355 replies to this topic

[JXC Mini GT]

Great work as always Ben, hopefully I will get to see it in the flesh when I pop over in 9 days time.

[Ben_O]

Great work as always Ben, hopefully I will get to see it in the flesh when I pop over in 9 days time.

Cheers John.

Be good to see you again.

[Ben_O]

Bringing us up to date now, I have prepped and primed the inside of the cab.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next time will be the load bed

 

Cheers

Ben

[Junior Mini]

Brilliant job as always Ben, looks better than new 

Just a quick question, why a black primer? I thought they were only for reflective ground coats or have i got it all wrong as usual? 

 

Thanks 

 

Paul.

[Ben_O]

I have chosen the black primer as the car is being painted a fairly dark colour so this will be a better base.

 

Cheers

Ben

[Ben_O]

Huge apologies for the delay in updates once again.

we are currently in the process of taking on new staff, installing a class VII mot bay as well as lots of changes to the site so everything is up in the air. That combined with so much work I could do with a second or even third pair of hands has made things quite tricky.

 

Anyway, prep has been continuing and it's getting much closer to paint time.

 

I have been working on the cab. Obviously mostly new panels making the majority of it straightforward but the roof was in quite a state. What looks like an aerial hole right in the centre of the roof has previously been welded up hastily which has distorted the roof skin.

All of the other prep has been smoothing out panel joins and sorting the finer details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the previously reported problems with this car was that the windscreen fitted poorly. I was confident that I had done everything necessary to rectify this but it doesn't hurt to pop in a spare windscreen at this point just to make sure

 

 

 

 

 

Happy with that, I wiped it down and applied primer to the cab

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers

Ben

[KTS]

cheers Ben, that's looking very nice; a roof as smooth as a babies whatsit and perfectly fitting windscreen,  great work.

 

i guess it's better to have too much work than not enough, but when are you ever going to get a chance to do the pink one ?!?!

[Ben_O]

cheers Ben, that's looking very nice; a roof as smooth as a babies whatsit and perfectly fitting windscreen,  great work.

 

i guess it's better to have too much work than not enough, but when are you ever going to get a chance to do the pink one ?!?!

Thanks Pat.

The pink one is well and truly on the back burner. the plan was always to delegate one day per week to that and it started off well but the work is just streaming in faster than i can keep up so that's not going to change for at least this year, perhaps into next year too.

Oh well, its in the dry tucked in the corner and will be completed eventually and then I can start doing shows again!

can't wait to get out there in SAM and start meeting some of you fine folk :)

 

Cheers

Ben

[Ben_O]

I have now spent a few days on prepping the load bed and side panels.

 

The floor was very solid and in great structural condition however the pressings in the floor, particularly the raised ones were very bent and twisted.

It has been a slog but I have managed to get them as straight as I can. Although not 100% perfect, I can't see how to improve things further without a thick layer of filler which would look good until you put something on it and it would most probably crack.

Replacing the floor was an option we discussed but it was in otherwise good condition so repairing it was the decided option.

 

To get it looking as best as possible, I gave the whole floor a fine skim of lightweight glaze just to take out the small lumps and bumps. A metal finish would have been preferable but the labour to do that would far exceed the replacement cost and the steel had work hardened from being so stretched that it wasn't really an option.

 

As it is, it looks ok and we are going to raptor line it so should all be good!

 

 

The side panels on the whole felt very good but there was something going on with the drivers side one that I couldn't quite put my finger on. It just didn't feel quite right.

I ran over it with the body file which improved it but it still felt very slightly uneven.

I ended up giving the area a skim of the glaze and that's taken care of it.

 

 

And then a little to tidy up the corner post joins which were very slightly rounded at the join which i didn't like.. A common issue with the m-machine posts so I have heard.

 

 

 

Almost there!

 

Ben

[KTS]

Thanks Ben - that's looking great. I imagine you don't want to see another load bed for a while...

[Ben_O]

Thanks Ben - that's looking great. I imagine you don't want to see another load bed for a while...

No problem.

I wouldn't mind if I didn't have to do another, put it that way.

Ill get it all in primer and then we can discuss underbody coatings and the positions of the tie down points.

Hopefully that will be tomorrow if i can get out of helping with floor painting in the other workshop...

 

Cheers

Ben

[minimissions]

This has come so far really enjoyed seeing this come along

[Ben_O]

The whole thing is now in primer!

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry about the dirty camera lens.

 

Cheers

Ben

[KTS]

that's looking really good Ben - the work you've put into the load bed really shows 

 

looks like you straightened out the rear bumper flanges for me as well ?

[Ben_O]

that's looking really good Ben - the work you've put into the load bed really shows 

 

looks like you straightened out the rear bumper flanges for me as well ?

Yeah, the load bed is looking a whole lot better. As I said before, it's not perfect but is about as good as we could hope to get.

 

I did straighten out the bumper flanges :)