well a bit has been going on since the last post in here.. on xmas eve coming home from lunch witg the family, thr car in front kicked up a syone which put in a substanisl crsck in the windscreen. ive got free glass cover on insurance and kicked off that process but wanted to use my own repairer based on the failed attempts from the big name mob used by insures here in tasmania. this meant i had to wait until the 9th of Jan before my windscreen guy was back from holidays, and is scheduled to replace the glass yomorrow. over xmas and new years we hung close to home with no plans and i worked more than anticipated. while not on call i did have an eye on things and helped out those who were working. that saw me ring in the new year at my desk until about 1am.. i did do it willingly but was knacked by the time everyone was back from leave..
we did go out 4wding as a family for my wifes birthday on the 27th in her 1999 lx470 (its her horse tow vehicle) on a day trip with the club though, and that was nice.
although a few days later the alternator died and almost left me stranded. we weren't far from home so i got a fresh battery which saved having to be towed.
so feeling stuffed by the dramas going on with work i decided to take end of last week, start of this week off to catch up with things around the house, misc vehicle maintenance and hang out with the kids on school holidays.. the weather down here has finally turned into summer with some warm days (25-30c).
yesterday i finally ripped the band-aid off and tackled the roof repair. i spent from about 11am to 5pm removing material around the cracks back to bare metal, before prepping, and getting body filler, primer and high build primer down. i sanded back paint until i couldnt see the filler lifting from the metal any more. this meant the crack around the windscreen, while about 10cm long on the surface, had lifted filler from the center almost to the edge of the roof. i used rust convertor on all the rusty metal, scuffed it up with 40grit then put down some fibreglass body filler. i got a cheese grater to it before it set hard and got all the high spots knocked down. next came normal body filler and sanding down finishing at 180grit.
I had stuff to do today so inbetween horse float duties i rubbed the high build primer back, working up to 600grit and trying to feather the masked edges. once home for the day another hr or two to put down a few coats of color.
it is far from good, but sealed and should protect the metal underneath. itll be interesting to see if the crack at the front reappears for a 3rd time after using fibreglass filler.. once again its not a show car and just needs to be better than a rattle can paint job for me to be happy..