Getting close...

The final days are upon us. Yesterday I refit the bonnet after a quick sand. It still needs a buff, actually the whole car needs a thorough rub down to flatten out some of the orange peel further.

The transmission lines were a nightmare, they should have been installed when the motor and gearbox were out of the car as they are mainly steel tubing that needed lots of massaging to snake back into place.

Bonnet back, grillle in, almost ready

The new water pump fits properly and I used a NOS fan belt! Woo. Ahem.
I'm still waiting for a pair of radiator hoses and a fuel filter to arrive, the fuel filter needed to be found online as some of the disposable parts are now deleted. I found a distributor cap at Blair Athol parts, but they want $75 for it! I cleaned up the existing one, but if I were to keep the car long term I'd have to toss the Lucas distributor and fit a Bosch one just so I can get parts.

The grille had been painted flat black, so I sanded that back and returned it to almost the correct dark grey.

Remaining work to get it back on the road:
- Radiator hoses, and coolant
- gearbox fluid
- fuel filter
- Battery
- Brake Master cylinder and bleed
- Rego and license plates
- test all wiring
- rebuild and refit the rear licence plate light. These units rot out really quickly. 
When I bought the car there were literally dozens for sale on eBay all the time. I kept thinking, eh I'll get it later, there's no shortage of supply. They sold for $29 with free postage from Thailand. Now it's 'later' and they stopped selling them about a year ago. Nowhere to be found anywhere. The odd second hand one of ebay goes for upwards of $80 plus shipping! I've missed out on two. I'm just going to have to make mine presentable again.

I suspect I might be able to start it and possibly drive a little over Easter, but given the all new front end, I'd be loathe to go too far without an alignment.

Engine back in

March is re-assembly month. It's now the last few days and I only have the last few things left to go.
After reattaching the body trim, the bumpers and lights, and after searching for one small piece of trim from the front right guard that went missing for about two weeks, it was time to put the mechanicals back in.

Close enough mirrors for now

But first to mirrors! You may recall in the first posts that I struggled to find suitable mirrors. Well I still am, I bought these aftermarket ones which are similar to the originals, but still not quite tall enough.

I am so glad I bagged and labelled nearly every nut and bolt as this made life so much easier when finding the correct bits. I admit I do have a jar of random stuff which I keep finding the perfect bolt in now that I've exhausted the bags I had labelled.

I stored most of the parts in the one cupboard too, so nearly everything was on hand.

The cleaned and painted 2R motor with gearbox reattached.

I attached the rebuilt gearbox to the original motor, after giving it a thorough clean and repaint (the motor that is) and tracking bits of engine grease throughout the house :/

Most of the engine back
together and in place

This entire unit went back in very smoothly and easily I was quite surprised, especially given the hassles when removing it. I guess cleaning everything makes life a lot easier.

I bought a replacement water pump off ebay some years ago only to find when putting the ancillaries back on, that it's got the wrong shaft on it, way too long, the pulley doesn't fit and the fan would hit the radiator. Off to ebay to find another, which fortunately arrived this week.
I found engine enamel that is pretty close to the original rocker cover/air cleaner cover colour so gave them a squirt.

Next up is the rest of the motor accessories and radiator.

Time for paint

2  more months have passed and it's been full steam ahead.
January was front end and brake rebuild, February was respray time. 

Sanded and ready for primer

A fair amount of prep went into the body work, from some bog wipes and plenty of sanding and priming. All chrome was removed and the rubber was carefully taped up. All surface rust was rubbed out. There was a fair amount on the roof, but the rest was pretty normal.

A couple of prime coats done

I used Proform brand primer, which was excellent. Smooth thick coverage and a pleasure to sand (well as pleasurable as sanding can be). I choose off white primer too as it would mean less top coats to get full coverage as opposed to a dark primer.

Painted, sanded, buffed and with some chrome back on.

Top coats were with the Pro-tec paint I bought 5 years ago. 5 years of sitting the paint had separated in the tin to a yellow colour. Upon first opening I thought I'd bought the wrong code! After ages stirring it finally blended back together top the correct colour.

I wasn't particularly pleased with how the paint when on. I admit I'm pretty rusty with spraying (it's been 15 years), and the hot weather probably didn't help but some areas were very powdery and full of orange peel. I rubbed back with 1500 and then again with 1200 and then a machine buff and it's smooth and shiny, but the orange peel is still evident in several areas. I'll give it a hand cut next, but if it were a concours resto I'd be starting again.