TVR Vixen - Painting the Bulkhead

When I visited Back Home 99 the weekend after I bought the car I was extremely impressed by the difference made to the overall impression of the cars there by the state of their engine bays. I looked at one or two other cars and thought that my engine bay looked scruffy. Although everything in it was clean and tidy the engine bay bulkhead had been painted black. Thick paint had been put on without removing anything from the bulkhead and when I decided to take the body off I wanted to paint the engine bay bulkhead at the same time.

If you've read other pages on this site you may have noticed my tendency to underestimate the size of a job. This was no exception.

The original idea was that I'd take everything off the bulkhead, rub it down to the original paint, and spray it to match the body. All went well - most of the bolts were undone by drilling off the bolt heads and a couple of hours work with wet and dry paper removed the black paint - to reveal large areas of crazing of the fibreglass. I had never done any fibre glass repairs before (not where it showed anyway) but a friend who had restored a Daimler SP250 gave me some advice and lent me some tools.

The process is very simple, grind away the cracks and repair it with new fibreglass. Rub down to match the existing surface. If possible establish why the crazing has happened and eliminate the cause. Sounds simple - takes ages.... and ages....

There were three main areas of crazing, one under the battery where the steel battery retaining strap had been bonded into the fibreglass and had then corroded.
There was another area next to the steering column which I thought was caused by a bolt being tightened without a solid backing.
There was a third area next to the exhaust - grinding out the cracks here took me down to the carpet
I made these repairs, a new battery strap was made from stainless steel and the footwell repaired inside where I had removed the battery strap and large quantities of wet and dry were consumed. I pronounced it ready for paint.
Using borrowed equipment I sprayed it with primer and flatted off with fine grade wet and dry (not optional - I am a novice paint sprayer). The local shop produced some Jaguar Sebring Red cellulose paint to match the door I took in and the topcoat went on.
Cellulose is very forgiving and if you get a run or two then rubbing down the following day with wet 1200 grade wet and dry produces a good surface. If there's enough paint left a polish with rubbing compound produces a surface that needs no more paint. The paint was left to harden for a few days before I started reassembly.

Some of the under bonnet components had been painted black although originally left unpainted. The local yacht chandlers produced some paint stripper which removed the black paint from fibreglass and plastic without damage.

Heater Air Box

The inner wheel arches were stripped as they were originally bare fibre glass and the heater air box was also stripped. This revealed that the heater radiator fitted where it touched and air was free to flow around the edges. These gaps were packed with foam. The connection for the heater duct wraps around the corner of the air box but the opening in the box is much smaller. Enlarging it has produced a dramatic increase in heater efficiency - so much so that I had to work out a way to close the dash board vents. I have used a couple of pieces of backing for a magnetic sign as covers.

Steering Column Reassembly was uneventful until I replaced the steering column. I could not connect it to the rack and eventually worked out that the hole in the bulkhead was slightly out of line - that was what had caused the crazing. I had to repair this area again and it was eventually repainted when I had to repair the front edge of the bonnet.
Back Home 2000 At Back Home 2000 I was happy to lift the bonnet alongside the other cars.