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@edsnova posted:
 

...good enough so you're eyes won't hang on it...

 

I think that's the key to real-world paint touch-up.

My ivory car was primered in black. The tiniest rock chip is visible from outer space.

And I get rock chips on, like, every third drive.

I could spend three days fixing each chip - filling, sanding, buffing (assuming I actually knew how to do that) - but I've chosen a more realistic approach.

I dab on some touch-up paint, try not to spread it over an area twice as large as the original chip, and move on. If you stare at the chip, you can still see it, but if you don't know where it is, it's invisible. Again, these are supposed to be 70-year-old cars. Paint defects are part of the whole gestalt. 

Besides, these cars gives us lots of other things to obsess about. Was it really idling smoother yesterday, or do we just imagine that?

 

The Spyder is registered and I'm into test-drives and adjustments now.

IMG_5502

Starts easy, idles a little low when cold, and the brake pedal is a bit low for my tastes. One pad may be rubbing just a tad as well, so I'll need to find that and re-shim the caliper, probably, and the brake line on the driver's rear caliper it taking paint off the inner fender, so I'm going to have to re-route it. E-brake also needs tightening. The car tracks and stops straight.

IMG_5495

Gears are all there and I'm going to leave them be a while and see if the shifter gets smoother or not. 

Left turn signal does not cancel. Dang. I'm not interested in pulling the wheel again to correct that, given the fiasco with the horn button. But I'll probably do it, all the same.

IMG_5498

Need to aim the headlights lower. Will do that after the ride height is set and settled.

Gonna try to fit the cloth top before swapping out the glass windscreen for the proper plastic screen.

IMG_5501

May yet have the slightest oil drip out of the passenger side valve cover. Need to make sure it's not a pushrod tube.

IMG_5504

Once that's squared away the aluminum underpan goes back on.

Also I'll be making a towbar system for it. 

 

Last edited by edsnova

The Spyder is registered and I'm into test-drives and adjustments now.

IMG_5502

Starts easy, idles a little low when cold, and the brake pedal is a bit low for my tastes. One pad may be rubbing just a tad as well, so I'll need to find that and re-shim the caliper, probably, and the brake line on the driver's rear caliper it taking paint off the inner fender, so I'm going to have to re-route it. E-brake also needs tightening. The car tracks and stops straight.

IMG_5495

Gears are all there and I'm going to leave them be a while and see if the shifter gets smoother or not. 

Left turn signal does not cancel. Dang. I'm not interested in pulling the wheel again to correct that, given the fiasco with the horn button. But I'll probably do it, all the same.

IMG_5498

Need to aim the headlights lower. Will do that after the ride height is set and settled.

Gonna try to fit the cloth top before swapping out the glass windscreen for the proper plastic screen.

IMG_5501

May yet have the slightest oil drip out of the passenger side valve cover. Need to make sure it's not a pushrod tube.

IMG_5504

Once that's squared away the aluminum underpan goes back on.

Also I'll be making a towbar system for it. 

 

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@aircooled posted:
Any ideas on how or where you will attach the roll bar ?......Bruce

This is how Greg did mine, and the PCA okayed this at LRP. There are two forward diagonals just below the door tops that bolt onto plates in front of the bulkhead. It isn't pretty, but it comes out for street duty. I'm the fat guy and my friend Mike is wearing the Lotus shirt. It was 95 and humid that day, summer DE 2018. Car ran very well, rings were tired. Lot of blue smoke on throttle off. Did a full top end, pistons, barrels and heads last summer. She runs strong now.imagejpeg_0

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Last edited by DannyP

I have two big bolts that go through the bottom of the pan ahead of the little "hump" and go through and screw into nuts welded on the top of my frame extensions to which I attached my jack points. I CADded this out already. Plan to cut and drill some square or c bar and bolt it on there, then bring it up past the jack points and terminate under the grill with horizontal pivot points to which I can attach a Bug bar which I'll cut the ends off of and box for the pivots. 

I'll probably end up tying the two bits together with some small square tube to keep the lateral stress off the jack points, but really it shouldn't matter as they're solid 1-inch round bar welded to 3/16" plate. 

Anyway on this I'll have a real welder after I tack for fit-up. 

A couple big Clevis pins should take it from there.

 

Continued sorting. Ordered some brake flare adaptors today. Just got done opening up the inner fenders for brake caliper clearance. Tightened the axle boots because they leaked like hell after that first trip around the block. Still dialing in the ride height. Fronts seem pretty good but the left side is 1/4-3/8 lower than the right and so: Gotta drop the rear passenger side about 3/8 of an inch and raise the driver's side 1/8 or so. 

Details.

IMG_5517IMG_5522IMG_5528IMG_5531IMG_5534IMG_5546

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