Just the trailer and bonnet painting left really.
Trailer
The trailer I had is a converted caravan chassis with a strange body 6 ft long and 5.5 ft wide. It has brakes and a gross weight off 1000Kgs. Ideal for a trials car as that probably weighs less than 380kgs.
My car ( a Suzuki SX4) has an unbraked maximum towing weight of 400 kgs, so there is no way I could tow the car on an unbraked trailer. This one, having brakes, will be perfect. I just needed to get the load area longer.
Luckily the drawbar was a bit long and a try-out with the car showed that I could extend the front bed to accommodate the car and get a good nose weight of about 70 kgs.
So all that was needed was a bit of new steel adding to the front and some ramps. I put some front marker lamps on as well as my neighbour had just taken them off a trailer.
As I haven't altered the trailer chassis, it is still an old trailer so doesn't need testing.
The ramps are just some bits of wood with brackets on the end which engage in brackets on the trailer.
I did it like that to avoid the situation in which you are halfway up the ramp and it cockles over. You've all been there. These can't do that. And they can accommodate different heights of the ground (they hinge a bit).
The bonnet
The bonnet started off blue with yellow stars. Well it didn't. It was black when Mike Salton had the car and seems to have been white at some point. A right mix.
Rubbing it down showed all sorts of holes and stuff, so after mending the holes and re-enforcing the bendy bits, plus bonding some blocks inside to sit on the chassis frame,
I rubbed it as smooth as I could.
A ghost coat of primer showed it was going to react with everything, so I gave it a coat of Barcoat isolator and some more primer.
Then I put on a black metallic. It wasn't supposed to be metallic, but that was what was in the tin when I opened it.
Then I put on the clearcoat and hoped for the best.
It came out with a lovely gun finish, mainly. However my working area is a bit messy and the air being blown about meant I got some bits in the finish. I'm just at the do-I-compound-it or rub-down-and-re-clearcoat-it stage.
What looks like bumpiness in the highlight is actually a reflection of my garage ceiling
That's where I stand at the moment.
My To-Do list still has:-
- Side panels
- Paint spare wheel
- Engine breather can
- Compound
- bonnet clips (re-fit)
Which isn't a great deal. I may get to the summer trial at Hartside. I'm still on T-Tracs, but I'm not bothered about points, so that doesn't matter.
The only dubious point is a knee operation in the family coming up, so that would take priority.
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