TR2/3/3A the engine compartment, niceness

Well I resprayed the whole car for many reasons: I ran out of paint and color matching became a problem, new dents magically showed up as soon as I achieved better gloss, some of dents did not look correct, did not get good coverage on the edges and over laps of sheet metal on the panels, and I put down tiger strips and orange peel.

So now I am thinking the engine compartment is not as nice as the rest of the car.it needs moor paint with better gun settings with more gloss and a better thought plan of where to start and end the painting cycle.

Or the heck with that engine compartment let’s start putting this thing together; nobody will even notice once the wires and lines are ran-----.HELP

Two ways to look at this, and this is coming from an absolute perfectionist who is currently sweating every detail about PLANNING a restoration:
1 - Go as deep down the rabbit hole as your obsessive compulsive nature will take you. Car will likely be done right around the time we run out of oil in a couple hundred years.

2 - Understand that perfection isn't attainable and know that you've already done a better job than the factory every did. Your exterior panels and the cowl look fantastic from the pictures above. The engine bay looks way better than the day it was assembled in Coventry 60 years ago. When you're done your car will likely roll onto any show field an roll back home with a trophy in the boot.

Judging from your pics, your Baby is looking just fine. Try your best until you reach a point of diminshing returns, and then she will still be better than 99% of the cars on the road. I personally think she’s looking great!

If it’s any consolation, my engine bay is not perfect...it’s actually a little shade off from the exterior paint but it’s really hard to notice ( I’m probably the only one that does notice).
If you think you can live with it then I wouldn’t go any further...as you say, there’s a lot of other stuff to look at in there and to pull your eye away from just looking at the paint...

My 2 cents.

Cheers
Tush

Painting and polishing has a way of showing up imperfections that were invisible before.

I think you can get away with a lot in the engine compartment. Clean and all the same colour will be way ahead of the crowd.

The photo look good.

David

sp53 said:

Or the heck with that engine compartment let’s start putting this thing together; nobody will even notice once the wires and lines are ran-----.HELP

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This is my thought process with my car right now. Like everyone here is saying, your car looks great as it is, and once all the bits and pieces are in, you won't notice your concerns anymore.

Alfred E. Neuman said:

Two ways to look at this, and this is coming from an absolute perfectionist who is currently sweating every detail about PLANNING a restoration:

2 - Understand that perfection isn't attainable and know that you've already done a better job than the factory every did.

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Absolutely. These cars never looked like today's trailer queens when they were new and on the dealer's showroom floor. And if you intend to drive the car, the better the paint, the more each scratch on nick is going to hurt.

You can also buff and even wet sand (2000+) some things you don't like, but not without risk.

Tom

Tom, that reminds me of a funny story. I had a neighbor many years ago who was into Vettes. He bought a 1976, bicentennial edition for the soul purpose of showing it. Ordered it direct from Bowling Green with all the options available (not many those years, I'm afraid), and when it arrived he backed it into the storage shed so it would get no additional miles on the odometer! 20 year later he pulled it out and started to take it to the Corvette contests, entering it in the "survivor" class.

As you can imagine, this Vette was a perfect time capsule of the breed in 1976. A 20+ year old car with only 3 actual miles! In theory, and by the rules of survivors, there could be no car with fewer years who could beat it in the contests. I mean, truly, unless someone had an original with fewer miles than 3, there would be no beating a car that is exactly as it came off the production line.


He lost 3 out of 4 contests to cars that had thousands of miles and many years newer than his 1976!!! The judges argued with him that there was no way the car had not been in an accident, with the wavy fiberglass, dry panel corners, and poor body fit. Imagine that...an accident in 3 actual odometer miles. Out of frustration he sold the car and moved on to other hobbies.


This tale shows that our memories of new cars are often a lot higher than reality. I think we tend to translate the higher standards we see in modern day cars to the older vintage.

Certainly light years nicer than mine ever was or will be -- I have to hope for a quick rain shower on the morning of a show as that is a sort of equalizer.

If you think something will always bug you (even if you are the only one who will notice it) then work it some more - but as others have said you are in a great place right now.

CJD said:

This tale shows that our memories of new cars are often a lot higher than reality. I think we tend to translate the higher standards we see in modern day cars to the older vintage.

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Certainly true of those judges and it's not the standards that have changed, some of our cars were built to very high standards of workmanship and homage to that workmanship is part of my interest in these old cars. The difference, as you well know, is in the modern materials and methods. There is little workmanship involved.
For some perspective, this picture was taken at the Ford plant only 34 years before my TR3 was built.

Tom