23/02/2009 (2 hours)
Due to the college course I am still not able to get my hands dirty on the Olympic shell. At the moment the only things I can do is look for spares and sort the engine out. To that end I have purchased some second hand trailing arms, prop shaft and a pair of rear suspension spring seats off Ebay, these items came from CNK 210B which was the Olympic featured in the Feb 1965 issue of Motorsport.
I intend to get the engine to the engineers this month to get the cylinders bored out to fit the 1600 pistons that are waiting to go in. I have also purchased a 1500 engine off Ebay so I can take the con rods out of it and see if I can get 4 that are of a similar weight. If you look at an earlier entry in this diary you will see I had quite a large difference in the weight of my con rods across all 4. I've seen a nice Shorrock supercharger on Ebay this week, I wonder if the wife will notice a large chunk of money missing out of our account......! I'm claiming 2 hours due to the fact I had to get the Rochdale off the trailer to go and pick the engine up.
21/06/09 ( 2 hours)
Well it's been nearly 5 months since I have managed to get my hands dirty on the Rochdale! I've just read through the last few entries and the Shorrock Supercharger didn't happen! My College course has now finished and I'm off on a new assignment, luckily for me there is a garage to store my car at this new posting so I can work to my hearts content in the evenings for the next few months. Today I got the Rochdale out of my garage and prepped it ready for the 100 mile journey to it's new home. Hopefully this diary will start to fill up now and not be so stagnant. Claiming a few hours for digging the Rochdale out of the garage. The engine is going for its re-bore tommorrow!
22 June (2 Hours)
I pushed the car into the Motor Club today where I work. All of the long term bays were taken up so they asked me if I could squeeze the car through into a side room. This I managed to do all by myself with relative ease, it's amazing how light the bodyshell is! Once inside I set about applying bits of glass cloth to the door pillars and other spots around the shell. 2 of the door pillars did not line up exactly so just needed a bit of cloth adding to straighten it up a bit.
23 June (2 hours)
I decided to remove all of the front running gear today, it was only on to help me pull it onto the car trailer. I've now made a trestle for the car to sit on so I don't need to push it round like a wheel barrow anymore! I put some more cloth on the front offside wheelarch tonight. This was the first repair I did but soon realised it wouldn't be strong enough so took it back out and started again. I was told today that they didn't want the Rochdale in the side room so I dragged it back out and put it next to the car lift.
30 June (3.30 hours)
Even though the temp was touching 35 degrees this evening and sitting in a pub garden was all I fancied doing I thought I might aswell go and tackle the bodywork on the Rochdale. The first thing I tackled was rubbing down the repair I started on the offside wing. Once I'd finished profiling this I moved onto the door pillars for some more sanding and finally to the nearside rear wheelarch to profile it some more before the next coat of gel goes on. There were a few more spots I rubbed down but as I'd lost most of my body water I decided to call it a night.
6th July (3 hours)
I put some gel onto the nearside rear wheelarch and the offside door pillars today. I also started to rub down the roof where I had previously put gel. I also rubbed down the offside wheelarch a bit and put some gel onto the area around the filler cap.
7th July (3 hours)
I rubbed down the gel that I'd put on the nearside rear wheelarch this evening. Once I'd rubbed it down and profiled it I put some more gel on as there were a few low spots. I also carried on sanding the gel downon the roof. I didn't do much else apart from admire the freshly gelcoated wheelarch as I was pretty tired from profiling it. It was much easier when I had air powered tools in the last bay!
9th July (3 hours)
Having rubbed down the rear roof join I put some glass cloth onto the lip where the weather seal would go. Once I've rubbed this down I can put a final coat of gel onto the roof and it will be nearly finished.
22nd July (3 hours)
I've been in France for 10 days so have not managed to do much to the car over the past few weeks. This evening I rubbed down the cloth that I'd previously put on the weather seal lip and coated the roof join and weather seal lip with a final coat of gel. I also put some more gel onto the door pillars. Twice I've done this now as everytime I do I manage to put my hand in it so I have to start again! I've forgot my camera so we'll have to wait until next week until I can get some pictures up. I'm going to take the car down to the Historic Specials Show at Burford in a few weeks, mainly so I can get in for free but also to show what I've been doing and get some advice.
27th July (4 hours)
Although I did 4 hours work on the car this evening it does not look like I've done much! I'm still working around the rear of the car and am just fettling the rear arches, roof join and odd spots around the back. Working in the motor club on base means quite a lot of people are around, usually people come in and talk to me and say " I can't believe you've taken a project like that on" and " Bloody hell, you've got your work cut out" but tonight I had someone say " All the hard works been done, not much left now mate" this has actually spured me on! Other recent comments I've had are, " Is this based on a Sierra"!!!!! and "My Dad had an E Type"!! Back in to carry on sanding tommorrow. I'll take some pictures then but you can only photo gel coat so many times!
28th July (4 hours)
Again I have spent 4 hours sanding away and it does not look like I've done anything! Someone said to me tonight "when do you stop profiling" and all I said was "not yet"! At the moment I'm chasing flat spots and creating high spots meaning a few more applications of gel here and there! I'm happy with the finish of the rear weatherseal gutter but thats going to be covered with a rubber seal! I'll just keep sanding till I keel over from all the dust or I'm happy with the profiles!
3rd August ( 5.30 Hours )
Five and a half hours of sanding and profiling tonight, mixed in with a little bit of fibreglassing and gelcoating to keep me sane! The offside doorpillars are pretty much finished but the nearside needed a bit more cloth applying before I attacked them with the gelcoat top layer. I'm taking the bodyshell down to the Historic Specials day at Burford this weekend so I want to finish the nearside wing/wheelarch repair before I show it to the public! I'll be putting another marathon session in tomorrow night to make sure I get it done, having a few drinks Wednesday afternoon so I know Wed night will be out of the question! I'm happy with the rear wheelarch profile for now, it's not perfect but will be okay once I've sprayed the final coat of gel on.
4th August (4.30 Hours)
Instead of sanding down more gelcoat tonight I decided to repair the nearside front wheelarch, A while back I started to do this but didn't really have a plan on how to do it, so I stopped! Tonight however, I had a cunning plan. Hard to describe without numerous pictures but basically I needed to replace the lip of the wheelarch, luckily I had an old wheelarch lip left over from a moulding I had. The plan initially was to incorporate this lip into the repair but instead I covered the moulding with some release tape and put some chopped starnd mat over to get a profile! I'll put some pictures up soon, it will make sense then!
5th August (5 hours)
This evening I went in to carry on with the front offside wheelarch. The chopped strand mat that I'd put on the outside had cured so I rubbed down the inside of the wheelarch and put some more chopped strand on the inside of the arch. I hate working underneath the car, you get so much dust flying around. Can't wait until I'm on the rebuild, I can stop itching then! I also put some more matting in the dip that I had in front of the lip I'd placed on.
6th August (5 hours)
With the inside and outside of the wheelarch covered in matting it was time to start rubbing it down in preperation for some gelcoat. All the outside really needed was to clean up the edges and then it was ready for gel. I applied gel to the repaired area and also to the previous gel crack repairs I'd done to the top of the wing. I then waited for it to cure whilst I did a few little jobs here and there.
7th August (1 hour)
I'm going to claim an hour today as that is how long it took me to get on the trailer! I'm going to take the car to the historic specials day at the Cotswolds Wildlife park this Sunday.
9th August
What a great day, 5 beautifully presented Rochdale Olympics and glorious weather. The amount and variety of cars that were there was excellent. If you missed out this year I reccomend you go next year. In the photo below you can see my Rochdale was asked to be outside the paddock area, although it is the only one with people looking at it in the picture!
10th August (5 hours)
More rubbing down this evening, Still on the offside wing, still working with gelcoat! I rubbed all the gel down on that I'd put on last Thursday but still have low spots. I've decided to gelcoat the entire wing so I could get a better profile instead of sanding little repairs here and there.
11th August (4 hours)
Onto the nose cone repair this evening. I have put some chopped strand matting onto the top of the nose cone where I previously chamfered the repair with a better grind angle. It looks like it has a moustache! Following this I started rubbing down the Offside wing gelcoat that I'd put on last night. It was much easier to do long sanding strokes with a large sanding pad than little poncy repair areas, satisfying too!
12th August (3 hours)
I rubbed down the nose cone moustache tonight. After I'done this I covered it in gelcoat. I also put some more gelcoat on the offside wing as I still have some low spots. If at first you don't succeed, gel, gel again! Just overthe 300 hour mark now, I wonder how many more are left!?!?
03/09/09
The engine is currently at the engineers being rebored to fit in the 1600 B series pistons that I bought a while ago. There is not much of a power gain to be had with this improvement from a 1500 but every little thing helps! Hopefully I can pick that up next week and start the engine rebuild. I have started a new eductaional course which will finish in November so I will not have any time to do anymore bodywork until then! I was hoping to be near to finishing the bodywork around Xmas time but I think it will now be early next year when the car will be ready for painting. I will have time to start rebuilding the engine at the weekends so watch this space for some more progress. The car is now back in the garage, surrounded by so much stuff I can't get anywhere near it!
21/12/09 (4 hours)
Yes, I know it's been a while since I've been on here but as usual I've been pretty busy lately. So what's happened since the last entry in September? Well, my course finished in November but I had to move house so I still couldn't get my hands dirty on my Rochdale. This week I've been moving house, the worst bit about moving house is the garage, not the lightest items in the world to move! Still my car and tools are now safely located in their new home waiting for my new years resolution to finish the car! I picked up the engine from the engineers last month so now am going to start the rebuild. The photo below is me moving the car into it's new home, pretty awkward in the snow with a front wheel drive car! I think this car has now travelled over 1000 miles in my ownership, all on the back of a trailer! I'm claiming a few hours for moving it into it's new home.
Hours so Far :- 308.30
