• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Wreck Rescue

Share this page

jhorton3

jhorton3

Jedi Warrior
Country flag
Offline
There's a show on at the moment on the Discovery HD channel called Wreck Rescue. There's a 20 year old British girl attempting to perform a complete restoration on a basket case '59 Frogeye Sprite. She's got her work cut out for her because she wanted to perform this restoration in 40 weeks, with less that 4 thousand pounds. Very ambitious! So far she's had to grind and strip away body panels, and learn to spot weld. The spot welder she's using is almost as big as she is.
 
Yep, that's the show. The end result was a very beautiful car. Makes me suspect that Jack snuck across the pond and helped the poor lass and her dad out. I think she had about 3,600 pounds saved up and blew it all on body work. Her folks shelled out the rest. I think she said they spent about 8,900 pounds getting it back into that kind of shape.
 
I think part of the expense was trying to make the body panels fit like a modern build car and not the way it was done back in the day. The BE was built down to a price using old-fashioned methods traditional in the British car industry: lots of lead to fair out any variations in panel fit. In this case there were severe alignment problems with the original build from the factory. Also the bonnets do not seem to be fully interchangeable from one car to another without a lot of work. But really, I don't think the panel gaps and fits were all that good when new.....
 
You can look at old promotional photos and see some pretty poor gaps (and they probably picked one of the better ones for the photo shoot)
 
The girl had to pickup another bonnet because her's was shot. The one she picked was in good shape, but she was expecting it to just bolt right in and be correct. She told about having to sit on one side and bend the panels a bit. Yep, that's body work for you.
 
Hey that's the issue I have with Bugsy's Bonnet. Not enough curve and I broke my 4th bonnet latch yesterday. I've found a new set through McMaster Carr that I'll use and are adjustable, Stainless, and will support 440 lbs. Bonnet takes some force to get latches but not all that much. Unfortunately the latches I purchased just weren't up to the loading I was putting on them.

Now if I ever get the nerve to put the bonnet across a 4 x 4 beam and "recurve" it I'm sure I can make it fit better. Unfortunately the fear of a permanent kink keeps me from doing so.
 
PS. Temporary solution to no bonnet latches. A pair of boot laces. Ah necessity is the Mother....!
 
If the rear needs more curve put a short 2x4 on the battery and close the hood slowly.
 
fun I cant believe she did it that cheap with all the stuff she had to buy

cheery
steve
 
Back
Top