mowlamb - "built not bought"

[mowlamb]

Now with plastic primer then filler primer on top. This mornings job is to wet sand it with some 1200 wet and dry then clean and dry and it will then have it's first few coats of paint.

[mowlamb]

Now in Reflex Silver









Just need to wet sand it 2moro then do the final coat and then 3-4 coats of lacquer. Can't wait to get it on and start on the rear one 

[mowlamb]

All finished but the colour match ain't good enough for my liking. The match I got with my standard valances was much better so I'm going to try again today.

Here's a little pic of how it looked for about 5 mins before I decided it wasn't good enough.



Can't wait to get a better match and have it on the car properly 

[mowlamb]

Rear Votex Valance now sprayed and fitted and looks a much better colour match 







It's still very slightly darker but it's good enough for me to leave on the car. I'll be re-attempting the front one again next week now I've got this one sorted.

[mowlamb]

Just finished respraying the front valance to get a better colour match and I also removed the rear valance to give it a couple more coats of lacquer. Both are looking much better now and are in the garage drying. Hopefully the colour match on the front valance will be much better this time. I've also got my stubby mirrors all sprayed up in satin black so over the next few days the car will hopefully look a lot better

[mowlamb]

Well I've finally got the valances to a stage where I'm happy. 

Not quite 100% because I ran out of lacquer so I've not been able to get them as shiny as I would have liked but once funds permit I'll be getting some more lacquer and getting them even shinier.

Here's the pics













I think both valances would look much closer to the colour of the bumpers if I had more lacquer to apply. Next up is the stubby mirrors I have. I will hopefully get a chance to fit them in a couple of days.

[mowlamb]

Got a set of Stubby Lupo mirrors which I sprayed up in satin black. I'm well chuffed with them. Better than the larger bulkier standard ones.

[mowlamb]

Been meaning to give my engine bay a good going over ever since I got the car 18 months ago. Finally decided to get in there and do it today and here are the results.

Before:







After:











I never had any proper degreaser so used some Mr Muscle degreaser spray. :embarassed: I also couldn't find my AG Rubber and Vinyl Care spray so never get to use that on the pipes and plastics but I'm really pleased with how it turned out 

[mowlamb]

Today I popped round bigtallbloke's (a forum member on ukmkivs) place to pick up some new lower girlls he had for me, fit a new scuttle panel (as mine had a crack in it which I think is the reason for the condensation in the car on wet days) and also to fit a modified short shift.

The difference of the feel of the gear box on the way home was very noticeable. Each gear change felt nice and solid. Before he fitted it he had me measure the distance from 3rd to the radio which was 90mm and then the distance from 4th too the radio which was 210mm. After it was fitted the distance between 3rd and the radio increased to 110mm and the distance between 4th and the radio decreased to 200mm. A very noticable difference.

If anyone is thinking of getting one then he does a good deal on them just pm him and he will sort you out.
 
I'll post some pics up later of the short shift and the new grills. I'm in the process of spraying the grills satin black so once they are on I'll get some pics.

[mowlamb]

Satin black lower grills:





Short Shift: