Did not get as far as we wanted today, had a lot of interruptions with visitors wanting to check the work in progress. I can say that both sides are now complete and the back beaver will definitely be completed next week so we are getting close to the completion of rust repair work.

I believe we have a 95% rust free Bellett GT after today, only have to do the roof channel on both sides (about a metre each side) and the passenger side suspension tower then we start fitting back the doors, boot, bonnet, front valance and guards so we can check everything once again and then start prepping the car for paint.

There will be no work next week as I have been recently diagnosed with prostate cancer and am having a biopsy on 19 Nov 20 to determine the treatment going forward, bit of a bummer but will deal with it like we have everything else in our lives.

Enjoy the pictures
cheers
peter

Great work - looking good.

Good luck with the biopsy mate.

Neil

Thanks for your support Neil, much appreciated

cheers
peter

Well it has been some time since my last post and we have been on a journey of lows and highs. I put the car on hold whilst I dealt with the news of prostate cancer and of course going through the biopsy. It has been quite a ride for us as everything including blood tests, MRi etc. all pointed to prostate cancer however after the biopsy we saw the specialist to get the results only to be informed that I do not have prostate cancer but a very rare disease that mimics prostate cancer in every way. The lesions on my prostate are not cancerous and will reduce in size and eventually disappear with treatment. It took a while for us to get our heads around that but we are now moving on. The car is back in full swing and today was the first time in a while that we had done any work. She is now rust free just a little but of tidy up to do, fit the panels up and start prepping for paint.

I have attached pictures of todays work

Cheers

Peter

Great news Peter! Like probably most, I haven't heard if such a disease before, but 'not cancer' has to be good.
Great plating too, more rust there than previous owners realised I think.
Looking forward to seeing colour.
Cheers, Matt.

Thanks Matt, it is known as Florid lymphocytic granulomatous prostatitis, quite a mouthful and my specialist informed us that mine is only the second case he has seen in the last 10 years.
Yes you are right about the rust, certainly more than others envisaged but it is done now and we have one solid little car. I have sprayed a sample of a proposed colour on the rear quarter to get a feel for it but have not made up my mind. You can see it in one on the pictures above, it is called Lone O Ranger and is quite bright, I am going to get a sample of Valencia Orange and see how that looks, tried for Maple Orange but the paint shop could not find it in their records even with all the information I gave them. I think when I blend a little black with it the colour will look quite good. Hoping to have colour early new year.

Cheers

Peter

Hi Peterd

I must say I admire your work, I think we may all be shocked with what lurks beneath the surface of our cars.

With the Maple Orange it may be the case that the older lead based tinters that make up the colour are discontinued making it very hard to reproduce.

Keep up the good work , we are looking forward to see your car on the road

Regards Flying

Thanks Flying, hopefully we will catch up at some time in 2020.

Well I thought we had got all the rust but there was a little niggle that made us look at the driver side suspension tower and I am glad we did, there was some little nasties lurking underneath but had not yet broken out. Not a problem cut it out and I think we have now got it all. Will put it up on my hoist now and remove the rear suspension and gearbox. We then need to make a rear frame with some dolly wheels to allow it to be moved around. It will then go off to the local sandblasters to have the engine bay, front valance and door and window surrounds cleaned of paint then I will bare metal the rest of the panels and start the prep work.

Regards

Peter

Time to get going again on the PR90, found a small section of rust in the box section of the floor and that was cur out and replaced. The car has been to the sand blasters to have the front and engine bay cleaned of paint and any thing else lurking underneath, luckily there were no surprises. On return we have applied rapsol to the under body and the car has been given the once over on all panels with a micro film of filler where required. Next step is to sand all the panels and then spray with spray putty and or micro fill rub back again and get ready for paint hopefully being in colour by mid march at the latest.

Cheers
Peter

Looking good at this stage ……...paint will enhance the Project and revitalise enthusiasm - (also give the trailer a squirt while you have paint in the gun.....!)

Hi Kerry,
Enthusiasm is still good and it is good to see milestones being met.
Love to paint the trailer but it is not mine, belongs to the local car club and we are not allowed to touch it with regard to paint or running repairs etc.
Hope all is well with you and your prince is progressing.

Cheers

peter

Huge admiration mate, you are so thorough. I'm looking forward to seeing you drive her in the Bay to Birdwood.
Thanks for showing,
Matt.

Thanks Matt, I appreciate your comments.
When I restore a car I like to make sure nothing is left to chance and it does not come back and bite me in a few years, if you are thorough at the beginning you should enjoy years of trouble free motoring.
As far as attending the Bay to Birdwood, I doubt that will be in 2020 I like to travel at my own pace, the moment deadlines are put in place the stress levels rise and possible short cuts happen. I may attend the nationals here in SA but probably not with the car. I am happy to throw open my doors and let people visit to see the progress whilst they are over here for the nationals.
Cheers
Peter

Fair enough mate. Can't rush a masterpiece.
That is a pretty nice officer, I reckon you will have takers there!
Thanks, Matt.

I haven’t been on the forum for many weeks Peter so I have to say I am very impressed with your thorough and methodical progress. It was great having a chat with you recently to talk about things including the front panel and headlight assembly.
Glad to hear your health issue is as rare as a PR90 and not too serious. It’s strange that life throws the odd curve ball at us!

You look like you have an excellent setup for auto restoration, better than I did in the 12 month period of my PR90 resto.
Anyway, keep up the body repair work and I am keen to see photos of the orange shell soon.

A visit to your project during the nationals would be a welcome treat for many of us enthusiasts too!

Cheers, Lewis.

Hi Lewis,
I am glad people may have an interest in coming to see the project. I must admit I had no intention of doing another restoration as I had just finished doing my sons VL Calais commodore and I said to my wife that is the last one, time to kick back and enjoy the cars we have but I just had this urge to visit my early years and of course the rest is history.
It was good to speak with you and I did really appreciate the time you took to show me pictures of your headlight area that has helped me immensely going forward as it has helped put the jigsaw together. Everybody on this forum has been full of well wishes and help since I joined and I do appreciate all the input I am receiving from all the members. I will post some more pictures soon, we are into the tedious side now of board filing and micro filling on the body. I hope by the end of next week or the week after we will be in hi solid spray putty and then more sanding but as they say the paint job is only as good as the prep work you put into it.

Regards
Peter

May or may not help..... Spartan colour Maple orange. From original charts.

Have no idea what all the numbers mean.......

Thanks Glenn,
You gave me this information previously and I did take it to several paint shops here in Adelaide but they could not help even with those numbers provided. I have worked my way through the multitude of oranges on the market and believe me there are quite a lot. We sprayed quite a few samples onto the rear quarter to see which one had the depth and was closest to the Maple Orange that you mentioned. In the end we settled on a Holden colour called Valencia Orange, It is vibrant but has that depth of colour that we were looking for and I believe it will do the car justice. I know it is not original and this is something new for me to deviate from that path but given we are not talking sheep stations in the car value I felt it would be nice to try something different. As far as the rest of the car goes I will be trying to keep the trim and mechanical components as close to original as possible. The wheels will be either mini-lites or wantanabe still have to decide and of course availability will play a part.

I have attached a picture of a Valencia Orange car so you will get an idea of colour.

Regards
Peter

Tom Amos in Sydney has a GTR in maple orange i think...... He might have details of paint mix.