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Well I think I have had quite a good weekend!!! Following my chat with Chris on Friday morning I came home and trimmed out the offending Mk1 wheel arch bits (see pic 27). No wonder I had got the entire back end wedged solid!!! Then re-aligned the back end, marked up, back off, fitted the rear 'parcel shelf', roughed up the top of the windscreen, loads of glue, back end back on (see pic 30). Result!!!!!!

Saturday saw me doing some gardening and generally pottering about the house, but got an hour or 2 to get the exhaust mid section changed (old one was rotten) and the new (fleabay new) twin exit back box fitted (see pic 31). Currently held up with zip ties, and will need a little bit of cutting / shaping of the rear skirt for it to fit properly, but a good idea of how it will look. Sounds reeeeeeally good too.

Weather wasn't brilliant today, but dry long enough for me to measure up and get the rear lights fitted, think they are looking good. Now off to fleabay to look for rear number plates and vintage rear reflectors a la original GTO.

Not bad for 3 weeks in I think?

When you factor in the bad weather and the rust repair you have done, you are doing really well for 3 weeks of spare time.

Never sure about the S111 landy rear lights, but I do know the tyres are in the wrong place!

Good progress, keep it up...

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Cheers Chris. Thanks for the vote of confidence. Will keep plugging away whenever the weather permits.

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I know what you mean about the rear lights, but I am on a budget for this build. Plus when I throw on a pair of reflectors, which I found on the bay tonight, hopefully I can maintain the inspiration of the original.

Thanks for the tip on the wheels, I thought they looked quite good up there!!!!!!

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Hi folks,

Not been on for a while, the weather turned cold and wet again in Belfast. Then i had to have a weekend off for some drinking commitments in Twickenham. Anyway back on the job and got some good work done at the weekend.

Got both sides of the rear end bonded, riveted and first skim of filler on. And then got the boot lid lined up and fitted. Need to get the remote lock sorted but that can wait for now.

Forecast is good for the latter half of the week and the weekend so hopefully get plenty done.

Coming on. BTW I am told that filler absorbs water, so if it is out in the rain you will need to make sure it has had a chance to dry off before painting.

Not completely convinced filler does actually absorb water though.

It most assuredly does absorb moisture if it is polyester based. Even polyester
gel coats are semi-permeable. to some extent.

Thanks for the encouragement and the tip. I had heard somewhere it absorbed moisture so will make sure it is good and dry and then get some primer on.

Polyester!!!!!! I thought cheap 70''s suits were made of polyester. Just nipping to the garage to check my tin of filler............... Yup, sure as eggs is eggs, UPOL easy sanding POLYESTER filler. Damn!! That could cause problems or at least slow me down. We will have to choose extremely carefully when I do filling.

Cheers for the tips boys.

Today's daft question - when you are fitting the fuel hose flange and then the external vintage style fuel cap, do you need longer filler neck and overflow hoses, or can you get away with adjusting what is already there? Cheers.

Take a look at my the ad there is a picture of how I did it, not necessarily saying the way I did it was the right way but it works for me.

To clarify, I used an old original enots fuel cap that screwed onto an alloy flange from car builder solutions. So maybe different if you are reusing the mazda neck.

Good luck

You should be okay if it is dried out, low setting heat gun assist or a hair dryer.
Just don't get it too hot! It may crack.

There is a reason not to use copious thickness of poly based filler. Very light skim coats only.

Agreed. The wise advice is to limit the thickness of polyester filler to a few mm. If you need to build up more use chopped strand filler with a polyester skim.

Exactly, thanks for clarifying..

Thanks Jonesy. Love the fuel cap job you did, and love some of the Enots fuel caps available. To be honest as this build is on a (rapidly expanding) budget i was looking at reusing the original fuel neck and cap, and then getting one of the fake fuel caps that then go over the orginal fuel caps and attach with grub screws. Fairly cheap and nasty i know, but as i say cheaper. We will have to see though, i do like the Enots caps and flange set up. Cheers for the tips.:icon_razz:

A big thanks to Molleur & Landmann for the tips on filler. I have to admit i had never heard of chopped strand filler, however i am off to find some!!! Cheers guys.

I too was on a budget and just was lucky on some of timing of my purchases I guess.

The benefit of chop strand is that it flexes a little, that will help with the bridge between metal and fibreglass body as well as reinforcing the join. Filler does only that, put on to thickly you will get stress cracks later on, probably after the beautiful paint job is complete.

Another tip suggestion which I wish I had done upon reflection is a thin layer of glass fibre matt bridging windscreen frame to kit body. I will be OK as I used chop strand and skimmed with filler for final surface only.

Depending on the area I'm working, I'll use a single layer of chopped strand matt over any thickly built up areas of chopped strand filler as well.

You will even find it in Halfords, upol B I think in blue tins. Another tip, you can dilute filler with fibreglass resin to spread it more smoothly. It avoids the ice cream look you posted before and takes time off sanding.