Lucky's Series 3

[Casey]

I tried pushing them out with suitable sized sockets - no chance! Tried drilling them out, but found it didn't work very well and left huge amounts of rubber still attached, which needed to be burned out anyway, so decided to go with the blowtorch. It was the messiest method, but the quickest and left the best internal finish.

[mc turbo]

So, we've now got to today when it all came together, the last coats of lacquer on the centre caps, the wiring finished, the spoiler painted, the wheels built up at last, the arcade button arrived in the post, and the final touch, more Purple Panda decal righteousness. So you'd like to see what the end result of my bodging it all together today is, then?

OK











That foglight in full effect;




And the money shot. Pete's Rotary Engine sticker right where a filthy Datsun badge used to live .


I think when I get the lowering springs on it'll be exactly how I wanted it to look. And I'll be happy. Now, I'm shattered and I'm off to watch the footie. Thanks for reading.

HI NIK IS THIS DUCKTAIL SPOILER FOR SALE??? CHEERS MICK

[Lucky]

Sorry, Mick, I missed this post^^ replied to your PM though

Annoyingly, it looks more and more like the car might not be making it to the Gathering J promised he'd do his best, but I'm not sure if I really fancy trying to run it in on the M40 though On a positive note, I visited today and the bumper will probably end up better than it was before the crash, which is nice. Also got to see the porting which looks immense and ought to make some thrust when it's all up together. Another bonus is that the guys borrowed my carb to check the running on Ralph the RX-4 and that looks to work nicely too. So it's getting there. Just not as quickly as we'd hoped.

Still, gives me a chance to waste time and money clearing out eBAy of shiny things. Exhibit A for the defence arrived today after a long haul by road, air and more road;



Bit of a worry freighting something so fragile all the way from the US but hopefully it'll prove worth the risk. Looks to be well made, got some lovely tig work round the seams and fixtures. Hopefully they're all weld and no pinholes!





Took three weeks to arrive and including Parcel Forces tax rape cut of £28 it came to almost exactly £200 landed which I don't think is too awful. Also, not actually shiny but too good to ignore;



May not work, may look terrible but since deleting the centre valance on the Kuwe bumper it's always looked like there's something missing. Hopefully this li'l diffuser will cure that without making it look like it's short one exhaust pipe like the Kuwe valance did. Maybe not. Also, the quest for the correct centre cap style continues, after about eight different attempts to get the right look. Hopefully these will help...



And at least I can bring myself to post some progress pics on the car now without breaking teeth grinding them together in fury at the havoc wreaked by the young Corsa fool! Adam's wing on and prepped and early stage repairs to the bumper;







And a genuine old skool British artisan at work, lol



Oil cooler's on much more straighter than last time you all saw it, too




and not strictly car-related but thought you guys would like these... my perversion for "why buy shiny new tools when you can buy patinated righteous old tools" continues. Boston (USA)- made side cutters are the most beautifully baroque tool I've ever seen and cost less than £15 delivered. Work pretty well, too, thogh I'm tempted to mount them on the wall in the lounge and gaze at them

[mc turbo]

hi m8 im glad ur cars on the mend & can u tell us if ur new rad is anygood as soon as u get it on ur car as I was thinking of buying the same rad for mine! cheers

[ian65]

it will be a shame if your car can't make it to the gathering Nik but looking at the bigger picture, it's going to be awesome when all back together and after the efforts of the Corsa chav, things could have been so much worse.... you bringing the FD if this car isn't ready?

[Lucky]

Yeah, I'll be in the FD! As MR TOOL pointed out, only I would have a back-up vehicle more unreliable than my first choice I'll just have to blag it past their 1991 cut-off date. They do say you can usually get a bit of leeway if it's at least an interesting car, which hopefully the FD counts as

[Hobbawobba]

Radiator seems quite nice aye bro. It's a shame you most likely wont be bringing the FB to RR, but at least you're still coming over in a 7 ! Haha.

Those cutters

[Lucky]

[Hobbawobba]

I hate your teasing, Nik! I like these filter things you're doing to your pictures lately though

[Lucky]

Soz

Yeah, I quite enjoy a bit of post-production malarkey on photos. So long is it's not too much or too many, one every so often is cool. I try to put a few in my show threads purely because I once got a PM from someone asking me to stop doing it because when they looked at a show report thread, they wanted to see the cars clearly, not have to look at how clever I thought I was. Ever since then I've tried to keep up with the post-prod just to make sure it pisses them off

Anyhoo, I tend to use a couple of free online editors; Fotor http://www.fotor.com/ and BeFunky http://www.befunky.com/ (which I find the best despite the awful name!). For tilt-shifting, the appropriately-named TiltShift Maker http://tiltshiftmaker.com/ is the daddy

Oh, and one more thing...



Soooooooon