A bit of an unplanned
project, this one. I had been thinking for the last couple
of years about changing to cycle wings but it just sort
of happened somehow.
It is odd how opinions change but when I ordered my car,
I was dead set on the flared wings. Looking back I can mostly
attribute this to the fact that 99% of the press pictures/road
tests were done with flared cars while I day dreamed. All
the pictures plastered on my college books and bedroom wall
were of flared cars, and so to me, they just looked right.
After 6 years and a number of rides in friends cycle winged
cars I fancied the change. I still love the flared look
on the right coloured car, the best being the BRG and yellow
stripe like mine was. It was just time for a change.
I decided at the start that I would try to do it as cost
effectively as possible. To this end, Mandy contacted one
of the companies who manufacture the glassfibre parts for
Caterham's
and asked if she could buy a pair of front wings, perhaps
some seconds. She was told that if she got the ok from Caterham,
then she could. This she duly did and my Christmas present
was sorted for another year. I went for the wings to suit
the 13/14" wheels in the end as I prefer the hugging
looks these give compared to the large 15/16". I would
have to come up with a mudflap to stop the stone chips though,
something the larger wings help with.
Next on my list was some wing stays. I posted up a wanted
add on Blatchat
and got a helpful reply to say someone had just posted some
in the for sale section. It happened to be one of the racing
guys from Lydden
who I knew so we arranged for them to be handed over to
Steve
at the Trophy night. Unfortunately, once Steve had recovered
from the nights excesses, he spotted that they were both
the same. A couple of phone calls later and it was found
that he did have another pair, but they were in a bit ropy
condition. On the positive side though, they were Ex-Vauxhall
Race stays, so brought the wing closer to the tire than
normal. A quick check that they would go over my 60 profile
032's and I popped down to the coast to do swap. So far
so good, two cheap wings and two very cheap wing stays that
I could clean up and paint.
Next, it took a turn for the worse though, and it was all
my own fault. I decided I couldn't afford a re-skin and
re-spray this year as the axle change was taking all the
budget this winter. What I should have done is to get hold
of some dome headed bolts, paint them green with my touch-up
paint and lived with the looks for a year or two. What I
decided to do was to remove the riv-nuts, glue a plate on
the rear of the hole, fill the hole and sand flat and locally
paint. I contacted Tony at TSK who paints all the factory
cars and he put me off the idea of using proper two-pack
paint due to the fact that you really need to have all the
right equipment in order not to die in the process. He did,
however, offer to have some aerosol cans made up for me
in the right colour. This was a right result as far as I
was concerned as they are much easier to work with. So I
set to it and got the filled in holes almost undetectable.
It all fell apart when I tried to spay it, or rather when
I then tried to flat it back and polish. I had masked up
the whole side of the car, removed the front suspension
and exhaust, etc, and painted all the way back to the rear
wing to keep the change point as small as possible. However,
when I started to cut it back before polishing, it was clear
that it wasn't working as I started to get patches where
the paint was too thin and the old showed through. What
was worse was that the colour was slightly different. In
some lights it looked the same, but in others it had more
of a blue tinge. I am sure the paint was fine, it's just
that my car had faded slightly over the previous 6 years.
So I was left with different coloured patches down the sides
of my car, and I hadn't even got all the scratches out yet.
It was time to concede and admit that I had made a bad decision
and move on.
Once the decision had been made, it was amazingly easy to
get everything sorted out. Mandy, as usual, did most of
the calling around and got me quotes from Arch Motors for
the re-skin and from TSK and Specialised Painting in Reading
for the re-spray. Arch could fit me in the following week
so I started to strip the car down. Annoyingly, having had
the front suspension off for the painting I had to re-fit
it in order to get the engine out with Steve's hoist. I
got the car stripped in three evenings (Monday to Wednesday)
after work and then the Thursday evening I removed the side
skins and rear panel (to save Arch some time - and reduce
the cost). My plan was to take the car to Arch, then collect
it and ferry it down to TSK and then collect it the following
week. On the Friday evening we did a trial run of putting
the now bare chassis on the roof rack of my poor old Citroen
ZX and it just fitted. It was also quite a job lifting it
that high. Saturday morning was an early start to get the
chassis into place, all tied down with my usual over-enthusiasm
for knots and on the road by 8am. I just wish I had had
the thought to take a picture, as going on the funny looks
I got on the trip, it must have looked quite funny. Bruce
Robinson was there to meet me at Arch at around 10am and
we unloaded the chassis and the bits of panels that they'd
use to replicate the filler and exhaust holes for me. The
old ZX pulled a lot better on the way home for some reason.
Whilst at Arch, Bruce very kindly offered to take the complete
chassis to TSK for me in their delivery van. TSK is only
5mins from Caterham factory, so if they had a spare slot
in the truck one day it could go in there. Another result
as I was concerned with lashing down on a nice fresh Ali
shin and damaging it. This they duly did about 10 days later
once year end was out of the way for them - fair enough,
and very helpful. All that remained was for me to pop over
to TSK and see Tony, dropping off my wings, bonnet and scuttle
for him to paint with the chassis. I was a little nervous
as at this point I don't think Tony knew it was the twit
who tried to paint his own car. I needn't have worried as
Tony was a true gent and we were soon discussing paint colours
and codes. It should be noted at this point that I had spent
the time with the chassis gone to look for suitable colours.
I remember seeing a picture of a car that was silver and
red and I loved it, so I kind of set my heart on that then.
But the question was which silver and which red? I won't
bore you with the details, but I choose two Ferrari colours,
Titanium Silver and, of course, Rosso Corsa Red. I had looked
at Mercedes Silver, but in the end I preferred the darker
Ferrari colour. (A good tip is to visit your local paint
shop - Halfords in my case - and have them mix up any colours
you are thinking of, spray a scrape bit of sheet Ali and
then see what it is like n sunlight, shade, different lights,
etc)
Tony had a lot of work come his way from the factory, and
I believe he turned away private customers after me, so
I was lucky he took my car. This did mean a slight delay,
but as I don't provide his everyday supply of work I completely
understood he had to make his main customer happy. My car
was all finished just before the Easter weekend and Tony
kindly offered to deliver it to me. He hates to see freshly
painted, shiny cars strapped down with ropes and the like
to trailers or roof racks. I didn't mention that that was
indeed my plan/only option! I can't think of many other
people who would journey from one side of London to the
other around the M25 on one of the busiest nights of the
year. What service! More importantly what a paintjob. Even
better than the original, and the silver was just jaw-dropping.
It was so so sparkly, even better than I had hoped for,
and this was just in the garage after the sun had gone behind
the house. The red noseband and strip still gives it a slight
classic look, and I feel the strip helps to make the car
look longer than it is. Fantastic. The build started Good
Friday morning, but I still spent a few hours pretending
to move bits around the garage, just looking at the paintwork.
Useful
contacts:
TSK Paintshop - 01322 441604
Arch Motors - 01480 459661
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