

Rod. The car looks great in the photos. Even if you have to repaint it we can all see it is going to be fantastic.  The body looks nice and straight all those hours prepping sure are paying off.
Ross

[Chuck Nukem]

Damn straight!! Roddy it looks fantastic and when you get it finished up it is going to be a stunner!!

[RoddyMac]

It's been a while, thanks for all the compliments.  I haven't been able to get much done since painting, though I did put the car up on stands and removed all the suspension pieces to paint them.  The suspension was quickly put back on yesterday and today for one reason, snow. The garage the car is in is roughly 60 years old and isn't in the best of shape.  Dear old dad was over at the house where the garage is, and noticed that the snow on the roof was getting a little deep.  After doing some basic calculations it was decided that if the snow was to become saturated with water (rain), then the roof and garage might not hold.  The two of us went to the garage yesterday to try and remove the snow, but only the top 4 inches was still fluffy snow the other 10 inches had slightly melted and refroze so it was too time consuming to remove.  So, all the suspension was quickly bolted back onto the chassis (which should have only taken about an hour but I forgot three key pieces), and the car was rolled out onto the driveway.  I'm somewhat ashamed to have to store the car outside in the elements, but I'd rather have it there then potentially under a pile of rubble that was once a garage. 

Anyways, here's a few pics:








Rod

[Runningwild]

Looks fantastic. What shade of blue is that

[BDA]

I agree with your caution. Thankfully your car is pretty much a boat on wheels. Good luck with the snow and your garage!

[RoddyMac]

Looks fantastic. What shade of blue is that

It's Ford Midnight Regatta Blue from the mid 80's.  I quite like it, and my helper has decided that all my future cars should be painted the same colour. 

[Chuck Nukem]

Roddy that is gorgeous!! Congratulations!!

[Certified Lotus]

Too bad you live so far away. I'd let you store it in my garage for the winter. You've done a great job of restoration and fabrication so far. Can't wait to see it completed!

[RoddyMac]

I can now report that the car is back in the garage.  The snow has melted and the weather has warmed slightly.  But, I haven't gone back to the garage to do any work on the car itself.  I have, however, started on fabricating one of the seats.  The seats that came with the car were aftermarket and were nothing like the stock seats.  Luckily on the yahoo forum there is a 3d file for the seats which I've copied and played around with.  I made up a dummy seat out of 1/4" plywood to see if I actually fit in the car (I do which is quite a relief), then made some paper patters and transferred them to aluminium.  I had some left over .060" thick aluminium from making the gas tanks, which turned out was just enough to make one seat.  Unfortunately I left the actual seat drawing at work, so I couldn't finish weld the seat, but at least its a start:





I'm hoping to get the one finished up next weekend, along with modifying a set of seat tracks that I had left over from an Elan +2 that I restored 17 years ago.  I'll have to widen them slightly and trim some brackets on them, but I'm certain I can make them work.

Rod

[Rosco5000]

Looking good Rod!  I need to get going on my seat project.  I think I am going to stick with steel though.