Hi Scott!
Been a long time and it was good to catch up on your progress! (Still FAR greater than anything I've done on my TVRs! ) However, I added another Lotus this February and passed through Denver to bring it home. Not sure about changing my name here though, lol
Keep it up, is your back doing good still?
In reply to TVRs2Lotus :
Hey Bill! Good to hear from you! Next time you're in town you need to stop by. What Lotus did you get now?
I got out and played some more after wrapping up the work-day. Epoxy filler on the roof here. Hoping it's pretty flat and doesn't need a ton of work. Seems ok right now:
That's more of the epoxy filler. I like it.
Underside for funzies:
Got out the RO sander and knocked down the fenders where I had added surfacing veil. I didn't do a good job getting the epoxy smooth here, so it needed quite a bit of sanding.
Before:
After sanding:
And with a skim of feather-lite filler:
Feels good to be making a little progress!
I'm always happy when this comes back to the top.
You've made a ton of progress since I saw this last. How is the back holding up?
The sunroof panel is a work of art
This car will be unrecognizable from where you started when done. So hard to remember the original Turbo TR6 powered TVR you started with 90 pages ago 
Great work Scott!
Thanks, everyone! The encouragement really helps!
I'm trying to maintain some good momentum here, so I just spent an hour sanding some filler. It was actually pretty nice - there's a steady rain outside right now, and I was block-sanding so I could really hear and enjoy the rain.
Apologies for the bad pics - with the cloud cover it was really dark under the tent.
Got about half the roof roughed in. Probably should use a little rougher grit than the 220 roll that I have:
Fender is smoothing out pretty well too:
Oh, also several people asked: my back is doing ok. Not perfect but the surgery was totally worth it. I've been trying to get back to running again and I've had some positive points in the last year. Right now something is up with my left calf and it keeps putting me on the sideline. Feels like a horrible cramp or a muscle tear, but doesn't present that way to the PT. Maybe a nerve thing? Found I was low on Vitamin D, so I've been megadosing on that to get my levels up. That can produce some of these symptoms. Fingers crossed we can figure it out.
More sanding and filling yesterday.
Then I started on a new little project. I need to build a cover over the gas tank. Previously there were some boards glued in over the tank, which might actually be what the factory was doing?? Then over that were some random pieces of fiberglass, masonite, and other stuff. Some of it even looked sort of stock.
I'd like to make the cover out of something a bit more sturdy - a semi-firewall for a car that has it's gas tank as a crumple-zone (don't think about it too hard...). I'm figuring some 1/8" aluminum would be reasonable, and then I've got some 1/4" aluminum angle that I'll attach to the body as firmly as possible as a mounting point. Tubing to span over the tank. That's the broad strokes plan.
Started a cardboard template:
Looks like it'll need to be two pieces to be removable. I'm thinking I'll box around the undersides of the tail lights. That's it for now.
Nice progress!
Didn't you try penetrating epoxy for cracks? Did it work?
TurboFource said:Nice progress!
Didn't you try penetrating epoxy for cracks? Did it work?
Thanks!
Yes I did, and I thought it was kinda cool. I started by trying to precisely inject it into each crack with a syringe. That was really slow and still kinda messy. I ended up just wiping the whole cracked surface with the epoxy, and then wiped/sanded off the excess. I used some epoxy dye so that I could see where it was flowing. It did a good job wicking into all the little cracks.
Unexpectedly, the stuff is soft and pliable - more like urethane in feel rather than rigid epoxy. I asked Total Boat if it was meant to fill gel-coat cracks, and they said yes.
The remains sanded off the surface fine and it takes a top-coat of epoxy and surfacing veil with no issues. So far, so good!
In reply to TVR Scott : thanks for the reply! I am considering it when I get to that point!
TVR Scott said:In reply to TVRs2Lotus :
Hey Bill! Good to hear from you! Next time you're in town you need to stop by. What Lotus did you get now?
I get back off and on and need to stop by. I just got home from a race weekend... co-piloting a GTR at an SCCA autocross Tour.... soooo different!
But the latest Lotus below.. a 2009 Lotus Elise SC Type 25 Jim Clark edition. 1 of 15 sold here in the USA. Bought from the original owner with 8800 miles. I wasn't looking for it, but the owner walked up to me in race grid at the SCCA Nationals in Lincoln, NE. last year, we started talking.... and here we are. This is just after I put my first 50 miles on it... about to add 600 more over the following 3 days.
In reply to TVRs2Lotus :
Aw, man. That thing is pretty!
My younger daughter has a thing for BRG. If I showed her that picture, she'd "accidently" paint my TVR to match.
Maybe I should show her the picture...
I did a little test part the other day, and I'm glad I did.
If you look in this picture, you can see the little wooden blocks bonded to the roof of the car. These are for the headliner brackets, and there are more of them for the dome light, sun visors, and rear-view mirror. A couple of them had already fallen off by the time I got the car.
I've got some ABS around that I thought would make a good substitute for the wooden pieces. All I needed to do was verify that the epoxy sticks well to the ABS. Yesterday's test piece:
I'm glad I did the test, because here is said test block today. After I ripped it off the epoxy with only moderate hand force:
So no-go on the ABS. I've got some delrin and some UHMW, but I think those would bond even worse.
I do have some decent sanded plywood. Soak all the sides of that in resin to seal it? I've got aluminum, but that's sort of overkill. Thoughts?
Could just 3d print some PETG. Would need to do a bond test on that too, but I'm surprised I didn't do that first.
I'm sure the wood will be fine if sealed with resin. I've never had a problem with the wood stringers in a surfboard.
In reply to Shavarsh :
Yeah, you're probably right. I'm likely overthinking this.
Probably just because of how much water damage there was in the car. But that was from the leaky fabric sunroof, which will clearly no longer be a problem.
SO nice to see you making progress again. You're almost going to convince me that it's springtime. Almost.
In reply to TVR Scott :
I would use the plywood. Delrin and UHMW will not work unless you totally enclose them in glass. As you can see, most smooth plastics don't bond with the resin worth 2 E36 M3s.
In reply to Recon1342 :
Yeah, that's kinda where I'm at now. I might try doing a test-bond with JB Weld, but I'm not going to die on this hill. Plywood will get the job done.
I would definitely just go with wood with a coating of epoxy. It shouldn't be getting wet again like it did before anyway.
I'd use a good quality plywood and soak it in resin.
In reply to CoolHandMoss :
Thanks for chiming in.
BTW, your garage fire broke my heart. Sorry for not saying anything at the time. I hope you're getting back on your feet again.
TVR Scott said:In reply to CoolHandMoss :
Thanks for chiming in.
BTW, your garage fire broke my heart. Sorry for not saying anything at the time. I hope you're getting back on your feet again.
No worries man. Appreciate the sentiment. New garage is up and new projects under way. Nothing special like the TVR though unfortunately.
In reply to CoolHandMoss :
Wonder if anyone on the TVR message board has a stalled project. Might be worth posting a question there.
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