FRONT AND BACK VIEWS

I have managed to scrounge a couple of hours, in the garage, here and there over the last few weeks. Fortunately my lovely wife was relatively understanding of my desire to have a  bit of one to one time with my Stella.

When Stella came back to me I parked her nose first into the garage, so obviously it was her rear end that was going to get the make over. First on were the side repeater rear lights, new gaskets and a quick polish and in they went. Next were the two rear light clusters, I cleaned off a bit of previous over spray from the gaskets and again polished up the light units and bolted them on. I needed my test light to ensure all the wires were connected correctly.

Next was the number plate and the special little fog lamps that secure the plate to the car and then the relatively new stainless rear bumper. Having checked again that all the lights worked I replaced the spare tyre, tools, floor boards and carpet trim.

When I started the car in readiness to turn her round to start on the front end, I then saw that the left side repeater light and reversing lamp plus the brake lights were not coming on, only to be expected, hopefully I disturbed those connections when refitting the carpet trim, and it will be just a simple job of pushing the connectors back on.

On to the front, I started with the side repeater indicator lights, as before new gaskets and a polish. Then it was the two side/indicator that were fitted, naturally I bolted the left side one to the right side of the car, soon swapped that over, I am going to replace the indicator bulbs with LED ones, but I will have to get under the dash to change the flasher units to electronic ones, that can wait.

I sorted out all the connections for the freshly painted, LED headlights, but the front bumper had to go next as you need access through the headlamp apertures to get to the side bolts. Quite a lot of fiddling about to get all the holes to line up,but as usual got there in the end.

 All four LED headlamps wired and fitted, like the indicators there is still some work to do later. I am going to wire them through relays to take the load of the switch, I know LEDs draw far less current, but all four headlamps will be on for main beam as will the dipped beam, although that will be controlled by a dashboard mounted switch, so for town driving, only the two outer lamps will be alight, but for dark country roads there is the potential to have all four dipped beams as well as four main. All things bright and beautiful!

Just got to fit the front grill and for the sharped eyed, I haven't yet fitted the chrome trim front or back, as I be be using Silicone sealant as well as clips, I intend to do all of the trim at the same time as my experience with silicone, is that with only a few days between use, the sealant can go hard in the nozzle.

T and B's

I was itching to make a start putting Stella back together and the first job was refitting the T bar. Before that could go on, the B post trims needed to be fitted. I covered as much of the new paint with towels and cloths to protect from accidental knocks and then fitted the stainless outer trim, fastened with two rivet's each side, the pop rivet gun made short work of that.

Next was the inner trim, which is pressed steel covered in foam and black vinyl, these had three locating  pegs which once properly aligned allowed the trim to be push firmly into place. One more small piece of stainless and that job was done.

Now the tricky bit, I knew that getting the bolts through the ends of the T to align with the captive bolts in the top of the B post was going to be difficult, I was right. They were adrift by about 10mm and no amount of heaving, pulling on either the T or the B post was getting me anywhere near.

The Stag Owners Forum came up with several answers to help resolve the problem. I adopted two of them, a trolley jack under the front outrigger pumped up high, flexed the chassis enough to laterally align the holes.  A rachet strap around the top of the B post and the upper half of my torso allowed me to pull back on the B post and the bolts connected with the threads of the captive nuts. Everything tightened down, at the front end as well and now Stella has her proper structural rigidity restored. What's next?

STELLA IS BACK

It's done and I want it out of the way, was the message. I was planning to get Richard and his car transporter to collect Stella on Friday 13th. However Trevor wanted it gone before it got that perfect paint job damaged and covered in dust in his crowded workshop.

It was all going to be a rush as it was only 1.30 pm when Trevor called and he had a transporter arranged for 3pm and would I arrive in time to lead the transporter and Stella back home.

I arrived just in time and snapped a few shots of Stella just before she was loaded up for the trip home, shiny? Not arf!!!

PRIMED AND READY TO GO

Trevor called and said the Stag has been rubbed right back to bare metal, etched primed and the fist couple of coats of grey primer have been applied and rubbing back has started and would I like to come and have a look. I was up there straight away.

I have never seen Stella looking so smooth, admittedly a bit blotchy, but looking good. Trevor asked me check on the paint code, which is 19 Triumph White as he was about to order the paint,

I assumed is would be water based, but no, Trevor assured me it was going to be a top quality two pack and would likely be finished and ready for collection by the end of the week, we shall see!