For us, it was cold here yesterday, hail threatened, I had trouble with the self closing draft strip along the bottom of my garage door and there was also something wrong with the humidity control system. Still, I soldiered on. The Colonel's diesel jet heater was just the job as I had been worried that I wasn't getting enough microscopic carbon dust in my already suspect lungs, then I did a fair bit of tidy-up grinding on the frame and wielded the almighty torch of Mig.
Later,I sat on the couch and picked what I believed to be anthracite out of my nose, it wasn't coking grade as it was contaminated with welding soot and whatever it is that they use to bind those grinding discs with. No Don, I couldn't use either of my index fingers, the gate...and a flap disc made sure of that.
Anyway, enough frivolity......It took me an hour or so to set the frame up on the rotisserie. I lowered the whole thing as it was made for full size bodies and tried to guess about where the CoG was in the vertical axis....I had a guess at about 1/3rd the way from the floor to the top of the cage. Turns out I wasn't too far off, it doesn't spin but it can be flipped easily. When the car was last painted it was the first time it had been tipped at all, so being able to see the bottom motivated me to touch up a few rough edges and the like.
When painting my tip is to read the suggested applications before you take the lid off. Not all enamels like enamel reducer....some just want ethanol/methylated spirits, yeah, I know. That would be fine but I have a busy time ahead of me with the gunwash....
Fortunately the "heavy duty " primer was a slight olive green, it's one thing spraying successive coats in the same color but on something like this it is a recipe for a stuff up.....In the end though the stuff went on with a good finish out of a 2.5mm gravity gun and hopefully the temp was high enough to get it to flash off a bit and not skin,it feels right today, it passed the gentle "fingernail test".
Of course while I stood there after the primer went on staring at it soaking up the glory and the volatiles coming off the paint I decided there are a few changes that I want to make to the frame.....I may even remake the front hoop and possibly add another two members to the top of the cage.
Here it is on the spit....the rear floor is off. The rear floor is 1/4 plate and bolts up with 5/8 studs through the tags on the bottom frame rails so it acts as a stressed member......
The tags along the upper rail in the engine bay are the gearbox cross member( at the rear) and the attachment points for the top of the scattershield,the water tanl covers the whole area from the front of the shield right over the crossmember to where the frame ends in this pic. The little tray on the back of the firewall is the battery mount..and no, we are yet to find anything that we want to hide in that pocket which forms the seat back...you can't get in there when the motor is in.....
Topic: Australian Belly Tank (Read 3219225 times)