Friday 7 June 2013

The Body Beautiful

Beautiful ish.

Sort of beautiful with an interesting mole, or a pierced lip maybe?

Yes I've been working on the headlight socket repair again - & I've met with some success! When we saw it last, it was all lumpy, but yellow at least. I'd rubbed it down & got it smooth at least, but the underlying colour was showing & I'd realised that using the heat gun to cure it was darkening the pigment.

So, today I took the Dremel & cut out the dark areas as well as some cracking in the gel-coat that had shown up after the sanding. Then I made up some more goop & blobbed it in. Realising I could kill two birds with one stone I took the Dremel to the cold air intake & ground out the edges so the GRP could be covered up. This also meant grinding a large lump out of the leading edge "ramp" which had cracked anyway.

The goop was staying resolutely liquid as I attempted to get it to stay in the ground out areas, while at the same time building up the deeper / lower bits. Then after about 1/2 hour there was a noticeable increase in the viscosity of the goop in the tray. I quickly checked for any low areas & added some where it was needed - then suddenly it was solid! - perfect.

After tea, I rubbed down the light socket & the intake. The intake needs a little more work as it's still a little lumpy & the dark GRP is showing through at the sides. On the upside, the intake is a much better shape than it was before (either time) & with a little more work will look good.

Good enough for me at least & when it comes to bodywork, I'm not very picky.

As I said it need a little more work next time I make up some goop & it needs a bit more smoothing both on the bottom ramp & at the sides.

But the point of the exercise was the headlight, & as you can see, it's not half bad for an amateur.

There's a little staining in the colour, but the car's usually dirty enough to hide that. It also need some polishing.

I've polished it a bit, but it's not as glossy as the rest of the area yet - some more to do tomorrow I think.

But certainly when you stand back from it, it doesn't shout "REPAIRED" at you .........
....does it?

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