Ah, working now!
In the summer of 2019 I decided to pull the main body panels off - working on the back was a pain in the tiny garage and I wanted to see just how bad the crash damage was at the front. It was... a mess.
To me it looks like it's had two crashes - the first one looked semi professionally repaired, but both wheelarches had been repaired with bolts, which was a worry. I assume this was the crash in which it gained it's flat hood as a replacement. There was a large crack running through the luggage compartment.
The second crash looked like an attempt at a repair had been made - badly. There was metal strapping everywhere and globs of fibreglass on top of it that were delaminating, it was really bad.
With this in mind, in Jan 2020 I decided to send it to Chris N before I went any further with it. I put the hood back on and stuffed the wings and fascia inside the car and prepped it to go.
Chris N did an amazing job, making the inside of the compartment look like new, as well as fixing all the issues at the front of the nose. He also made a pass at repairing the fascia and wing - the wing particularly he did an amazing job of.
In Feb 2020, it moved into Chrispy's place so some lift-based jobs could be done on it.
Then the world stopped with COVID and both Chris and spent the majority of that year dealing with other things, but over the summer we managed some work, I started collecting the various parts needed; I'd already ordered the new exhaust, fuel system etc a couple of years prior.
In my absence Chris was good enough to put on the new exhaust, as well as get some old fittings replated. Currently this is the shinest, nicest part of the car:
I was able to start doing 2-3 day trips up to Derby to work on the car with Chris, who was able to teach me on the job about how various parts of the car worked. Getting this experience from someone who has done it so many times before has been a massive help! I know you can find a youtube video for almost any car job, but when dealing with stuff like the brakes and fuel it's really good to go through it with an older hand. It also made those nightmarish one-person jobs a lot easier. Over that summer between us we were able to tackle the brake cylinders, both clutch cylinders, Chris got the water pump on, and I started to strip the interior as I suspect some electrical work and probably the HVAC will need attention.
And that was it for 2020...
Looking back at 2021 I have no idea where the time went as we didn't get much done - I was working a lot but still, I'm surprised at how fast that year went. We got a puppy which is probably why I was so busy... In the summer was productive, though, as Chris and I managed to put both the water system and most of the fuel system back in place, with all-new parts.
I cleaned up the old fuel baffle which came up like new, and along with a new pump and hoses it was put into a new tank:
Descaled water pipes went back on:
As did a new closing plate:
And the upgraded radiator, condensor and fans, on new brackets as the old ones were damaged from the crash.
Most of the hoses up front were replaced as were the seals, and some fresh hardware. It was great to see this part of the car really feeling new:
This year, with the plan to have the car in good shape for our wedding in October, I planned to hit the ground running. I sourced a metering head from Dave H for a bargain price, and Chris was able to free the plunger by baking it in his Aga for a while. I bought the new set of fuel lines and injectors from DGo, as well as an accumulator that's yet to be fitted. I had the fun job of removing the old injectors while Chris sorted the metering head.
The fuel stuff has been one of the more expensive parts of the resto - with the lines, injectors, accumulator and pump kit, I'm probably over £1000 into that - I was lucky to get a metering head for about an eight of the price of a restored one goes for.
The final thing I tackled was repairing the hood release as the hood latching itself had been a near miss too many times:
(keeping Chris' wire backup system in place for now)
So far this month I've sourced a NOS front wing and front fascia, which is great, because I'm really keen to give the car it's face back - seeing the front of it come together is huge motivation to deal with the rest of it. I've also bought new front/rear tyres, so, it's been an expensive few weeks, but it's good knowing so much of the running bits are new and possibly improved. At least check of the spreadsheet I was up to £26k (inc. £15k for the car & shipping it over). I likely have a full retrim to go so I'm hoping to come in at £35k or so but we'll see.
Big thanks to Chrispy for the garage space and the experience!