Tuesday 19 November 2013

Hillman Imp body shell turning rig

The car turns out to be a Hillman Imp which was made in Scotland in 1971 but later sold new as a 1973 car on 01/01/1073.

Sounds simple but first the cars width and height needed to be understood.


This is the second Imp we have used the same jig on, the other car was the sprint car we shipped to Scotland in 2012.





This way up the car can really be serviced  and painted correctly underneath, its just so much easier this way up!


The car was originally painted in the rather nice lighter shade of Chrysler metallic blue you can see on the bulkhead, the car will be returned to its natural paint shade again, Rootes code # 145.

We are now into week three of the strip down and clean, all suspension parts were bead blasted and spray painted with DTM gloss black, the underside of the car and wheel arches have been given the same treatment.

Day three of cleaning the engine bay, first the sprayed on tar had to be removed by hand, this far just the cleaning has taken four applications of Castrols engine cleaner, the entitre engine bay will be spray painted back to its original metallic blue.

Roy