I have been having a lot of battery problems recently and been swapping batteries around to get the most from them. I have not been able to get any fresher ones as the battery recycling yard have not had the right types coming in. I ran a seperate pair of wires from the back and mounted a meter on the side of the bracket for the motor controller programmer so I could monitor a single battery. I was surprised to see one of the batteries (the suspect one) go as low as 4v when loaded under heavy acceleration. So I decided to park him up for a while and work on the body.
So far I have been working on the rear end body kit. It comes as a moulded glass fibre skin. I have removed the structures from the original bumpers and there are foam blocks and an impact bar too. You can see these all in the photo below clamped to the new bumper.
The foam blocks were cut to fit as the contours were different.
The old sub structure was applied to the new bumper.
Then I applied some Isopon P40 glass fibre mix to fix the substructure in place.
I used more fibreglass to fix the other brackets in place too.
I added some aluminium angle section to the tabs on the new bumper to re-inforce and strengthen the fixing point. This was drilled in many places to give better adhesion.
I still need to do some adjustments to the fixing on the side by the wheel arches as they are sticking out a little, but no too much.
----
I still need to add the license plate lights and the license plate itself. There are a number of scratches and a couple of chips that need repair. At this point in time I am not sure about the finish. I shall add some mesh to the holes for styling as well after the finish is done. I have ordered some red chrome vinyl wrap from eBay to try out on the sunroof panel. If this works out o.k. then I shall do the rest of the car using the same wrap. This has 2 factors; is it easy to apply and is the finish like a mirror? If it is easy to apply, but the finish is not like a mirror, then I shall use a gloss red wrap instead. If it is too difficult to do then I shall go for a paint finish and my brother will help with that.
