The Mk IV windshield frame was also featured here, in the later pictures.

  I have even more good photos to catch up on.

Here, I am now posting a lot of what has been done to fix the fiberglass, the rear deck, the doors, sills and the front end.  If there are questions, I will make comments, but here they are without additional text for each one.  Most should be self-explanatory.

The reason I have not made any posts lately is not because nothing has been happening, it’s because what has been happening is not so photogenic or very interesting.

The shop itself became inadequate for me to finish the painting.  Whenever I sanded using air tools, my wrists were getting wet – the lines were full of air.  Neither priming nor painting can be done with that much water in the lines.  I drained the water separator, no water there.  I drained the compressor, no water there.  It was ONLY in the lines from the water separator and the tools.  Something structurally was wrong in the system.  I went to the shops that sells paint and equipment for painting; then I went to Google for more information.  Everything had been wrong with the way the system had been installed, and technology for this issue had improved in the past 17 years.

As it turned out, the way I had set up this shop 15+ years ago was all wrong for keeping water out of my air lines; who knew?  Anyway, to make a long story short, I had to buy a new and much improved 21st century air drier system, and I needed to re-plumb the mounting of it, so that it was at the lowest position possible, incorporating a passive trap.  That required that I move everything out of the shop to access the plumbing; that required a complete reorganization  of the shop.  That is why there have not been any progress photos lately.  I don’t think anyone wants to see photos of that operation.

The bodywork has continued, though even that has been somewhat boring to look at photos of.  The floorboards, rear bulkhead and roll cage have now been primed, and sanded several times with minor bits of spot putty along the way.  The goal has been to make the interior look like an Osca, which was all aluminum and had no carpeting.  The transmission tunnel has over 100 hours in it so far.

This photo is of the Osca that inspired me to do the dash and interior the way I am doing it, which has been very time-consuming.  My color scheme is obviously BRGreen rather than red, but you get the idea.  Hopefully, the photo communicates both the reason I am doing it, and the why it is taking so long.  Elva never built their cars to this standard, they were cars a middle class guy could afford, unlike the Osca.

The rear section had to come back off to fix up the ridge across the top of the bulkhead, because that can’t be reached once it is bonded on.  The roll cage gets in the way of priming and painting it back there.  I had to fix several cracks along that edge with epoxy and microballoon.  If I tried to use ordinary bondo it would just crack and fall off.

The doors are being painted body color inside as well, and this also required the epoxy and microballoon treatment.

The biggest use of regular bondo on this car has been the body lines which are at about knee height that go from the front of the car to the back along the front fenders, doors, and rear fenders.  What a mess that was; I have really tried to bring that line out, to look fresh and straight.  Most of these cars lose the crispness of that line and I don’t know how straight they ever were when knew, but I just want it to look good.  It’s one of the things that will make the car stand out.

In among the boxes of parts I got was a piece of a dashboard that I later found was the instrument cluster from an Alfa Romeo Giulietta.  So I built my dashboard out of that cluster section and two other metal dash pieces from a 1967 MGB.   The final assembly into one welded unit was both a nightmare in the process, and a better-than-expected success in the end.

Add to this, the interesting quandary:  First, it should be functional for the race track;  secondly, it will occasionally be driven on the street.  So, because I will have two separate engines, I also have two separate sets of gauges for the oil pressure and the water temperature.   One set is electronic and feed information to the original-style 3-in-1 gauge.  The other two will use a mercury tube and oil capillary tube to the separate instruments.  The two recesses which were used on the MGB for heater and defroster controls are being replaced with low oil pressure and high water temperature warning lights.

All in all, as a social  event, it was a success.  No one got to race, only 5 Elvas made the laps around the Glen, and those that did were COLD, and wet.  But still, we all got to see each other face to face,

instead of just emailing back and forth, so that was worth the time.  The Durango is now rebuilt, with its transmission working better than ever, due to a few better parts being used to make the repair, and my budget for the month is shot.

I have decided to go, to force myself to push once again for a deadline.  I don’t know if I can do it, but it is worth trying.  Here are some photos to bring y’all up to date on where I am today.

The race for April 21 is on!

In these photos are a selection of things that have already been done, but not mentioned in the blog so far.  I have photos of the mounting bracket I made for the fuel cell, the various parts that were used to fix the old differential, like the new hardened axle, compared to an old one.  Fortunately, the gears in the diff were in extremely nice condition, so no work needed there, thank goodness.  I am also showing the bottom of the trunk floor area, and how much fiberglass work had to be done under there.  There is a recent pic of the pedal assembly being pre-fitted; although it is not quite done yet.  The dashboard is my next big project.  That, and the gaps between the body and the chassis at the rear bulkheads, . . .