Europa TCST (Turbo)

Getting lost in the details again …. everything touched up and ready for reassembly after everything has dried completely. Minor wrinkle finish applied to inner speedo and tach bezels by spraying light coats of wrinkle paint (to cover minor rust pitting).

You look at those gauges a lot, so that's an important detail.  Nice work.

Have you seen any of the restorations at mat.fi? 

They rebuild and repaint the original gauges, just like that.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) : I will check them out

Together …. made new seals/gaskets out of window screen spline material super glued into an o -ring (saw this on a Triumph forum) instead of using sealant, their only purpose is to keep the glass from rattling really, as the gauges are open in other areas …..

I was sick the week before last and last week I met some Air Force buddies at the Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction in Scottsdale Arizona. We had a great time! It was like we just saw each other yesterday but we had all aged 32 years overnight …. How could this happen    We also went to Sedona and rented a Polaris Razor which was great fun!

The auction was interesting, lots of cars to see! Bids made no sense to me as peoples feelings seemed to take precedence over quality and craftsmanship of the car being auctioned. There were some internet winning bids which are crazy as some of the car were lacking when you looked closely at them! I would not bid without seeing a car first, maybe that's just me?

There are also some life issues getting in the way of progress …. (We probably all have some of them!)

Right before I went I botched my “new” binnacle trying to use a piece from my old binnacle as a guide to drill holes for the warning lights in my new binnacle    I should have known better! 
 

Anyways I repaired with it a piece from the original binnacle ( the alignment holes in it weren’t straight from Lotus).

Starting on glove box now.

Heck, I forgot to mention one of the best parts of Barrett-Jackson,

We all went drifting in a new Supra! 
 

My vacuum formed glove box needed some repairs as the depth of it stretched the ABS to far 
and it was coming apart in places. I mounted a cut off disc in my drill press so I could trim the flange and back evenly. I was then able to use the piece I trimmed off my ABS dash pad to make a repair piece. I made a bending jig and bent it to shape using a heat gun. Just need to glue or pop rivet it together   
 

I reached 100,000 views of this build on the Lotus forum last night!

Dude, this is freaking awesome. 

Care to share your abs plastic tricks? I may have missed them somehow. Daquil and steroids have lowered my reading comprehension and attention slightly....

In reply to Dusterbd13 :

What tricks? I just repaired a part I bought from another Lotus forum member.

Instrument binnacle mounted, wired 12V USB/cigarette lighter power source with LED voltage readout so I can use GPS, charge phone etc. Glovebox repair riveted and glued.

Any suggestions on how to neatly repaint the silver accents on the bullseye dash vents?

TurboFource said:

Instrument binnacle mounted, wired 12V USB/cigarette lighter power source with LED voltage readout so I can use GPS, charge phone etc. Glovebox repair riveted and glued.

Any suggestions on how to neatly repaint the silver accents on the bullseye dash vents?

Here is the tach in my J20. If I remember correctly, I sprayed silver paint on a flat piece of stock and then dipped the bezel into the wet paint.

That's brilliant!

DarkMonohue that looks great! I will try that!

Well done, sir.

TurboFource said:

DarkMonohue that looks great! I will try that!

I hope it works! I was trying to match the OEM instrument panel of my pickup, which has a silver painted accent rather than a bright chrome finish, so regular silver spray paint worked okay for me.

Progressing .....

Gauge sun shields I sketched and my son printed to give gauges same OD and depth...

Eyeball vent fun …. Inner part of vent stands proud of the body so … hole to the rescue 
 

Thanks DarkMonohue for suggestion!

SWMBO thinks I have OCD  

In reply to TurboFource :

That's way smarter than I would have tried to paint that.  Brilliant!

Wow, those came out great. I'm really glad that worked out!

I am still a kid at heart and couldn't help myself .....