bomb factory: OHMYGODITSORANAGE!!!! now how did that happen?

Well quite apart from anything else I am well pleased... the car is ready for assembly - and at the last moment at the paint shop I decided that instead of balck it would become - well - orange - really - its a PPG colour in commercial transport grade paint... no particular reason other than I drove past a VW Polo that was a nice shade of orange on the way to the painters... duh
the paint crew at New Zealand Panel and Paint in New Plymouth did a very nice job... I spent four days on the sanding blocks and they only managed to tell me "its not worth the effort your just going to bend it anyway" about five times each day....

Overall it took 40 hours of sanding prep and 30 hours of painter time..... now thats alot - 8.5 litres of material on the car - end result there is no trace of the previous Fiat blue - anywhere - and I am broke - again!

so there you have it - check the pictures while I go and get a roll of bubble wrap so I can wrap the car up so it dont get scracthed.

So now its assembly time... with a stack of moinor fabrication - fitting up and general mucking around to do... little stuff like the fluid lines and the wiring loom... dash and switch panels finish the gear shift linkage glaze the car.... did I mention that I am broke? The engine is doing my head in - I have a 1600 Tempra that is only just run in at 440,000 km that I can pinch the engine out of - chuck in the FT7 cam and adjustable pully - scab a set of headers from somewhere and a set of bearings and rings - flywheel and clutch off the 1500 in the parents in laws shed and Bobs your Aunties live in lover! Sticking with the four speed as long as its still okay... if I can beg and borrow there is still an outside chance of running at DeHav drive in October - I really should start hitting up some sponsors... which could be a bit of a laugh :-)