First up: The K-frame has been painted.
Here's how it looked after we removed the loose rust and hit it with a treatment of KBS Rustblast.
Tim getting stuck into the painting.
Check out the underside after it has been rustblasted. Awesome.
After the first coat.
The next day, I saw a sale on at Supercheap and thought this was as good chance to get a spray gun. I set up a DIY spray booth out of tarps and dust sheets and hit the K-frame with a second coat. It took about 5 minutes. Much better than the 30 mins it took to paint by hand the previous day.
Multipurpose ladder makes a good painting hanger.
K-frame back at home on the chassis. It looks better than ever. This KBS paint is pretty awesome stuff.
Here's how it looked a few months ago...
While Tim got stuck into the K-frame, Dad got stuck into the pedal box. We noticed the brake master cylinder has a VW logo on it. Yet another manufacturer in the mix :)
Renee and I got stuck into the control arms. We actually uncovered a 1981 build date on the upper control arms. Always good to know. These are now at Fulcrum getting new bushes pressed in.
We also uncovered the first Ford logo we have seen on this Ford replica. Haha
We're now starting to shift our attention to the engine. The parts are using lots of storage space and the block has been sat waiting for a few months now. First up, Dad and I gave the block a clean up and took some measurements to satisfy ourselves of the clearances.
Over lunch Dad and I jumped on to Summit Racing and ordered new parts. We've gone for a re-ring kit, carby reco kit, main cap bolts, oil pump, lifters and Summit 1104 cam. It has 282/282 duration, 0.465/0.465 lift and is supposed to have an operating range of 2000-5600rpm. Believe it or not, these parts came to a toal $380 delivered! Parts from the US are so cheap. The cam alone was $50! We're still trying to decide what to do with the heads. We're thinking of replacing them with aftermarket units.
After lunch, Dad cleaned up the sump (yet more cleaning) and gave it a coat of engine enamel.
I stripped paint off the springs in preparation for painting. The list of parts to clean is endless.
Old seats, make a useful place to sit when cleaning parts.
New seats have been ordered!
Tuesday night I caught up with Reinhold from Whitepointer Fibreglass to order some seat shells. The shells should look something like this, but without the shoulder supports. Reinhold suggested the shoulder supports would make it too hard to get in and out of the car. The shells have been tested to meet the current ADRs, so should be all good. I've seen a set of Reinhold's seats in a Clubman and they look fantastic once upholstered by a good upholsterer.
Reinhold is quite an interesting guy and has heaps of experience building Clubmans over the years. Here's a few pics of his Lotus 11 replica. It's been on the road for 10 years now and is solely used for enjoyment at the track and on the roads. I sat in the driver's seat and it was very tight. Please excuse the low iPhone pic quality.
Reinhold's next chassis has been under construction for 2 years. He gets to it every now and then when he feels like it (and when it's too wet to go driving). All part of the fun. It was interesting checking out the front suspension. It uses Cortina uprights, just like our GT40, but has custom made adjustable control arms. He's even using Cortina brakes, which he thinks are quite adequate for the light-weight Clubman.
The welder is fixed!
You may remember a couple of blogs back that I said my eBay-spec Rossi Stick welder blew-up. I was quite disappointed since it was 18 days out of warranty and AGR Machinery wanted nothing to do with it (buyer beware!). Anyway, during the week I had another look at the electronics and started chasing back the control circuitry. Low and behold, I discovered a diode that had blown in half. You can see it in the pic just to the left of the black heat sink. I managed to get a compatible one from Jaycar, soldered it in and we're back in action. I was quite surprised myself, I was expecting carnage somewhere else on the board, but that was it. I didn't bother to investigate what might have caused it to blow in the first place. Possibly all the angle grinder dust that was in there (I became very familiar with the angle grinder when I was learning to weld).
I'm not sure if this is a common fault, but for the benefit of anyone Googling this, the diode in question is a HER407. I used a UF4007 from Jaycar that is compatible. Beware that there are dangerous voltages inside and this work should only be done by a competent person.
So that brings us up to date. It feels like quite a bit has happened in the last few weeks. We're all enjoying it as usual :)
