Lucky's Series 3

[Lucky]

I've only had the car eight months That means another two years four months before I have to bother

....yeah, thanks for the heads-up Dave. I plan on doing just that when I swap the flexi hoses over. Cos I'll, like, have to anyway

[Lucky]

Well, having had no time or money that hasn't been spent on various shows and that over the last few months means progress is slow. Still, winter is traditionally the time to start pulling cars to bits and changing stuff anyway. Howwever, we do have a briefy brief update moment...


Bought this;


wedged it into this;


sanded it like this;


turned it into this;



Gahhh! Hoping it'll look rather better than that when it's finished lol! To be fair, this was necessary; I guess thirty year old Elford gelcoat has an excuse for going brittle and there's no point in just painting over the myriad of cracks and waiting for them to come back through.

Finished for Japshow? Well, probably not lol

[DB RX63]

Hi,

My old S2 had an Elford front and rear spoiler, (as does my Elford !) it was forever getting knocked and they flex like hell, so whilst you have it off the car it would be well worth strengthening up the inside of the lower lip, they are fairly fragile and it would help if you laid a few layers of fibreglass and mesh on it before you fit it.

DB

[ian65]

Good advice Derek..... I reckon every Elford front spoiler gets knocked at some time or other. POR15 can be used to repair fibreglass and also for laying on and bonding glass fibre mats and is easier to use than resin..... plus it sets as hard as f*** overnight.
Good work on that spoiler Nik, there were a few layers of paint on it!

[DB RX63]

Hi Ian,

Interesting to know that about POR15 mate, thanks for the tip !

Derek

[Lucky]

And this just in....

Maybe the reason it had so many layers of paint is that it rather seems to have been butchered at some point in the past. Had to cut a load out of one corner and narrow it because there was a two-inch gap between the bumper and the wing at the trailing edge. Now the lip that should fit in the bottom of the nose panel disappears underneath at one end to the tune of 15mm difference one end to the other.

This end is the end where it goes in


and this is the end where it sticks out. Also you can see the extensive work narrowing it, just at the offside end of the sidelight aperture


And no, it's not just a case of the bumper being on crooked, cos it isn't. If you look from the front it's all OK, flat and level. It's like someone's crashed the car and then repaired the bumper to fit but the car wasn't straight or something so now it's well out


Oh well, nothing ever fits just like that, but this is distinctly far from what I'd been led to believe from Elford's legendary build quality. You're seeing this after a good amount of work, believe me it was properly bad before. It wasn't a bit out, it was like it was for a completely different car. It's annoying only in as much as it's gonna cost me a lot more money to put right than I'd have wanted to spend, and it means the car won't be ready for Japshow. Have to go in the plastic car. Still, there's potential in there, it looks like it might perhaps look half-decent when it's done.

[Marc S]

keep up the hard work mate, it'll all come good in the end

[ian65]

could you see from the inside where it had been altered Nik cause I didn't notice anything, I don't think Lachie did either.
This is the car it originally came off, Alex broke it and the engine is in NZ in his Viva......



Sorry mate, I feel guilty now even though it looked fine to me.
On the plus side, it going to look the absolute bollocks once it's finished and painted..... stick with it.

[Lucky]

Nahhh, don't be daft, Ian, no reason anyone would suggest you should have been aware of it. After all, who'd expect a bumper to be two inches wider than the car It's just sod's law and about the way my luck runs is all

It's very odd, though. Like I said, we're not talking about fibreglass that's warped a bit from being stored at a funny angle or a bit bent in where the car's had a knock or whatever, we're talking about it having been deliberately modified to... errr, not fit You'd only really notice the fibreglassing alterations if you were looking for them, cos age and grime hides them and you have to look at the inside anyway. Once you know it's there it's clear where the fibreglass matting used is different to the original and such like.


The solution J came up with is a bit drastic but basically it involves cutting the trailing edge off where it lips around into the wheelarch, putting in a fillet of about an inch and then glass it all back together. It'd be easier just to lose the lip entirely and thus slide the whole bumper forwards, but we decided to fasten into the wheelarch rather than the face of the wing like it did originally for the neatness of it, so this is the only way. It's all bolted up to the frame, too, none of that weird No More Nails mastic stuff that glued it on originally, cos ...well, gluing your bumper cover on is a bit of a pikey way to do it and makes it really hard to ever get it off again.

It's a lot more work than we expected, but it'll be well worth it in the long run. On the upside, I've got a spare switch in the console where the aerial errm, isn't, so it'll be easy to wire up the fogs

[ian65]

I've had 3 of these Elford front bumpers through my hands, 2 of which I've stripped off the cars myself and all 3 had silicon across the top edge bonding them to the nose panel....... I think that's how they put them on at Elfords..... unless anyone knows differently.... I'd be interested to know for sure. One things for certain, it makes them bloody difficult to get off.
If that silver Elford donor was 2 inches out at the offside front, it must have been a right peculiar shape.