The Front End...

Naturally, the first thing to do with the front end was to drop and narrow it on an adjustable (narrowed) beam and CB Performance dropped spindles. The front brakes were also upgraded to discs.

The 3" narrowed beam was made using some donor mounting clamps, so the only cuts made in the beam are where the adjusters are welded in. The clamp positioning was ensured correct by bolting it up to a NOS framehead before being welded. This also ensured the whole beam was true, where the adjusters have been fitted. Shortly after all this, I noticed a little bit of rot at the bottom of the shock towers, presumably due to blocked drainage hole. Expecting Gareth to get upset, he just turned around, cut them out, and started doing something very cleaver (or at least i think so)...

Not only did this solve the problem of the rot, but it also helped improve ground clearance, and looks damn nice too!

The beam was then given a couple of coats of black Smoothrite. Not necessarily the nicest choice of paint, but it's relative flexibility, making it durable for something like this. It was then assemble, with the recently shortened torsion leaves, and freshly painted trailing arms and spindles.



In between doing all of this, we were stripping back the front inner wings of all the underseal / Wayoyl to see what was lurking. Much to our amazement, they were 100% perfect, totally original:



After some gentle massaging to make sure the narrowed beam would have clearance of the inner wings, and some further cleaning, a couple of coats of rust prevention primer was applied.

The primer was left to cure, keyed, and given a good coat of Hammerite stonechip (applied with air gun hooked up to the compressor). The finish, in my opinion, is perfect for inner wings. It leaves enough detail of pressings to know that there's nothing hidden, but also gives protection from debris.

Logically, the next step was to apply the Mars Red top coat. The stonechip was given a couple of weeks to fully cure, to minimise the risk of any reaction - Hammerite has a habbit of being a pain like that - and then keyed before being topcoated. Cellulose paint was used, in the original colour, mainly because it can be applied at home without the use of full respiratory gear and a booth (and angry neighbours!.

Once painted and cured, the assembled beam was fitted up. Accessing the framehead and adjuster bolts was also made a little easier by Howard and I picking the car up (litterally!)

The wheels went on, and the car was put on the ground on the new beam for the first time - Sweeeeeet!

Since then, I've changed the front discs to Porsche pattern ones, to suit my choice of wheel. Prior to being fitted, the discs were cleaned and painted with acid etch (#8) primer and top coated in satin black. The main reason for doing this was to ensure they remained relatively nice looking whilst the car is being built. How long it will last once the car is in use, I don't know, but from what I've seen so far, it's a damn tough finish!

Here's a sneaky peak of how the front looks now on the new choice of wheels & tyres: