A New Nose Cone
During the week, Dad has been doing a little work on shaping the guards and getting them ready to be bolted into place. Whilst doing this, he found that the driver side nose cone (headlight surround) was damaged considerably, even to the point that the metal had started to tear. All of this damage was neatly concealed under quite a bit of bog that I had removed during the stripping.
Dad decided that rather than waste too much time trying to repair the damaged nose cone, he would do a little searching to see if he could find one to buy. As it happened, ZSpares* stock new replicas. On their website, they state that the nose cones might need a little work to get them to fit and line-up appropriately. Dad went for a drive, with the old nose cone, to see how much work would be required.
On inspecting the replicas, Dad felt that they weren’t too far out of shape and that it would be worth purchasing. Whilst at ZSpares, he also picked up a set of front indicators/park lights. Dad said that Lindsay was quite helpful and also gave Dad a heap of information that will be useful during the build up.
Today, Dad focused on getting the nose cones and the guards lined up, as well as getting rid of any small blemishes. I focused on getting rid of some rust on the underside of the windscreen wiper scuttle panel and in the cavity that the window wiper motor is located. The rust was only surface rust, luckily. After a bit of a rub down with some sandpaper and a quick vacuum to get rid of the bulk of the dust, I used some POR-15 Metal-Ready to treat the bare metal surface. We washed the chemical off and dried the area with some compressed air. The area looks pretty neat now and is ready for some fish oil mixed with pitch. Should stop the rust for a long time to come.
Dad was pretty happy with the work that he had done on the guards and the nose cones. All of the lines are looking great. The front half of the car will soon be ready and all straightened out. Then, it’s onto the roof, and read end of the car. We have to drop the petrol tank as the rear end has a little damage that needs some beating to get straight. But that is a little way off yet.
* – ZSpares is the spare parts side of ZShop