Jump to content
Click here if you are having website access problems ×

seventh-heaven

Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    171

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by seventh-heaven

  1. seventh-heaven
    Yesterday was not the best day to be out and about with a Seven - a boat would have been more appropriate around the Manchester motorways. However time was not on our side and so yesterday it was!! We picked up Pooh-R's Seven from his house in Cheshire for the start of a significant journey that will hopefully end up with the Seven joining Mr R in New Zealand for their new life down under. 
    In order to be accepted as in import into New Zealand the Seven must be scrupulously clean - oh and rust free! Given that this is a 90s Seven when the powder coating was less than good this latter requirement is going to necessitate some work. So in the next few months the chassis will be stripped and rebuilt ready for shipping during the year. 
    Given that Mr R and family are leaving on the 1st Jan, I have promised to look after the rebuild and dispatch from the UK over the next few months - and to document it on here so he can keep up with what is going on! This is slightly complicated by the fact that my garage is due to be knocked down and rebuilt starting the week after Christmas so the project start will be delayed until end of Feb.
    Step one was getting it out of Mr R's garage so that everything else can be packed, and place in safe store until the garage is done! So in the wonderful(!) weather yesterday and via a friends house warming in Sheffield/Rotherham last night the car is now safely in my in-laws garage in Pocklington for the duration of the garage build at home!!.
    Watch this space for details of the project as it progresses!
  2. seventh-heaven
    So the great plan was that by Easter we would have had our new garage built and would be able to make a start on the car shortly afterwards! In reality the build of the garage only started properly the week before Easter!
    Fortunately we have some big sheds at our business that house boats during the winter but are relatively empty in the summer so one was commandeered to make a start. May Day Bank Holiday weekend was the appointed time (first time not at Stoneleigh in years!) and fellow 7 owner Giles and all round good bloke Arf turned up to help. 
    On Saturday a complete working car, by the end of Monday a load of boxes and a bare chassis ready to go to Arch.
    Chassis now at Arch being fettled and I am currently in search of a good place to paint the repanelled body in about 4 weeks!
    No great dramas with the strip down - lots of copper-ease had been used at build and now trying to make up a list of all the bits required for the rebuild!
  3. seventh-heaven
    Having stripped the car to nothing more than a tubular chassis the need for attention was evident as car be seen from the photo above. I have been aware that my own 1994 chassis has a lot of the powder coating having failed and allowed rust to degrade the tubes, but seeing this 7 in its naked form brought home the extent of the problem below the skin. 
    So off to Arch with the chassis along with all the other powder coated components including suspension arms, de-dion tube and wing supports. Once there Bruce and Phil Robinson conversed with Andy Rogerson in New Zealand via the great interweb and the spec was agreed. In what seemed like a remarkably short timescale the chassis was ready to collect, and beautiful it looked too! The quality of some of the aluminium skin work is exquisite.
    On the way home I dropped into a local restoration specialist to get a quote for paint - he too was very impressed with the quality of the work - but clearly therefore believed that it must have cost a packet and that he could therefore also make a killing - he quoted £5k for a paint job - plus VAT! Needless to say he did not get a call to book the car in and following a bit of further investigation it became clear that the best place to take it was TSK Autocentre as used by the Caterham factory. Hugely knowledgeable and helpful and a very reasonable price.
    None the less before it went for paint there were a number of holes to drill including:
    Aero fuel filler screws; Exhaust exit; Rear wing fixings; Windscreen stantions; Heated windscreen wires; and Battery Master Switch. Chassis was then delivered to TSK along with the fibreglass panels as they strongly recommend painting these as well to ensure a good paint match. Now have about 3 weeks to prepare the garage and spare parts before the rebuild begins in earnest!
×
×
  • Create New...