Upgrades have started

Now the weather has started to warm up and you no longer freeze when in the shed it was time to get a move on and do some work.
First job is getting round to fitting the new playskool roll bar which I purchased back in December. This like every thing else on the car needed some work to get the bar to fit. First hurdle to get over was the fact that the lower plate where it bolts to the chassis do not quite line up. Now they are not far out but it still needed the holes slightly enlarging or dragging across with a grinder to get them to line up. once these had been sorted the next apparent problem was that the plates on the bottom of the bar slightly overlap the bushes welded to the chassis for where the harness eye bolts go, so once again out with the air tools and a light scallop was put in place to give me clearance for these. But the fun doesn't stop there...
Now i could get the roll bar bolted to the chassis the next issue came along.... The rear stays on the roll bar that go into the boot and bolt to the chassis are 20mm to short of lining up with the holes. (nothing is ever easy with this car) so a quick phone call to Luke a playskool confirmed that Westfield have 2 chassis jigs one of which is longer than what the roll bar was originally jigged from. Luke apologised but said they have come up with some exstentions that need to be either bolted or welded in once the old ends have been cut off. I have opted for the later option and weld these in properly.
Now I really like the shape and look of the roll bar but the only downside in my eyes is the fact that it has been powder coated, which is ok but nothing else on the car has a shiny appearance. So I had decided from the outset that I would have the bar repainted to match the satin black that goes with the rest of the car. So today I had the bar shot blasted and all the powder coat removed ready to be welded and be repainted. Luckily for me the company next door to where i work deal with specialist material coatings. So hopefully by tomorrow I will have a nice satin black roll bar to fit.

Another job that had to be taken care of was a new clutch slave cylinder, now for some reason whilst the car has been up on axle stands I noticed a small few drips on the floor. On closer inspection the seals in the cylinder had given up and started leaking. I wouldn't have minded but this was new when I rebuilt the engine and as it had been ordered over a year ago there was nothing the supplying company could do any more. So a new one was ordered and has been fitted but now just awaits bleeding.

Next job will be getting the doors dyed black, now I have managed to get hopefully a good quality black dye in a satin black, the out come might be interesting but worth a try.

I am also having a rethink about the carbon mods front mud guards, I wasn't sure on them at first, but after sitting them on for a while they are starting to grow on me.