Spottedlaurel

The Eggbound Terrapin is Maude, one half of Terrapin duo 'Harold and Maude' who came into my life as a freebie when the current Ms_Nutz rocked up.

She's (Maude, not Mrs_Nutz) has been acting weird lately and I think she wants to lay an egg (first time she will have done that despite being about 8 yrs old). So yesterdays horsebox time was instead spent making an annex for her tank with a 'sand pit' in which she can lay her egg. I think they normally lay thier eggs on beaches and their instinct is to dig a hole in the sand to pop the egg in.


I used to think these turtles were a boring waste of time (and a lot of electricity for their tank heaters over their 30-year lifespan) but now I really like watching them cruising up and down in the tank, climbing out for a bask under the heat lamp .and just generally getting on with their turtle business. They're always busy and much more watchable than say Coronation Street.

We installed the new beach area today, Maude hasn't been up there yet, but if she doesn't lay her egg soon at least she can't blame it on lousy local facilities.

Case in point, got round to spending an enjoyable few minutes in the sunshine taking photos of this recently-completed project:

1:24 Fujimi Honda Prelude kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

1:24 Fujimi Honda Prelude kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

1:24 Fujimi Honda Prelude kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr
Photos also taken of the For Sale stuff, will get those on tomorrow.

Looking great!
Didn't realise about the two plate fitting options. Just had a look at those on my Flickr account and I have photos of both, definitely looks better below the bumper. Our 1.6 L had it that way.

Case in point, got round to spending an enjoyable few minutes in the sunshine taking photos of this recently-completed project:

1:24 Fujimi Honda Prelude kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

1:24 Fujimi Honda Prelude kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

1:24 Fujimi Honda Prelude kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr
Photos also taken of the For Sale stuff, will get those on tomorrow.

Case in point, got round to spending an enjoyable few minutes in the sunshine taking photos of this recently-completed project:

1:24 Fujimi Honda Prelude kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

1:24 Fujimi Honda Prelude kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

1:24 Fujimi Honda Prelude kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr
Photos also taken of the For Sale stuff, will get those on tomorrow.

Case in point, got round to spending an enjoyable few minutes in the sunshine taking photos of this recently-completed project:

1:24 Fujimi Honda Prelude kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

1:24 Fujimi Honda Prelude kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

1:24 Fujimi Honda Prelude kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr
Photos also taken of the For Sale stuff, will get those on tomorrow.

Bigg Market/Grainger Street, Newcastle. 

Happy birthday SL!  Mine's on Thursday...

Thanks, have a good one! Mine was alright actually, good to spend time with just the family rather than visiting or having people round.
As we couldn't go on our planned trip I've had the excuse to do what I want and mess around with small shite.

Got more done today.
Firstly though, the front bumper irons, corner brackets and number plate brackets are all clean and freshly painted now but (I forgot to take a before pic!) when first removed from the old bumpers they were all filthy, and very crusty rusty horrible looking things. I wire brushed them down and cleaned them up by hand then dumped them into a tub full of POR15 rust remover solution. I’ve used stuff like this before, and while they all work to some degree, I’ve never had a result like this!
This is how they came out of the tub after being left in it overnight.


Almost every trace of rust gone! And it even managed to lift off some of the stubborn remaining old paint too! Good stuff.
Heres all the brackets etc finished and painted ready to go back on.

And the old number plate salvaged from the original bumper.

 
Rear bumper first. Dead easy this one, four nuts with a big penny washer and spring washer on each. I’ve greased all the threads too. Just in case!



Next I was waiting for the last few bolts to finish soaking in the rust remover so while I was waiting I decided to fill the cooling system with ready mixed blue antifreeze. Obviously I can’t bleed it all properly until it’s running (not long for that now hopefully!) but I’ve filled it up, squeezed all the hoses to burp air out and left it full. First time it’s had coolant inside the engine in four years!
No leaks either so far which is always good.
 

 
Front bumper now.
This was a pig to fit! The big bumper irons went on easy enough. They just bolt to the sides of the inner wing/chassis with two bolts each. Getting the two corner brackets on and lined up with the holes for their bolts on the wings was a nightmare. I can only assume this is down to the front end being a real mix up of new panels (all genuine Ford though) and possibly also the bumpers being from another car and the brackets and irons from about 3 different cars! I guess it just takes a bit of trial and error to get all those different bits to go together properly!
got there in the end but the nearside corner didn’t half resist my efforts!
Once again, all the bolts and threads have been greased. And I’ve painted the nut/bolt heads in black too so they don’t rust and look ugly.

It was my birthday yesterday. For obvious reasons, celebrations of it were a bit low-key and this was the only present I got:

My sister got it online somewhere, I haven't seen this version anywhere locally. Appropriately the same age as me.......
More progress on the Skyline today:

1:20 Nichimo Nissan Skyline C211 kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr
Just hope that my current supply of Superglue holds out (Master SL is also using it on his Ferrari kit).

It’s now April, the suns out, it’s warm & dry and the utter misery that is the winter is now gone. Thank fuck! That means it’s now time to kick off the 2020 season of laying under old cars getting angry and swearing!
 
I thought I’d ease myself into it by doing something that will make a big difference to the car quickly. That way I can give myself a bit of a confidence boost to crack on!
So, bumpers.
Ive been at a bit of a loss as to what to do with these. I’ve got the original pair from my car, which have ok/reasonable chrome and good rubber rub strips still but they’re let down a bit by being a bit buckled and bent!
At some point some years ago I found a mk2 in a local scrap yard so pillaged the bumpers and various other bits from it’s utterly rotten corpse. These are very straight, but the chrome isn’t great - they’ll polish and clean up well but I’m not sure they’re quite up to my standard for this car. These ones are also GT/Ghia items with the two black plastic over riders.
I wasn’t sure which to use tbh, and whatever I did I was almost certainly going to be needing a rechrome, which means having to separate the black rub strips from the metal bumper - doing this will most probably break the fixings as they rust and seize!
So I’ve put the job off but kept an eye out for some good replacement bumpers. A pair appeared on eBay about a month or so back so I bid and won. When they turned up they were absolutely gorgeous! Very straight, very good chrome and the rub strips are very good too with no broken fixings. The only slight issue is the front bumper has been stripped of its mounting irons and number plate brackets as the last owner was going to fit them to a mk3. This also meant the chromed dome headed bolts that attached these parts to the bumper were also missing. Good job I’ve got plenty of spare bumpers then!
First job was a clean up of the eBay bumpers. They were good anyway tbh but they’d been in storage for a long time so we’re a little dull and dusty. I’ve washed them front and back, then broke out the chrome polish & a bit of elbow grease to buff them up. Finished off with some black trim polish for the rub strips. Once that was sorted I’ve checked over the backs of the bumpers, which are in excellent condition with minimal signs of rust and the given them a good covering with Dynax UC underbody wax. I did the usual with this and left the bumpers and the can of wax out in the sun for an hour to warm up then spray them. This just makes the wax as thin and runny as possible which then allows it to creep into all the gaps and seams etc. The only things on the bumpers really are the mounting brackets but if it helps keep the rust out then it’s all good!
The finished articles look amazing imho! The pics don’t do them justice really, for chrome that’s seen going on 50 years of life they really are exceptional. If you put them in the sun and walk past them they look like liquid!
Backs of the rear bumper.


Now the shiny side!





This is the worst bit on them. One corner of one rub strip has had a little graze. I can’t say I’m going complain though, they’re very old and you can’t have it all, can you!

After that I went and dug out the other front bumpers and robbed the mounting irons, number plate brackets and a few of the chrome dome head bolts to fit to the polished up front bumper. This took bloody ages, as the number plate bracket bolts were seized solid and I didn’t want to damage anything getting them free! Managed in the end at the expense of a few hours!
This evening I’ve scrubbed all the brackets and the irons with a wire brush, and left them to soak in rust remover overnight. Tomorrow they’ll be primed in acid etch then sprayed satin black. 
The leftover two pairs of bumpers can go in the loft as spares now too, so that’s another corner of the garage cleared!
 
 
 

It was my birthday yesterday. For obvious reasons, celebrations of it were a bit low-key and this was the only present I got:

My sister got it online somewhere, I haven't seen this version anywhere locally. Appropriately the same age as me.......
More progress on the Skyline today:

1:20 Nichimo Nissan Skyline C211 kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr
Just hope that my current supply of Superglue holds out (Master SL is also using it on his Ferrari kit).

It was my birthday yesterday. For obvious reasons, celebrations of it were a bit low-key and this was the only present I got:

My sister got it online somewhere, I haven't seen this version anywhere locally. Appropriately the same age as me.......
More progress on the Skyline today:

1:20 Nichimo Nissan Skyline C211 kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr
Just hope that my current supply of Superglue holds out (Master SL is also using it on his Ferrari kit).

It was my birthday yesterday. For obvious reasons, celebrations of it were a bit low-key and this was the only present I got:

My sister got it online somewhere, I haven't seen this version anywhere locally. Appropriately the same age as me.......
More progress on the Skyline today:

1:20 Nichimo Nissan Skyline C211 kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr
Just hope that my current supply of Superglue holds out (Master SL is also using it on his Ferrari kit).

Had a significant birthday yesterday. Local Japanese restaurant was open for takeaways and we needed a bit of milk etc so that gave me a reason for my longest drive in nearly three weeks (10-mile round trip!). '88 Sunny was the perfect choice.
Booked a day off either side of this long Easter weekend so we could have a once-in-a-lifetime trip to New York with the kids. Clearly that didn't happen so I'm now having the longest, laziest period of doing nothing I can recall since I started work in 1986, and I've got the perfect excuse not to get involved with work on the house which would usually be the priority at this time of year.

Australian Cedric

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Datsun-280C/254566870482?hash=item3b455e2dd2:g:oHcAAOSwh55ekjvr

Thanks! I could have had a tough upbringing and started work when I was 6, or wasted a few years and started when I was 26, but you've guessed correctly.......

Had a significant birthday yesterday. Local Japanese restaurant was open for takeaways and we needed a bit of milk etc so that gave me a reason for my longest drive in nearly three weeks (10-mile round trip!). '88 Sunny was the perfect choice.
Booked a day off either side of this long Easter weekend so we could have a once-in-a-lifetime trip to New York with the kids. Clearly that didn't happen so I'm now having the longest, laziest period of doing nothing I can recall since I started work in 1986, and I've got the perfect excuse not to get involved with work on the house which would usually be the priority at this time of year.

Thanks! I could have had a tough upbringing and started work when I was 6, or wasted a few years and started when I was 26, but you've guessed correctly.......

Happy 50th!! ?

Because of current circumstances I've got a very long weekend at home and a good excuse not to do anything useful or practical. Maybe it's time to get this thing finished?

1:20 Nichimo Nissan Skyline C211 kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

1:20 Nichimo Nissan Skyline C211 kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr
I started it over 10 years ago. Paintwork has since been lacquered and polished so most of the time-consuming stuff done, just detail painting and assembly now.....

I'd have them at that please. Or part-ex something from my spare diecasts box? I'll get some photos together......