The container ship has successfully navigated the Atlantic and is currently moored in Antwerp. It should leave for Hamburg tonight and dock in London on Monday. Hopefully I'll be collecting my exhaust the following Monday. It seemed like a good idea to make a start on the exhaust covers, so first I removed the original rocker covers. Half of the fixings for these had stripped threads which had been drilled out replaced by nuts and bolts, so I've now drilled out all the old fixings and replaced them with a repair kit, which should make it much easier to fit and remove the screws.
The exhaust covers themselves had 1 small chip which I've filled and a number of small lumps in the gel coat (not sure how they got there) which I've sanded down, so they are looking good.
I then had a look to see how they were going to fit and that's where the problems started. I'm going to need to cut away some of the fibreglass bodywork just behind the front wheels to get the back end of the covers to line up with the rear wheelarch. That's not a problem, but then I realised I will probably also need to lose the bolt I've arrowed below to allow the exhaust pipe itself to fit. This bolt holds a metal splash panel in place.
I also need to trim the top edge of the exhaust cover at the front to get it to sit at the right height.
Then I have another problem at the back end. The fibreglass section I've arrowed below sits about 6mm further outboard than the rest of the bodywork, so to avoid having a gap between the body and the exhaust cover I'll need to remove this section of fibreglass or cut away some of the exhaust cover.
At this point I decided it would be better to wait for the rest of the exhaust, fit that and then see what else I need to modify.
. Have you got the original large starter motor, or one of the newer miniature ones? I am a bit worried about heat getting to my old style large starter.
