'Moose'

2 Steps Forward, 1 Step Back
16 February 1999

With nothing better to do, we headed off for a four hour round trip to see how Moose was getting on. The last we heard was that the floor pan, dashboard and engine bay had been painted in top-coat and was looking really good. Well, we got a bit of a shock when we got there. One of the problems that can occur with two-pack paint is that the laquer coat can sometimes refuse to harden. Jonathon had finished the clearcoats on Friday and left the car under the heat lamp over the weekend. With a tight deadline of getting the car to the engine fitters, it was essential that the lacquer had hardened by the time they got the car, otherwise it would have been very easy to scratch and damage the finish.

As you've guessed by know, come Monday morning, the lacquer had not hardened completely and didn't look like it was going to for another week. It must have been an old or duff batch of lacquer. Fortunately for Jonathon, the engine fitters had had to make room in their schedule for an emergency engine rebuild so they wouldn't need Moose for another 3 or 4 days. Jonathon made the decision to remove all of the paint in the engine bay and on the dashboard and redo it completely with a different type of lacquer this time. He will leave the floor pan to harden when it hardens given that there is no work being done to the rear section for a while. All going well it should be ready for the engine fitters by the end of the week.
 

Of course setbacks like this are really something we could do without, just like we could have done without having to buy a new ECU. But then it wouldn't be fun if it was easy ... ;)