Looking at the last date stamp of January 2020 it seems rather crazy to think how much has changed, I obviously updated this during my last few days in Vietnam before heading to Malaysia and Myanmar before everything changed. I didn't imagine I'd be updating this thread again so soon and from England as silly as that sounds over a year later.
A bit of a personal and non car related update first but my world trip is on hold indefinitely while the world sorts itself out, my plan is still to return to my trip as soon as it is possible though. It is however clear that this isn't going to be a five minute fix so I realised that employment was sadly a good idea again while I wait.
I've taken a total career change having well and truly left the city behind and currently training as a Joiner (working with a childhood friend). It's incredibly refreshing working locally and much nicer to work with my hands however it does now mean that I don't sit at a computer all day and I can't just browse through the forums all day and contribute while 'working'
My presence on here has therefore totally diminished compared to that of before.
My mental health also took a massive hit at the end of last year for a variety of reasons with the perfect storm sending me well of course with a mental breakdown. Thankfully I have a lot of good people around me and sought help. I've since got myself back into a much better place than I ever was before, however as a consequence I've stepped back a lot from a lot of places including forums and social media as part of it. Hopefully I'll be adding plenty more content on here as and when I can though, it certainly looks like there's plenty of exciting projects on the go in my absence.
Anyway back on topic and here goes, the car is continuing to evolve and we've taken huge strides towards the next evolution which will be quite radical and I hope will happen this summer. With some spare time on my hands and looking for projects I dug out my old BRE spoiler from storage which was damaged when the car originally shipped from the US and decided to have a go at fibre glass repair.
This was certainly a new challenge having never attempted it before. Cutting out the damaged areas I spent some time patching over and filling in several damaged locations. In hindsight I should have preserved the gelcoat finish and done more localised repair however the entire piece got sanded back, prepped and reinforced before being painted Satin Black. It's not perfect however its a chin spoiler that'll get plenty of stone chips so I decided to try and be less fussy for once.
This means that I've been able to refit the original metal front valance back onto the car with new stainless hardware and remove the fibreglass piece fitted which was certainly showing some use and abuse after the 20,000 odd hard miles I've put on the car over the past few years. I'm yet to get the car back out in the wild to see it properly in the light of day however it certainly gives the front end of the car a much more aggressive feel.
Whilst in there my front indicators are were disintegrating due to corrosion and age so are being replaced with new Blem units from the USA, equally some time was spent treating a few areas of rust with RC900 and more dinatrol to try and preserve the chassis and keep the tin worm at bay.
Finally I also took the opportunity to swap out the front number plate, I've never liked the aesthetic of the full size plate fitted when the car arrived which takes up a huge amount of space. I've therefore swapped across to something more low key and slightly more modern. Overall I'm really pleased with the facelift!
IMG_3775 by
Mark Woodrow, on Flickr
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Mark Woodrow, on Flickr
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Mark Woodrow, on Flickr
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Mark Woodrow, on Flickr
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Mark Woodrow, on Flickr
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Mark Woodrow, on Flickr
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Mark Woodrow, on Flickr
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Mark Woodrow, on Flickr
4BF63E66-1B43-4FD5-9C71-E13450EDE9EB by
Mark Woodrow, on Flickr
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Mark Woodrow, on Flickr
The next instalment will be on the fuel system which has been totally overhauled and upgraded in anticipation of my new engine setup coming this summer. I'm just buttoning up the final details now to get the car roadworthy again.