Well, I did finally get around to taking the car off the trailer and setting about it. I must admit to a certain feeling of tedium about this. I’ve fixed bodywork far too often and every time I do it the thing gets heavier. What’s more, whenever I do do it I’m reminded of the quite appalling standard of the bodywork.
In this photo (don’t worry, I pulled the lights into that position) all those white bits are basically unconsolidated CSM under great chunks of completely unnecessary gelcoat. Oh well, at least as I’m fixing it I’ll get a chance to get some resin on it.
What I did do was essentially repeat the repairs that I did in the Cadwell Park paddock, although hopefully I made a better job of it this time.
I actually ground off quite a lot of the matting at we added then, as it was done in rather a rush, and made siure that the outside of the bodywork was more nearly correct than we managed in the paddock. (I was helped in this by having an angle grinder; you can tell what I think of the Fisher bodywork if I don’t worry about taking an angle grinder to it. 🙂 )
Once I’d made things fit slightly better I put some more glass/carbon weave on the inside held in place with yet more polyester resin. It was going off rather better than the stuff I was using in the paddock though. I think that that was getting a bit long in the tooth. Here’s a photo of the new rovings in place (there’s about the same again in the bits that you can’t see.) With luck when I get back to this in the morning things will have stiffened up a bit as a consequence of all this. The biggest job, though, is going to be making the outside look presentable. To be honest I’ve got precious little enthusiasm for a weekend of rubbing down and applying filler. I may just go for the Chapman roughened surface effect.
I’m also going to have to do something about the undertray. It can really only be described as “crumpled” at the moment. I hope I can get it close enough to what I want with a big hammer. Again, I don’t really want to be making a new one.