reshelling restoration

[RichC]

a Sunny Saturday teatime August 2nd 2014.
Teenager driving his peugeot 106 to see girlfriend texts to say he'll be there soon...
Bam !
Next thing he knows he's shunted at 40mph into my stationary +2 parked on the road outside my house .....

Cut to today more than 7 months later & I've a plan C set out for getting the +2 back on the road .
.
Plan A had been for Spydercars to repair but hat never worked out , financially , for me at least !
Plan B had been to carry out what they had recommended .. a new rear half grafted on ; Once i had the vehicle back in my possession I felt this was not going to be the best option.

Over the winter not much has been done other than get the damaged OSR wishbone & brake caliper replaced & spare wheel put on so at least it is on all fours again .


Plan C is possible now i have managed at last to find a complete & decent early +2 shell . I recently bought the new early shell off ebay unseen which always a bit of a gamble but it's worked out OK.
( I was never going to be happy with reshelling with the wrong type of later +2 body. The differences are too glaringly obvious.)
On very close inspection the new shell is numbered 778 as are the panels with it .
my old damaged one is number 784.... that's what I call a Result!

next job is to start stripping number 784 of its parts take it off the chassis ready for 778 to be tried on before getting to work with preparing it for 'back to gelcoat' restoration .

p.s. for those of you who like numbers , apparently the 'car' number and the 'body' number are never (or rarely?) the same . the body numbers are a little higher . One theory being that there are more bodies made than are used , some failing quality control. e.g. My car number is 734 with original body number 784.
So when 734 has body 778 on it it'll only be those who read this forum post who'll know for sure it's not original.
Rich

[Bud English]

Finally some good luck to offset the bad. The best solutions sometimes take awhile to manifest themselves. It would be hard to come up with a closer match than you have there. Looks like you will have a fix that you will be happy with and that's the most important part.

[Jason1]

Glad to hear you are sorting it out Rich. Think how nice the paintwork will be in the end.

Its still likely to be back on the road before mine LOL.

[elanfan1]

Rich - hope you don't mind me asking but how did the insurance settlement work out in the end? No problem if you don't want to say.!

[RichC]

once it was with them,revaluation was done verbally by spydercars but they never came thru with paperwork . i paid them a lot of money for recovery and storage of the vehicle (which insurers paid for) i offered to pay for the revaluation and they kept saying they'd do it for me to help with costs . months of patients and gentle persuasion did not pay off . when i got the car back from them it was minus the keys which i asked for politely on many occasions . Always nice they were on the phone but never sent my keys back.
turns out they'd loaded my vehicle onto recovery vehicle with forklift and did more damage in process hence my change of plan to reshell .
I've put it all behind me now.Sometimes the best thing is just to move on .

[RichC]

patience ! not 'patients' lol!

[Sea Ranch]

Uhm, not a ringing endorsement of Spyder's "quality assurance" or customer service you've experienced, Rich. That would be very disappointing at the least, I'm sure.

But I'm also sure you're right when you say that putting it behind you is the right plan. You're a wise man.

Best regards to you, enjoy the process. And . . . what colour will you paint it?? (most difficult decision for me to make on my rebuild, especially as I'm not crazy about any of the colours offered by Lotus for Plus 2s in my year, 1970 )

Randy

[RichC]

Carnival Red LO5.
the shell was originally red which helps. my two sons & Mrs also lobbied for red again.
the only argument against red is that it is common....

[512BB]

Rich wrote: Always nice they were on the phone but never sent my keys back.

I find that a '7 DAY NOTICE OF ACTION' letter works wonders in these instances, and concentrates minds, that the crap service that you have been receiving from said firm, will not be put up with for much longer.

A lot of these firms rely on people just not bothering to take the matter further, and that is exactly what happens in most cases, and they get away with it, and so it goes on, and on.

Spydercars spokesperson in the South East will no doubt be along shortly to comment

I am rolling my eyes again.

Leslie

[RichC]

bit heavy- handed for them having lost the keys do you think?
although they said to me that they would do revaluation for ?13.5k as that what they said it should have been the fact is that they didn't come thru with it , for whatever reason . They didn't bill me. They just wasted my time .
I suspect it was when I said i couldn't afford the ?17k they wanted to charge for putting it back on the road that their interest fell off.
Rich

[512BB]

Rich wrote:
I suspect it was when I said i couldn't afford the ?17k they wanted to charge for putting it back on the road that their interest fell off [ A CLIFF]

I suspect you are right Rich.

bit heavy- handed for them having lost the keys do you think?

They did not lose the keys Rich, they just did not send them.

After they realised that they were not going to get your business, and you wanted your car returned, they just tried to make your job a whole lot more difficult, but hopefully you have a spare set of keys. Pathetic really.

Just clear something up for us Rich. I pressume you got some sort of payout from the ins., so why are you going to do the prep work on your new bodyshell yourself? Why don't you just ship it up to SMS for a repaint?

All the best with it.

Leslie

[RichC]

someone else will do repaint , you're right. SMS can quote me .
Before that , this car will be prepped properly with no corners cut . It's part of the family .
There's the sill members to replace & I'd be surprised if some of the bobbins don't also require replacement . All this will have to be done on my chassis. The boot floor is a bit rough as is the engine bay. these are all important , even though they are hidden away.
Once I'm happy we have a properly prepped shell which sits nicely on the chassis with all gelcracks uncovered and remedied then we'll have it trailered off somewhere . Destination TBC!
Oh , and insurance payout? it was around ?7k once i bought it back from insurers. That's not enough to pay for the repairs professionally.
Rich

[oldchieft]

That's the bugger of Lotus parts, you have to pay the going rate to buy the scrap back.

Glad you are on the road to a result, good luck and keep posting.

Jon the Chief

[Elan45]

Rich,

What will happen to your old body? I will need the area around the near side LH front side marker lamp to repair my 70 +2S. That area has been involved in two separate accidents and is crushed to the point it doesn't exist anymore. Perhaps its too much to transport such an item across the pond, but I had to ask?

Roger

[RichC]

It'll be kept as a spare parts source . i do have another early front end which is cut off thru the wheel arches if you are interested ? It would be a lot easier to transport to US.
Does your +2S not have the foglight recesses then?
Rich