Restoration Diary
(Click on any photo to see a larger version)

January 2003

The body is on!! 

For the first time in 15 months the M now looks like a proper car again, and a sporty one at that! Yes, painting of the body is completed and on Sunday 25th January 2003 the body eased its way back onto the chassis. Since the last update work has mainly centred around getting the body repaired and painted. One of the most time consuming aspects being repairs as filler has to be applied then allowed to dry before sanding, and on larger areas this means several hours. The two main areas where I spent many hours have been on the rear wheel arches, taking at least 3 attempts on each side to get the contours just right, with Tony and myself taking it in shifts to work on the areas and check each others contours, ooh err! However, our efforts have paid off as now the top coat is on it looks absolutely spot on as you can see in the pictures. 

Some jobs we had to do before the body went on: 

Sorting the exhaust as we had minimal ride height – in fact it grounded just cresting the top of the drive when we turned the car around. After a call to Adrian Venn, the technique we use was to loosen the exhaust clamps and jack up just in front of the main centre box, physically forcing the system as high as it would go without fowling the chassis. 

We fired up the engine just to check it was still ok and throw around some oil. It fired up within 60 seconds of trying and sounded especially horny (sorry but that word sums it up rather well). In fact the V6 sounded so nice, very different to my V8, more sporty and still with a slight burble and deepness but more urgency than the V8 (hmm, maybe I could get a career in wine tasting with all these adjectives). This did show up a couple of small blows on the exhaust [see later]. We then dismantled the virtual dash.

We fixed on the body mounting rubbers using insulation tape, and covering the area with some waxoyl before hand. On the rear cross members we used foam pipe lagging. We also undid the handbrake so that this would clear the opening in the centre console section.

The day the body went on we used some exhaust bandage over our 2 small blows – symmetrically placed with the manifold pipe joins the S-piece, these have yet to be tested but seemed to go on ok. These should be better than nothing although the blows were small – I couldn’t hear them, only feel them blowing upwards, strangely enough at exactly the same place on each side of the system; Perhaps some sort of flaw as we definitely had the pipes on as far as they would go, as our aching muscles will testify.

Finally we applied copious amounts of waxoyl to the chassis, suffice it to say, it will not be rusting in the near future… To do this we used a tin of waxoyl which was cheap (£4.99/litre), heated so it was runny, and a paint brush, it wasn’t even that messy, and was immensely satisfying.

And at last, ready to drop the body back on, drafted in to help were friends James and Graham. Bearing in mind our body is stripped of all trim and Tony and myself can lift it between us, we decided on the plan Tony to support the rear, James and Graham each on the side near the front and me as director. We edged it forwards over the chassis, high up to start with, then the guys at the front lowered their end so that the footwells wedged in just behind the front outriggers, Tony raising the rear to help the angle of attack. It then just lowered into place. Job done! Too easy. On final inspection it is sitting slightly high at the front as it is partially resting on the thin rod between the outrigger and main chassis section, but this is where the body has distorted whilst in storage (as careful as we were to avoid this though). On reading Nigel Warner’s reply to our query for this, it looks like it should settle within a few weeks as it is only minor. In fact, Tony had a quick check of this 6 days later and it is beginning to settle, if we put back on the body bolts and gently tightening them up this should help it back to its original position.

Now bringing things up to date, we have removed all of masking and tape, luckily with no paint getting pulled off and all the edges being fully painted. The masking tape has left some marking on trim but this will clear with some elbow grease. Of course we also had to have a sit in the car just to test it, suddenly I am fully re-motivated again! I cannot wait to get the M running again. We are far from finished with bodywork as we still have to cut and compound the body, and have the doors and bonnet to finish but at least the M looks like an M again. (As an amusing anecdote, we overheard a passer-by telling chatting with his two sons, one of them was asking was it a go-kart and the father replied no its for banger racing, my word!! These people need educating!)

This week we fitted out Kenlowe fans, and began flatting down the body, with future jobs being the flatting/compounding of the body and beginning to reattach engine components. For now, I am happy to enjoy the M looking extremely lovely, and for the first time I think I am beginning to see light at the end of the restoration tunnel….!

(Tony's note - I've taken some video of the body replacement - to follow soon!! I have 114 one minute long video clips to sort through first!)