Back at the shop by 11am to continue sanding and prepping for paint. I finished cutting off all unused tabs and grinding away old bar stubs left over from the many years of modifications. My good buddy Frankie came over to lend a hand with the sanding on his day off. Talk about a good friend! Sanding is about the least favorite chore of getting the car ready for paint, and having to climb through all the “monkey bars” isn’t too fun either. By about 3pm, Frankie and I had the entire cage sanded, and decided to go grab a bite to eat.
Meanwhile, Eddie continued fabrication on fixing the seat belt mounting points and positioning the seat. The car never really fit me too well, so we lowered the seat, moved it as far right as possible so that my head no longer hit the roll cage and was centered in the driver’s encapsulation. We shortened the steering shaft to get the steering wheel in a lower, more comfortable position. He also finished welding up the supports to the rear motor plate and tied it back into the chassis, and cut and modified the body for the tow hook to the top of the cage.
Josue arrived later to start getting ready to spray the primer. But first, I had to go back across all those bars and wipe them clean with lacquer thinner to make sure there was no grease or dirt left on any of the surfaces. Given that this chassis was built in 1988 originally by Gateway Racecars, there is a lot of gunk accumulated on the bars and the floor pan. I finally get it all ready, and Josue starts spraying the yellow primer all over the cage. Unfortunately, the gun we had here at the shop didn’t have an air regulator, and the pressure was too high and wasting a lot of primer. So after the front clip was primed, Josue opted to wait until he brought his personal spray gun from home.
Tomorrow, I’ll get to scruff up the primer and get ready for the paint to go on. Its progress! I’m so excited!
