I had a day off in the week so took advantage of it and got on with the trim pieces. I took the two that had gone wrong down to bare metal and re-shot them ready to top coat with everything else. I was also having the front and rear screens fitted, and unfortunately remembered the trim clips on the rear after having it fitted. The guy was good as gold and offered to pop it back out and re-fit it another day after the clips were in. With all that done I shot everything white and left it all to dry till the weekend. I gave it all a quick sand ready to paint the green, then put it to one side and made a start on the engine block.

I smoothed the block out before I gave it to Zane to build, so it needed a really good de-grease and a few small rust spots needed sanding again. With it all done, i dug out the metal valve covers and gave them a good sand and de-grease too. I masked it all up, then gave it all a decent coat of etch then washed up ready to shoot the green. I gave it all two light coats and left it to dry over night. I’d forgotten that the metal covers needed clearancing for the roller rockers, so I’ll have to be really careful doing it or I’ll be painting them again. My friend John Fraser had made me a spacer for the pulleys so I fitted it and test fitted the accessories again. It fitted perfectly, so that’s one less thing to worry about. I need to pull the hose ends out of the water pump before I put it all together finally, so I pulled most of it back off and packed it away. I also wanted to fit the starter, so I shimmed it up and turned it over with a battery. It shot half a pint of oil out from the oil filter mount, so I guess Zane has put oil in it!.