Every night for the past few weeks I had been concentrating on finalising the engine bay on the Lotus Cortina. The engine bay being finished will be a massive step forward as I'll then be able to start putting the car back together. (I'm sick to death of sanding, cleaning, de-greasing, wire brushing etc.)
Once I felt that the engine bay was acceptable, I gave it a few coats of etch primer and left it five days to dry and harden. I was quite happy with the result to be honest. (See below)
Once the primer had dried and I was happy with the finish, I requested the presence of a guy from work who used to be an auto spray painter. (Glen) He's the same guy who painted the floor for me and the quality of his work is very good.
I was home a good couple of hours before Glen was due round, so I ignited the diesel heater in the garage to get it nice and warm and also stood the paint in front of the hot air vent to allow it to 'thin' before use.
After checking over my work, Glen mixed the paint and then got down to the job in hand.
He laid on a light coat first to form a barrier and give the paint something to stick to, and once that had dried he went full on with a beautiful coat of Ford Ermine white.
We had a break while we let the paint fumes dissipate and then Glen gave it another coat. We still had some paint left in the gun afterwards, so we painted the front bumper irons as well. (For some reason they are black on standard Cortina's, but white on the Lotus Cortina)
By about 8pm, we were finished and called it a day. I'm very pleased with how it looks and the temptation to start bolting bits back on this weekend will be massive, but I'm going to leave it a week or so in order for the paint to harden. I don't want to risk dropping things on the fresh paint and marking it.
At last it feels like progress has been made. Since I've had the car all I've done is removed bits from it and made it worse and less like a car. I've even taken to looking at pictures of when I first bought it, so I can remind myself what it looked like, but now I feel that I'm finally moving forward. 😊
I was home a good couple of hours before Glen was due round, so I ignited the diesel heater in the garage to get it nice and warm and also stood the paint in front of the hot air vent to allow it to 'thin' before use.
After checking over my work, Glen mixed the paint and then got down to the job in hand.
He laid on a light coat first to form a barrier and give the paint something to stick to, and once that had dried he went full on with a beautiful coat of Ford Ermine white.
We had a break while we let the paint fumes dissipate and then Glen gave it another coat. We still had some paint left in the gun afterwards, so we painted the front bumper irons as well. (For some reason they are black on standard Cortina's, but white on the Lotus Cortina)
By about 8pm, we were finished and called it a day. I'm very pleased with how it looks and the temptation to start bolting bits back on this weekend will be massive, but I'm going to leave it a week or so in order for the paint to harden. I don't want to risk dropping things on the fresh paint and marking it.
At last it feels like progress has been made. Since I've had the car all I've done is removed bits from it and made it worse and less like a car. I've even taken to looking at pictures of when I first bought it, so I can remind myself what it looked like, but now I feel that I'm finally moving forward. 😊
Last August when it looked like a car.
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