Dagenham Destroyer *updated*

[martin]

Weight saving~

To give you an idea of how far I've gone into this, I removed everything (internal bumper reinforcement, double skin on the inside of the roof, door locks all around, latches on the read doors~ they're now bolted shut, every spare wire in the loom etc etc) Weight saving was cheap so that was what I was most thorough on, I reckon I spent 3 months in total making it as light as I could on a budget.

Not too worried about losing strength as the cage will protect me in all but the most severe of accidents on a race circuit. The only time I would worry about losing strength is in terms of the chassis. I may get the welder out and get Dave or Gary to teach me how to weld.........anyone want me to practice on their cars? :wave2:

If you need any welding done or want a lesson give me a shout as that is what i do for a living :-D

[Stuart]

May well take you up on that (lessons), thanks very much :thumb:

[martin]

May well take you up on that (lessons), thanks very much :thumb:

No worries its not as hard as people think. One you have sussed the heat and wire speeds you will be away and welding everthing in sight :-D And i have fitted a few roll cages in my time ones with chick bars into the doors and cages that come through and pick up the front turrets on a sierra and full cages like this the pic is of a sierra cage

[madenglishman]

Paint colour of choice for those that crash a lot

More to follow tomorrow :wave2:

Great colour choice :bandit: ...........the choice of champions :lol: :lol: :lol:

[woody]

Truely awesome work Stu!

[Stuart]

Gave myself a few days off from the car this week but thought it was about time I got some more photos up.

I thought I'd better do a discrete test panel just incase something went horribly wrong.......this is when I found out how much fun painting stuff is



Didn't go on too badly and it smelled great :wack: I did another coat after 20 minutes for drying, and repeated this process until the red was no more. Then flipped the bonnet over for round two.

I was going to go for the proper tramp look and paint over the bird shit that was on there, but decided against it in the end. A quick wash was required, followed by a degrease with petrol to remove any traces of adhesive from the vinyls. This left the paintwork looking like this




Gary Funnell had told me to gently abrade the surface of the paint with a scotch pad to offer the new paint something to key into. Great advice buddy :thumb: On with the first external coat



A few more coats following the procedure above (paint, leave for 20 minutes, paint again) and this was the finished article



More Basildon Taxi than Initial D but there was still hope............

After Princess Womack moved his fake (sorry replica) Nismo 400r I could actually move my car for the first time since we took the unit last Summer. A few groans from the suspension, hopefully that was the lay up and not my new fighting weight that caused it, and I rolled the car outside for more of the same.

More prep



A reminder for you of what it looked like before I had my silly idea



And now the first coat of aerosal number 6



This was the first time I could start to see just what the finished 'look' would be like. I was chuffed More paint and some close ups




Look at those swage lines Couldn't believe how this colour made them stand out.







I'll try and get some more stripping and prep work done this week. Dunkinator is coming over on Wednesday before the meet to do some graft (that probably means he'll turn up three hours late with his arm in a sling ) and the parts should start to turn up this week too.

[kev@tga]

good work stu that looks good, you dont fancy doing my bonnet do you :-D

[Stuart]

No problem Kev

Bring it along on Wednesday and I'll have it done in around an hour :thumb:

[kev@tga]

No problem Kev

Bring it along on Wednesday and I'll have it done in around an hour :thumb:

i was being serious i will bring it along wednesday though if your being serious :-D

[Stuart]

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