Peerless GT
The last of the body improvements is a cause for celebration
There’s always a few jobs to do on any restoration that can’t be avoided, however much you might like to. Removing decades old muck, oil and grime is very much one of those jobs. When it’s on coarsely finished glassfibre as in the case of the Peerless, it’s even more boring, though absolutely essential. The Peerless body uses lift-out floor panels and a rear seat tub for passengers. This does have the advantage of excellent access to mechanical components although some owners have ditched them in favour of permanently fixed aluminium panels.
My rear tub was reasonably clean, without grease or oil contamination, but there was plenty of dried on dusty surface dirt that would need addressing. The transmission tunnel and gearbox cover, however, were thickly coated with sticky, oily dirt… most likely from leaked gearbox oil at the rear oil seal. I used a decorator’s palette knife to carefully scrape o the large deposits and then finally washed down the oily mess with para n and a sti brush using a stippling action. During manufacture, panels such as these would have been made more crudely than outer body panels using coarser layering techniques, resulting in more air gaps between individual layers. This then holds moisture and in my case, the para n used to clean the grime. Having mopped up as much of the para n residue as possible with absorbent towels, the components were then left to bask in glorious hot sunshine to dry.
The next stage was to lightly abrade the surface using a small wire brush and not much force. Any deposits of dirt not penetrated by the para n lifted o easily this way, leaving a surface ideal for the protective undercoat.
Mr Tubby strikes again
My protective underbody coating of choice is Noxudol 1100 from Auson. Volvo uses Auson products on their production line, so its pedigree sits well with me. Being water based, there are no heavy solvents to deal with, making the product ideal for use in a confined garage space. I’ve had the Noxudol in storage for some time so perhaps not surprisingly when I went to apply it using a standard schutz gun, nothing came out, in spite of me shaking the tin for a few minutes. Foiled, I eventually poured the 1100 into a container instead, stirred it fully and hand brushed it on. This was surprisingly easy and far less messy than spraying. Another of the benefits of Auson’s products is that some are a di erent colour when applied to the colour that they dry out to be: the 1100 is blue when wet, but turns black when dry, making full application a cinch.
The rear tub, gearbox and transmission tunnel were coated in this manner, plus the access cover for my brake servo inside the front wheelarch. The 1100 dries in two stages; first the water evaporates quickly and then it hardens fully within 3-5 days. I then have the option of painting it body colour if preferred. It also has an antidrumming e ect on panels although there is Noxudol UM-1600 which has better anti-drumming properties. For anti-drumming on these panels, I’ll be using Dynamat on their insides, beneath the carpet that is highly e ective and already covers the bulkhead. More on that at a later date
The name is bond
Making progress with products needing a high ambient temperature, I finally sorted those pesky rear wheelarch inner covers. You may recall I’d done the inner rears, but the incomplete fuel system and winter temperatures meant I couldn’t secure the modified filler necks’ covers. The Sikaflex 252 structural bonding sealant cures best above 15°C so the weather was ideal. Having first brushed on the special Sikaflex 206 primer to the areas to be bonded to my bespoke panels, I then applied the 252 according to where I’d have little access when the panels were fitted. You may have seen me use 252 previously in Practical Classics, so I’ll try not to repeat myself here. The aluminium panels had been zinc phosphate (etch) primed except for those areas left bare for the special primer. I had marked where the panels sit inside the wheelarches and primed a 25mm wide band over the markings. Once the panels were positioned, a caulking gun was used slowly with a 10mm wide nozzle opening to populate the gaps between the body and the bespoke panels. This gap is needed for strength. The small fill-in pieces at the inner sill ends were fitted too, fully enclosing the sills and, I hope, ensuring a far better construction method than originally. That now completes all the fiddly body repairs and improvements meaning I only (only!) have the passenger side door frame to do now. Behind the scenes, parts of the fuel system have yet to arrive and I await an update from the supplier of the uprated distributor.
‘All the body repairs and improvements have now been completed’