Xbolx tat blog, Jan 2016 'FLEET UPDATE'

[xbo11ox]

OK lets have a quick update,

Last time I was almost ready to bosh the wing on, except that the bumper bracket needed replacing, i chopped off the old one (drilled out the spot welds)



on went the new one:


Also slathered a bit of red oxing inside the wing:


then it was time for a trial fit:


Incidentally the previous lot of pics were all in a nonsense order, the oabove one shows the wing after i'd attempted to get rid of the snotty joint near the front edge.

Looked OK anyway.
gap down the passenger side was a bit big, although even:


on the drivers side it was a bit small, though even:


Th bonnets got no catches on at the moment so i was never gonna get it perfectly lined up, that seemed OK at this stage.

All clamped up:



rather than drill and spot weld it, I just 'notched' the inner wing and welded it on at the notches. The joint is covered by a rubber trim, so i'll have to grind it down a bit, but then the joint is covered up.


did loads oof little tiny welds to try and keep the distortion down:


welded down the front edge, lots of grinding needed here:


Anyway then it was on! i ground it all down but forgot to take any pictures of that bit. Then I bare metalled it:


Next I reached for the wob:


I read about this 'Novol' wob on Ratdat's page ages ago:

www.ratdat.com/?p=299

It never occurred to me that some fillers were bettter than others, i just assumed they were all ther same. So whn i read this i decided I ought to try something better than the usual motor factor offering. It took a while to track this stuff down, but eventually I found a company that sold it and bought the above big tin for £30 delivered, so not hugely expensive. The company that sells it did not even have a website, so if anyone wants to buy some, PM me and i'll get their details (its on my works computer!)

Anyway it is nice stuff to use alright, super smooth consistency and seems to be less prone to clagging up your sandpaper which is great news for skinflints like me who like to carry on uising a bit of W+D till its completely devoid of any abrasive properties at all.

Wob layer 1:


layer 2:


Incredibly, I can now say that one side of this thing is now completely welded up!!! The other side is rustier on the chassis leg, but at least I have a proper sill for that side, swings and roundabouts etc. Next job is to free off the sticky brakes so I can push it out the garage, have a wash down and tidy up indoors, and bring it back in backwards so i can get ON THE CASE with the L/H inner wing and chassis leg.

Cheers!

PS. The P100 completed 1500 miles in a week, (about 20% overloaded on the out bound run) ran perfectly throughout and averaged 40mpg, now I am commuting 100 miles/day in it! WEAPON.

[barrett]

Quality! You're really blazing through this one at a rate of knots, I hope you know how much your eager fanbase appreciates that.
I give this 65/10 for effort at least. Lovely stuff.

Have you decided what you're going to do with the paintwork on this? I reckon it deserves some professional attention to get it looking mint, though the sadist in me is looking forward to seeing you struggle to blend in the tricky metallic paint with your little compressor jobbie.

[xbo11ox]

Yeah i'm defo going to have to pay someone to paint this for me, i'll make a right turkeys ar$e of it if I try and do the whole car with that electric spray gun I reckon. I will strip it down though and I was debating whether to bare metal both sides completely and bosh a coat of primer on it before handing it over..

[barrett]

Are you planning to do the whole thing then? From the pictures it looks like you could get away with leaving the doors/roof/rear wings as they are and getting someone to do the sills and everything forward of the A pillars, hopefully if you get the paint mix right they should be able to blend it in pretty successfully.
Either way I'd deffo try and do as much prep work you possibly can yourself, I seem to remember when you had your Subaru done you managed to knock about 50% off the price just by doing all the schleppy work yourself and just letting the pro to do the final colour coats.

[hairnet]

plums does not have a tv - PHAKT
plums has the patience of a saint - PHAKT

i want to be talented like you.............

keep it up

[xbo11ox]

Got a TV now!!!! thats partially why progress on these old heaps is much slower than it was 2 years ago

[Deleted]

I have a tv, but I much prefer Channel Bo11ox to any of the offerings shown live.

That filler looks almost like high quality modelling putty rather than bodyfiller, does it come in smaller quantities?

[Deleted]

How satisfiying is that when you can say one side is done ;D, l'm still doing the marathon welding up .
Did find a supplier for that filler on line www.gavbiz.co.uk/ they are in london if anyone needs it also loads of other stuff ;D

[danblez]

Top work as ever Mr B. This is going to be spectacluar when it's done!

How hard is it getting panel gaps sorted? If there is one thing that gets my goat it's when a car appears to be fully restored with uneven panel gaps. Do some people not notice this or is it nigh on impossible to get right sometimes?

[xbo11ox]

That Gavbiz website is dead and none of the phone numbers on it work, the company I got the filler from is called ‘radical Supplies’ and their phone number is 0203 405 3230, I dealt with a chap there called Dan Cox.

[Seth]

Excellent progress Dick_Boll. Many camels/10

[Deleted]

Odd that about Gavbiz, just set up account and put in an order, got UPS tacking number, hope it comes now l'll let you know.

[xbo11ox]

Fair enough, i tried a few times to buy off there but gave up as it would never display properly, it was a few weeks back like so who knows! Let us know how you get on.

[75nut]

Nearly missed this update! Nice work, looking good! Going to be a great motor

[wheeler]

Great job, and quick too - just one question

isn't the filler supposed to go on after primer? Or is this some kind that doesn't require that order?

[trigger]

No, You always fill before priming.

Great work as always Bol.

[xbo11ox]

Yo!!!!1 A small and uninteresting update is now available.

So last time i had one side fully welded up!! i chucked some primer on, but it didnt stick very well, think i need some etch primer really so I will 'revisit' that later. Anyway now it was time to turn the Maser round and attack the other side!! unfortunately preventing that was the affliction that all italian cars get if they sit still for more than a day - sticky brake calipers. I needed to fix them before I could hope to push it outdoors. So I got the wheel off and had a look:



Hmm, they look a bit beyond WD and a bit of pedal pumpage. The rubber boots were perished to fook! They would need looking at sooner or later, might as well whip em off now:


I dismantled them on the bench, luckily no bleed nipples snapped off, much to my surprise!


I did this job on the weekend when it did not stop wazzing down and blowing a gale, conveniently flooding the garage!

Anyway I stripped everything and bagged it all up:

Getting the pistons out was a right war, Normally you would just pump them out on the pedal right? But in this case I pushed the pedal all the way to the floor, after which it seemed to lose all fluid-pumping ability. Some work needed on the master cyl I think. The brake fluid does look like tar admittedly.

I took the calipers in to work as they have a fearsome hot chemical wash gizmo, which i reckoned would work wonders on these. Sure enough, after paying the standard bribe of a few packets of doughnuts, I got these back:


LAAVERLY

Now i needed some new seals. I could not find any for a Maserati, but the calipers are made by ATE and i thought they must be fitted on other cars as well. So i googled 'ATE 4-pot calipers' and discovered various forums discussing brake upgrades using factory bits. It seemed that assorted Mercs and Beemers have ATE brakes so I used the awesome www.brakeparts.co.uk website to search for another car with ATE 4-pot calipers and 40mm pistons. the website is great because it gives pictures, dimensions, manufacturer and all sorts allowing you to match stuff up. Anyway after some digging I found that BMW E23 7-series calipers fitted the bill, so i rang them up the next day and bought 2 seal kits for £30 delivered.

Also gave the calipers a couple of coats of black hammerite:


Sweet eh?

Put the new seals in:

They fitted an absolute treat. Cheers brakeparts!! Used plenty of red rubber grease cos I have no idea when this lot is gonna get bled through properly...


I'd bust one of the brake pipes so made up a new one and refitted the calipers, look pretty sweet eh?


And with that the Maser was able to be pushed out into the sunshine for the first time in yonks!

I've done a bit more but Mrs_Bo**ox is fed up of me fannying about with the computer so i'll do another update tomorrow. CHEERS

[Seth]

Seems a pity to have gone to all that trouble with the callipers to then reduce their efficiency by not painting them red.

Did the pistons clean up then 'cos they look well manky in that before photo?

[coggers]

May 7, 2012 20:46:44 GMT Seth said:

Seems a pity to have gone to all that trouble with the callipers to then reduce their efficiency by not painting them red.

;D




Tidy work like Bol

[75nut]

Lol on the 1 day life of italian car calipers, with two 75's Il second that!
Loving the updates keep em coming!