Lucky's Series 3

[Lucky]

Final part of the puzzle collected from the post gorillas today, amazingly un-shattered. Be just typical for them to survive thirty years undamaged on a car, be transported round the world from the Antipodes, then smashed to bits going 40 miles from London to Sussex by some utter monkey of a postman Cheers to Matty for sorting me out, and to James for very considerately selling his car before he had a chance to fit them





Need a bit of paint and a new multiplug and the jigsaw is complete. Now it just needs a bucket of Tender Blue thrown over it.

[ian65]

great score,

the best mirrors for a FB without a doubt. Make a real difference to the look of the car I reckon.

[Lucky]

Well, today was interesting! I got a chance, thanks to James (Multicoloured Arrow), to score a fairly rare CP Racing strut brace (to be fair, most strut braces seem pretty rare) so it was too good a chance to pass up. Big thanks to him for offering it to me, nice one dude. For those who dunno, one of them looks like this, as modelled by Dave's excellent TWiR;



Trouble was, James is in sarf lunnon, I'm in Sahsix, it's a silly bloody thing to courier and I can't collect it cos I'm stuck working like a dog driving cattle cars around Her Majesty's railways. Mostly through south London today as it happe...

hang on, I might have a plan here...

So James, solid fella that he is, agreed to plod up the road with it to Tulse Hill station, I gave him the times I'd be calling there and hey presto, the world's most expensive (and longest) delivery truck. Or a Class 319 electric multiple unit, as they're otherwise known. Thanks again to James for complying with what must have seemed a totally preposterous request! The downside was, I was now stuck with something almost the size of an RX-7 engine bay, made from tubular steel, and I still had about seven hours of my shift to go. Well, I figured, why not make it into a positive, as I sat staring at the cumbersome, unwieldy thing cluttering up my cab...



I daren't leave it in the messroom, even though I'd be on and off trains changing drivers at Blackfriars all afternoon. This is a depot where people have stolen the TV remote control, the batteries out of the TV remote, chairs, stationery, bog rolls (unused at least) and even the bloody shower plumbing! Some lightfingered scunner would have it away and weigh it in before I'd gone two stops down the line. So I had no choice but to cart it around with me, on and off trains... up and down escalators... outside for fag breaks... even at lunch.

I became quite fond of my constant companion, once I'd got the hang of carrying her over one shoulder so I didn't keep banging my shins of her, and you didn't notice the weight so much. In fact, I'd go so far as to say we bonded quite well. She's great company, curves in all the right places, doesn't speak out of turn, always happy with wherever you take her. I ended up with a little picture essay of our day out together...


....for example, here we are sharing a cigarette break by the Water Bearer statue with a lovely view over to the South Bank, the OXO tower and Waterloo with the Eye;


Here Trace the Brace is admiring the wonderful Imperial architecture of the Unilever Building on New Bridge Street, and the "Controlled Energy" statue of the restrained horses


Waiting for a train to relieve, this is the view down east with the Tate Modern bankside tower and the Shard behind, tallest inhabited building in Europe


here we are sharing lunch, wiltshire jambon et le gruyere avec tortilla, a sort of multinational croque monsieur. Only cold


Coming back from round the Sutton loop (again, no-one should have to visit Loughborough Junction four times in one day), the Dark Tower of Sauron's Barad Dur at Elephant and Castle


Another ciggie break, this time with wonderful views from the Mermaid Walk over to St Paul's Big Church


Finally waiting to drive one home to Brighton, view downriver to Tower Bridge and the glittering ivory towers of the elite classes out on the Isle of Dogs


And, at long last, home to a nice warm safe garage after a big exciting day out. Gahh! Wrong stud pattern!


Reckon I may be able to start one of those internet crazes, y'know, like planking or when people go and dance like tits in front of famous landmarks or something. I think I might need to use something a bit more portable and less cumbrous in future, though.

Coming soon, seeing if it actually fits the car...

[spoddy]

get a room you two

[KiwiDave]

What an exciting rail industry day you two had, Brings new meaning to the phrase 'bored stiff' or maybe 'bored rigid'..... I'll get my coat then


Anyways, it just has to fit now after all that.

[Lucky]

Bit of a worry for a while there, I Googled "CP Racing strut brace" and found exactly zero information about them or the company... what I did find was a load of threads on RX-7 Club from people saying "got a CP Racing strut brace and it doesn't fit at all, what can I do?". So for a couple of days I was cacking it wondering if I'd just bought a pup. Thankfully...



It only bloody fits! Thank god for that. I celebrated by getting in a quality eBaytastic rivnut tool so that we can even fasten the firewall bracing plates to the bulkhead as well. Since they're there, they may as well be functional. Plus, I've always wanted a rivnut tool so this was a perfect excuse, lol



The VIN plate will need relocating somewhere, but that's no big deal. Interestingly, mine is held on with little Phillips head screws, which seems a bit odd. Should it not be riveted on? The plastic trunky snout for the airbox might have to go as well, since the brace presses on it a bit and I don't want to put strain on the carb mounting. The brace is going to perform a dual function in the best motorsport tradition, but I won't go into detail on what the secondary function is in case it all goes tits-up and I look even more daft than usual. Preliminary investigations look promising though

[myatt1972]

My guess is the secondary function...........adding weight to slow you down

[Lucky]

Moar progress. Sadly, not quite enough progress, the car isn't going to be ready for the Retro Show on Sunday Which is a shame, but I'll just have to go in the FD, after all it's a stone-cold retro classic of the future . Would have been nice to debut the FB there but it's just not going to happen so no point getting all uptight about it. Anyway, as we apparently all like pics, some pics;

Starting with one specially for Ramo, lol... hint of things to come



The skirts always fit fairly well, though the driver's side was around half an inch too long. The rear bumper was a right pig, though. The wrap-round endpieces sat about an inch too wide for the car in total, and needed loads of re-profiling. It was almost as though the bumper had been cut open and widened, cos there was loads of filler and the grooves of the trimlines were all random and mullered. Looking rather betterer now



There was a huge bump and twist along the run of the top surface, too. Which is now straight and smooth



The only slight snag is that there was a moulded groove along the top edge of the bumper that was evidently intended to hook under the bottom of the car bodywork, but the amount of work needed to make the bumper the right shape for this to work was simply not realistic. The downside is that it does now stick out slightly farther than ideal. I'm hoping when the spoiler and lights are in place it'll not look quite so much of a reverse overbite



Looking a bit sad for itself just at the moment, but hopefully this is now the lowest point, all good stuff from now in



Plastics pretty much finally ready for paint now. We've kinda decided that so much of the car needs painting now we might as well spray the entire thing, especially since this means we can make good any bits of rust along the way



Last one for Rambonio



So, nearly there. Just not quite nearly enough.

[ian65]

you're certainly putting your stamp on this car Nik, can't wait to see the finished result......... 13 t2 engine next year?

[codge]

Glad everyone's got into the habit now, of placing their reg number in shot in the workshop for me. That's in case I get confused as to which car I'm looking at. Who can forget 'TMX' though.......it's seared deep into the brains of the earlier members on here. We never did go for those coffees that Don W. offered.


(Thanks Nik. Great work as always).