accidental restoration
Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2017 5:31 pmI bought an Elan Sprint (from a member on this forum) last November and spent November and December fettling it and having a bit of paintwork done and it now looks and drives great. The Sprint was an impulse buy and my long term Lotus has been my +2S which has been in fairly regular use with me without major refurbishment for the last 18 years. It was scruffy, but useable and mechanically good and I had convinced myself I preferred it like that...
However now that I have an Elan Sprint of the same age (and half the same colour) I felt a bit guilty over the general neglect which the +2 had received. It needed some refurbishment for the MOT at the start of the year including new rear brake discs, pads etc and whilst doing this I realised it probably needed further attention.
A few weeks ago I drove it round to my workshop to investigate the mysterious loss of brake fluid (I still can't see where it's going!), and when I got it there I "popped" a few of it's many paint blisters in an idle moment of contemplation.
Anyway I kept popping them and scraping them and it now looks like this:
IMG_0315 by sparkey.sprite, on Flickr
So I'm into a proper body restoration which I hadn't really intended. It's revealed a few things I didn't know, such as a front end grafted on (done well - I think by Paul Matty's about 25 years ago if memory of my old receipts serves correct) and a rear end smash which would appear to have been some time after the front end was done and has been done very poorly with lots of filler over holes and cracks rather than proper fibreglass repairs. So now I've cut out all the damage and am reviving my Fibreglass skills and hope to have it repainted within the next few weeks and back on the road sometime in March..
When hopefully it will be able to more than hold it's head up when parked beside it's "new" stablemate:
IMG_0136 by sparkey.sprite, on Flickr
However now that I have an Elan Sprint of the same age (and half the same colour) I felt a bit guilty over the general neglect which the +2 had received. It needed some refurbishment for the MOT at the start of the year including new rear brake discs, pads etc and whilst doing this I realised it probably needed further attention.
A few weeks ago I drove it round to my workshop to investigate the mysterious loss of brake fluid (I still can't see where it's going!), and when I got it there I "popped" a few of it's many paint blisters in an idle moment of contemplation.
Anyway I kept popping them and scraping them and it now looks like this:
IMG_0315 by sparkey.sprite, on FlickrSo I'm into a proper body restoration which I hadn't really intended. It's revealed a few things I didn't know, such as a front end grafted on (done well - I think by Paul Matty's about 25 years ago if memory of my old receipts serves correct) and a rear end smash which would appear to have been some time after the front end was done and has been done very poorly with lots of filler over holes and cracks rather than proper fibreglass repairs. So now I've cut out all the damage and am reviving my Fibreglass skills and hope to have it repainted within the next few weeks and back on the road sometime in March..
When hopefully it will be able to more than hold it's head up when parked beside it's "new" stablemate:
IMG_0136 by sparkey.sprite, on Flickr