End of August thoughts

 This month has been the hottest on record in the UK. Bad news for crops, water supplies and countless other things, but great for driving a car with no roof!! I've spent most weekends using every excuse to get out in the car, and virtually no time actually working on it.

It does mean that there are a few things that have come to light that I want to work on.

Rattles

OK, this is my biggest bugbear with the car, or probably more specifically the state of UK roads. I've had many occasions where I've had all sorts of rattles and knocks when dropping into the crater sized potholes our roads seem to be made of nowadays. At least the car doesn't try to wrench the steering wheel out of my hands, but I do want to go over the car and check the rattles and knocks are limited to those parts that are meant to move. I've already lost an alternator brace bar due to a loose bolt, I don't want to lose anything else!

I just want to go over the car and check everything, see whether anything needs tightening or possible redesign. For example the bodywork was designed to be tight around the upper support and lower bolt fixings, but tight in the garage may not be the same 'tight' when on the road. The outriggers could be struggling to keep things in line. Obviously there's everything in the engine bay but also on the back end there could be something knocking where it shouldn't. 

Paint

While I like the idea of 'old paint', the more I look at the car the more it just looks like a bad paint job. I am wondering whether another few layers of paint would be good. 

On that subject I've been looking at how to spray paint again. I don't want to use 2K paint as that was a nightmare to work with, and the after effects (smells!) were there far too long. The combicolor paint did work quite well, it just needed a bit more work to get it right. So I'm planning to stick with that paint but spray it. 

But I've binned my compressor. The regulator valve was questionable, the size of the tank wasn't good enough to do any meaningful work, and having it to just pump tyres up was just a waste of space. So I need another option, and currently the leader is something that isn't actually available yet, the Inokraft DX. It's an electric powered HVLP gun that is currently only in the states, but I'm hoping there will be a UK distributor soon. It seems to get good results for a decent price, and will save me money and hassle. 

Arch seam lines

The arch join to the bodywork is another weak point that I want to sort. At the moment I've used filler and paint to disguise the join, but neither are surviving very well. What it needs is a bead of 'something' to be protective, flexible and decorative. My first thought is bathroom sealant but I can't paint over that. Claude suggests butyl tape but that sounds like a nightmare. 

What it does suggest is a decent way of creating a consistent seam, using a contour scribe gauge or perhaps a pinstriping kit idea https://beugler.com/. That would get me a line to work to, then either masking tape or some similar process to get it looking even and complete. Of course, my mind has gone to 3D printing for that so I'll design something and see how it comes out. 

Fuelling

The boot still seems to smell of petrol which makes it difficult to use for shopping. I need to figure out where it's coming from. It's most noticeable when just filling up so I'm guessing it's higher on the tank.

On the subject of fuel, my range is around 200Km which makes it easier to measure on the speedo. I could probably go further if I properly drain the tank, but I'll leave that experiment until I can get some fuel in the can as a backup! I really ought to run it to empty though at some point, just to check it doesn't get too upset.