We rewind to October 2011, and Jamie is starting the Saph’s prep work with the hope of getting it in some primer.
With the headlight issue solved(ish), I decided to see what state the rest of the bodywork was in. I won’t lie, this was mainly due to a lack of funds, and as a bit of sandpaper and some elbow grease costs nothing it meant I could at least get something done so progress isn’t held up too much. But then the more I got in to it, the more it made sense. Yes I was planning to mock up the fuel system before I pulled the engine out for prep work to begin, but actually thinking about it the fuel lines aren’t that difficult to install, and there’s only one place they can go anyway, so it’s not like trying to plumb in the boost and water systems where everything needed to be carefully routed.
Instead I simply need to get fuel from the tank to the fuel rails, there’s no in between. Therefore it actually made sense to pull the engine back out (which I can now start to inspect and begin making a shopping list for) and crack on with preparing the shell for a coat of primer. This would serve a couple of purposes. Firstly, it’s a job that needs to be done regardless, and it’s much more habitable to be rubbing down paintwork in the warm and dry than it is in the dark, damp depths of winter, and it would also allow me to closely assess the condition of the bodywork.
Now I’m not one for immaculate finishes and this car is in no way going to be about how it looks (I mean just look at the thing!), but any major dents and dings would really let the car down. I don’t want a flawless finish – at the end of day the its primarily a track car and I know full well it’s going to get scuffed about – but massive dents and scrapes to start with will just distract from all the other hard work I’ve put in under the bonnet.
So armed with a load of sanding pads for the DA after a trip to the local DIY store, I started attacking the paintwork to rough it up and give a nice key for the primer which will follow. But with 20 years of wear and tear that wasn’t an easy task. The majority of the car was OK just to rough up, although there were a few trickier bits that took a bit more time to rectify, such as all the sticker foam left behind from the door strips and so on.
But by far the worst bit was the bonnet. The lacquer had been peeling off meaning I couldn’t just rub down the loose stuff and hope for the best, instead I needed to get underneath all that and get to the paint that still adhered to the metalwork. With that done I was able to get some etch primer on the bonnet to give the high-build primer something to grab hold of. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that there were only a couple of dents, the rest of the car was actually pretty straight. A quick skim of filler later and the car is now almost ready for some primer.
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