OSR Arch Replacement - Day 4  (7th May 2005)

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

More like half a day really.

Having spent yesterday at the peak of concentration and patience, I resumed today to sand back the filler applied yesterday.  This was made more difficult due to my reluctance to apply it over the top of the top arch line that I was previously happy with.  Nevertheless, a lot of sanding later and it was starting to look fairly respectable.

This time I made a first attempt at getting the lower edge of the arch line in between the arch and the rear quarter panel.  Having spent hours sanding and filling, my concentration started to fail and with it my patience.  So the best thing to do was to apply a quick and thin coat of primer to protect the bare metal and filler until I next get a chance to play.  I've been here before many times, to have carried on with the work now would almost certainly have spoiled the result in some way.  Good thing I don't need to drive this to work tomorrow!

I'll leave sanding in the swage line for another day, but that's not hard, just requires patience.  I took lots of very similar photos today to make sure that I got  a good record of the shape as it is now.  I'm not overly happy with the line and will have to go back over it again with filler to get it right.  It's passable as it is though, with a little more fine sanding and primer.

Ignore the ragged filler below the arch line - it needs more to bring it level with the surrounding material.  I could do with looking at a mint original wheel arch to gauge whether my guess at shape is accurate.  Look closely though and you'll see  that it's slightly wavy and this will have to be sorted before paint.  Misleadingly in these pictures, it looks as though the raised section gets much narrower toward the front of the arch - this isn't the case and it's all down to perspective. ;-)

There's a raised bleb of filler in the middle of the arch lip that spoils the line...  I don't know how I missed that earlier, but it will vanish next time.

Some shots now of suspension ride height, for comparison mainly.  The rears are believed to be standard, but I've fitted the Koni shocks and AVO springs to the front, which lowered it a fair bit, but not too much by any means.

More to come...