• September 2005

All four wings now have been trial fitted and adjusted where necessary to give good panel gaps. One of the 037 scoops has been temporarily fixed to a butress panel as a trial fit.

One door skin has to be made - this will have an aluminium skin made to reduce weight, and will then match the other door.

Go to the HSCC races at Snetterton

Go to the Montecarlo Consortium Technical Forum at the Gaydon Heritage Museum

The doors have been hung which allows the position of the front and rear wings to be determined.

The return on the 037 hard top is finished, so this is ready to be bonded to the roof - when that time comes.

The sail panels have been stripped and are now bare metal. They've been fitted in position to help with locating the 037 side scoops.

The rear wing needs some trimming before it will fit.

The uneven hole where a sunroof was fitted has been evened out. Along the front edge it has been spot welded to the inner panel, and and the edges improved with a grinding wheel. Uneven areas that wouldn't respond to manipulation have been lead loaded and filed smooth. My double bubble top has been trimmed so it is a nice even fit all the way around the roof, and a return has been laminated to the roof to make it easier to attach to the roof.

The doors are the key to this, so the doors will be hung on the car with their hinges and positioned so the frame shuts nicely. The front and rear wings will take their final position from the doors, so that the door shuts are nice and even. The front wings will be adjusted to make sure the bonnet fits and the bumper fits nicely.

037 DOUBLE BUBBLE ROOF HAVING A RETURN EDGE ATTACHED

The sail panels have been paint stripped, and these will be attached to the shell to determine where the scoops fit. The front and rear glass fibre wings and the wheelarch extension spats have been extracted from storage and are being offered up to the car in order to work out which bits to bond to what in which particular order!

SAIL PANELS BEING STRIPPED

SHELL WITH GRP PANELS. ALL PAINTED SURFACES HAVE BEEN KEYED AND RUBBED FLAT

Today my 037-style double bubble roof arrived from America along with two pairs of roof scoops and solid butresses. One pair is for Rob Bell, who is also involved in a Monte project.

The new roof section will need some careful trimming around the edges to fit nicely with the existing roof. but looks an awful lot better than the hole there at present where a sunroof used to be.

The solid buttresses were supplied as it may be easier to make these into fully functional scoops. The GRP scoops themselves will need holes cutting and filling with a mesh insert

My oversize valves are ready as well, but the order is waiting at the valve factory until a run of Fulvia 1600 inlet and exhaust valves to be finished for Omicron before they all ship together. They should arrive in a week or so.