Sunday, 9 April 2017

Welded On Like A Tank

Started looking at smartening up the fuel tank. I've been storing this in the loft waiting to get the chance to repaint it. It definitely needs a bit of surface rust removal first.

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Aaaarrrgh! Scrubbed around the filler neck with the wire wheel and found it had rusted through. Not good.

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Didn't want to scrap it as it seems to be OK everywhere else and new fuel tanks seem to be eye-wateringly expensive. Thought I'd attempt a repair. First thing, cut out the offending area.

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Cut a piece out to fill the hole, and then chopped out the hole in the middle where the neck will go.

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So far so good.

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The end piece (nozzle?) was actually OK, so I cut this off the old one and welded it on top of my homemade version.
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Then welded my little creation back onto the fuel tank. Now I can rub the rest of the tank down and paint it. Hopefully thats a few quid saved.
 
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Meanwhile, I have had this clubman grille knocking around the garage since the very beginning of the project. Picked it up from an autojumble, and it was a bit tatty to say the least.

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The top rail was well crusty, so I made up a new one.
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And then after much sanding, polishing, masking and painting, I ended up with a slightly more presentable grille.

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It would definitely have been much easier to just spray the whole thing black as I have seen a few people do, but I really wanted to keep the original look, so I think the extra effort was worth it. The black on the central leyland badge is quite faded and can't very easily be painted, so I've left that alone, but hey - patina!

So this is where I am now. Hi-Los are on, and the back is much lower. The front is turned right down, but still quite high - almost like it needs and engine to weigh it down a bit :)

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Bumpers and lights are also on now, but everything needs tweaking a bit to get the correct alignment and close up some gaps. Quite happy with the progress on the front end though!

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