Fixing the bits hanging off the chassis

The big push at this point was to get the chassis back to being a rolling chassis.

I pulled out everything I needed to get the chassis rolling, and took the old bits down to Ultimate Strippers, and got them blasted.

Everthing that was blasted got a coat of cold gal, then etch primer, then two coats of Galmet. I used matt black Galmet as the first coat, then gloss second, otherwise you can’t see where you’ve painted with the second coat.

I would have got a better cosmetic finish with a spray, because the parts have got so many little sticky-out bits you inevitably end up with some runs, but the brush gives you at least 100 microns each coat, so I’m happy with that.

I also painted all the bolts, u-bolts and other assorted shrapnel. The bolts etc delivered black got a coat of primer, then a spray coat of black acrylic. Everything delivered as zinc-plated got a coat of etch primer, then the black acrylic.

I painted the parabolic springs at this point, and the firewall also got its primer coats.

Boxes of bits ready to for blasting . . .

. . . and after blasting.

Spraying primer.

The springs before painting. These were a real bugger, because it was nearly impossible to get paint down between the leaves, and I wasn’t confident about taking them apart to paint. If you look closely, you can see some tiny bits of rust along the edges where the factory paint job has been scratched in transit.

After final coats of paint.