Superstox NFR 6

Updated: 18 April 2007

Chassis

If you have already read about the cars history you will know that the car is a 1996 HCD Chassis.  The car was purchased as a rolling chassis , which generally means its ready to go less an engine.  The picture on the left was taken when I first got the car home in April 2006.  As you can see it's all there personalize apart from the engine under the bonnet.  As I never had an engine to drop straight in, I took the opportunity to  the car while I waited for the engine to be built the car.

Mark last raced the car in October 2005, since then a Spedeworth Scrutineer discovered that allot of the Superstox side irons did not comply to the rules.  The rules state that the side irons "Must run horizontally between the front and rear wheel at bumper height, and must be 100mm (4'') in depth the complete length of the side iron, with a minimum of 50m return at each end".  Basically the bottom rail of the side irons should be the same length as the top.  As you can see from the picture on the left, my car did not comply to this rule, so this was the first job we decided to do on the car.

26/01/07 - Work finally gets started on the car, and its the side irons today.  I must admit I'm not very good at welding so I called on the help of my Father-in -law, who luckily for me a Welder by trade.  We decided to cut back the bottom bar and then weld in a new section tube.  Mike Spence (F2 #903) from DMS Fabrications in Basingstoke kindly donated us some 3mm tube.  To do both sides with a ark welder it took approx 3 hours.

03/02/07 - Today I removed the aerofoil and the signwritting on the car.  The car has stickers so these just needed peeling off easy job you may think?  Well I started peeling them and it was hard work, then recall reading once that a hairdryer does the trick.  So found an old hairdryer belonging to the wife and had a go.  I really wish I done this earlier as it made it much easier, but still it was a time consuming job removing every sticker one by one.  Its also surprising how plan the car looks without the aerofoil and signwritting?

17/02/07 - Next it's "off with the clothes", so I could start rubbing down the chassis prior to painting.  I thought this would be an interesting picture to take without the panels on, as I expect many spectators would not have seen a bare Superstox chassis before? It quite a simple job of just drilling out the rivets that hold on the panels.  The panels are then put to one side ready for painting at a later date.

03/03/07 - A couple of people tried to encourage me not to paint to paint the Chassis as it is not an easy task.  But I really wanted to have the car painted in my usual black and gold colour scheme, which meant the chassis would have to be painted!  As I was leaving bits on the car It would have to be painted by hand and this was another reason people were saying "don't do it"!  I recalled  John Saunders once telling me he used a little roller to paint his car so I thought I would give that a go.  Well done John it worked a treat!  The benefit of a roller is the same as on your walls at home, you can apply an even coat over a vast area allot quicker.  There is no over applying or brush strokes, however I did have to use a brush in areas the roller could not get to.

11/03/07 - Time for a second coat and a bit of touch up.  As the chassis was mainly black I decided to add some gold to rear of the roll cage, and will add more gold as time goes on.  If you compare this picture with the one above it, the chassis is now starting to look different.
 

31/03/07 - Next job was to paint the panels.  I gave them all a good rub down so the new paint would stick well, and decided to paint them with a roller.  There were 3 reasons for this, 1) quickness, 2) The JCB Black paint I used is already mixed up and is normally applied on JCB's with a roller,  and 3) I don't have a compressor to spray them with!  The first coat went on well but once dry it looked very dull and had no shine to it.  A few people advised me to give it a second coat and this sometimes brings out more of a shine.  Sure enough it did but, I was still not happy, having preferred to have them sprayed.  Then when a friend came around and said, "You can see the roller lines".  That was it, paint production stopped!

07/04/07 - Easter weekend was upon us,  Bovingdon was on the Friday so it was back to painting the car on the Saturday.  I borrowed a compressor from my friend Scott, and set about rubbing the panels and bonnet down again.  After spending a couple of hours stripping and cleaning out the air gun, thanks Scott :-), I decided to call it a day and start the spraying on the following day.

08/04/07 - Spray day!  I stuck with the JCB black as my last car (Escort) was sprayed with this paint and came up okay.  However after spraying the last car I was advised to mix a bit of petrol with it when spraying as it stops the gun getting clogged up and also gives more shine.  So I gave it a go, and after one coat I experienced the same dullness problem as before.  I persevered with a second coat and this was better, but still went for a third coat and this was even better!

09/04/07 - A family dinner was arranged for Monday afternoon, but I could resist popping out to the garage in the morning to see the end result.  When I opened the garage door I could not believe what had happened! Some wood and bits and pieces had fallen down from the rafters and had dented and scratched my new paintwork. :-( Very annoyed is probably the politest word to use.  The paint was never less dry and I was itching to see how they looked on the car.  So out came the pop riveter and in with a few rivets just to see the result!  Okay I'm not paint sprayer but I was reasonably pleased with the job!  Just the roof fin to go!