I decided that classic sports car motoring was for me. Unfortunately I couldn't afford a classic sports car, so I bought this fine 10 year old example.
Even on a cursory inspection, 3 faults were obvious:
1. The engine would start but then hardly run, coughing and farting at idle, and no revs at all.
2 The drivers side window was missing.
3. It had originally been green, but had been subjected to a really bad respray in red, that was peeling off in strips. It was horrible.
So I bought it.
I bought it after negotiating a discount for the half-dead engine. I had convinced the owner it was terminally sick after a glance in the throttles showed that one of the two carburettors wasn't working.
I drove it home at 30 mph (top speed) and spent 19p on a new rubber diaphragm for the carb. Sorted!
The next task was to fix the broken driver window.After a morning up to my knees in mud, I extracted a window from one in a scrapyard. I then spent a whole day shredding all my fingers extracting broken glass from the bottom of the door, while pondering how the window got broken while it was wound down.
After using 3 miles of elastoplast to stick my fingertips back together, I fitted the new glass. Wind it up, wind it down and it works fine... if the window is right up or right down.
After the usual self praise at a job well done, I clear away all my tools and first aid kits. Then I shut the car door with the window 1/2 way down... And the corner of the glass catches on a tiny bit sticking out the edge of hood. It's toughened glass so shatters into a million pieces - with half of it falling inside the door. Ah that's how it got broken, then...
I went to a glazier and got him to cut me a bit of twin laminate glass to the right shape, and I fitted that. The first time I shut the door the back edge of the glass cracked, but it held together. It was fine after that!
I fixed the respray problem by rubbing it down and priming it. In the process, I discovered that the offside front wing had been repaired at some stage with a 2 inch thick layer of filler on top of the original crumpled metal. By this time the joys of classic sports car motoring were wearing thin, somewhat. Anyway I knocked out all the filler tgen beat the wing back to shape (yes, proper panel beating, not heavy lump hammers!) and also welded a new section of metal in to replace the rotting wheel arch and headlamp surround. (The metal came from the\side of an old fridge).
I then had it repainted in white. It looked lovely!
...