'Moose'
2
Steps Forward, 1 Step Back
16 February 1999
With
nothing better to do, we headed off for a four hour round trip to
see how Moose was getting on. The last we heard was that the floor
pan, dashboard and engine bay had been painted in top-coat and was
looking really good. Well, we got a bit of a shock when we got there.
One of the problems that can occur with two-pack paint is that the
laquer coat can sometimes refuse to harden. Jonathon had finished
the clearcoats on Friday and left the car under the heat lamp over
the weekend. With a tight deadline of getting the car to the engine
fitters, it was essential that the lacquer had hardened by the time
they got the car, otherwise it would have been very easy to scratch
and damage the finish.
As
you've guessed by know, come Monday morning, the lacquer had not hardened
completely and didn't look like it was going to for another week.
It must have been an old or duff batch of lacquer. Fortunately for
Jonathon, the engine fitters had had to make room in their schedule
for an emergency engine rebuild so they wouldn't need Moose for another
3 or 4 days. Jonathon made the decision to remove all of the paint
in the engine bay and on the dashboard and redo it completely with
a different type of lacquer this time. He will leave the floor pan
to harden when it hardens given that there is no work being done to
the rear section for a while. All going well it should be ready for
the engine fitters by the end of the week.
Of
course setbacks like this are really something we could do without,
just like we could have done without having to buy a new ECU. But
then it wouldn't be fun if it was easy ... ;)
