May 2020 Update #2: Continuing the bodywork

Bodywork

I spent quite a lot of time trying to finish the work on the doors and sidesails. Unfortunately a few parts of the side sails still need more work. I learned that in a lot of cases I need to use the gel putty rather than the plain gel coat because you really can’t build up enough of a layer with the thinner gel coat in order to sand it down. So sometime in the future I’ll revisit these areas since most of it can be done without removing the panels.
Fenders

The rest of my bodyworking time was spent on the front fenders. First I coated the underside with 3M rubberized undercoating, and then I put Walmart yoga mat on the upper portion of the fender that will be above the tire. The reason for the undercoating is for sound, and reducing the rock pinging, but it also provides a small amount of protection for the fiberglass. The yoga mat provides a large amount of rock protection to the fiberglass so it gets put on the most likely to get dam.aged area. This is because the front wheels don’t have a wheel liner that goes between the fender and the tire. So all the road debri kicked up by the tire can potentially damage the fiberglass. I’m quite happy with how the undercoating and mat came out. Wish I had done the undercoating on all the panels as it really makes it look more “finished”. Maybe a future project.
The bottom edges of the fenders required a LOT of gel coat repair. There were so many voids, cracks, seams, chips, that I basically had to redo the entire edges. Crazy poor finish quality here. The rest of the bodywork doesn’t quite appear as bad as this. The voids I had to pick at until I found solid gelcoat. Then I used the gel putty to fill everything. I sanded down the putty and that’s pretty much where I left it right now. It could use a little more finishing work, but these areas don’t have to be perfect because they’ll rarely be visible. I just wanted them to have a solid finish at a minimum that wasn’t horrible at glance.

Interior

I did not get to doing the interior like I wanted. I did however mount the emergency cutoff switch in a nice location behind the shifter so that was satisfying.

Registration Update

I have officially moved to Michigan for the Summer. I hope that the state DOR will get back to me in a few weeks regarding the paperwork and once I have that I will find some way to go back down to Georgia to pay the taxes, get the title, and register the vehicle. It doesn’t look like it will be making the MI drive any point this Summer under its own power but possibly if things line up I can tow it up here somehow to continue working on it and driving it small distances to work out the bugs.
Insurance has been a struggle. Still looking around for options to insure a kit car, for someone under 25, with an agreed value comprehensive policy. Surely I can work something out in the end and I’ve got some time probably to determine my options.