6 May 2012 - The circus arrives
The weather has been terrible for the last week or so, with torrential rain and there is some more planned, so I am taking no chances. I happen to have a 4m x 4m marquee that we use in the back garden for parties, but needs must, so I erected it over the car at the front of the house. The neighbours thought the circus had moved into town!
In the relative dry and warmth of the circus tent (as it is now affectionately known), I was able to crack on in the evenings and my first task was to try and get the bonnet to fit and for me to be happy with it. Firstly I strengthened up the side parts as this seemed to be an issue on the forum with other owners saying that the bottoms kick out and flap about, so I made up some "hockey stick" shapes from 9mm plywood by tracing the shape of the sammio body onto a cardboard template. With some trimming and adjusting, I was able to get the right shape in the plywood, and I then used a hot-melt glue gun to temporarily hold the plywood to the bonnet in the right position while I bonded and fibreglassed it all together. The end result was pretty good I thought!
As you may have noticed, there was a slight issue with the bonnet shutting and it hit on the thermostat housing. Not by much, but enough to mean that I had to take action and cut a clearance hole in the bonnet. This would be covered by a fibreglass scoop.
Now, to the make scoop, I covered a flat board with packing tape, and then laid a single sheet of 900gsm fibreglass mat which I covered with resin and let dry overnight. This gave me a flexible thin sheet of fibreglass that I could shape on the bonnet and hold with self tapping screws in the right position. I then fibreglassed over the top with a couple more layers of fibreglass matting and resin to blend in with the bonnet.
So another productive day in the circus tent and just the filling, rubbing down, priming, painting and fitting up to go!!
