Archive for March, 2008
‘Lucy Repainted’
Posted by Aaron Donohoe | Filed under Restorations
Above: For a good finish, the bodywork must be 100% perfect/smooth. This means filling in inevitable dents, scratches, stone chips, and other damage with such fillers like Isopon. Luckily, very little work was required, a quick skim over rough patches, and the filling in of small panel damage was all that was required - Luckily!
Above: The webmaster can be seen getting his hands dirty from time to time, seen here sanding imperfections from the rear nearside wheelarch - when sanding use coarse pads to begin with and gradually increase the grain to a finer texture.
Above: Looking worse for wear, Lucy was backed into one of our workshops (featured in her Head Gasket replacement), and the more intense bodywork was attended to - following this, the entire body was wiped down using a surface cleanser before being ‘masked up’ for painting to begin the following morning.
Above: All allies were called in to aid in ‘masking up’, pictured (L-R) Karl Roche (Vehicle Manager), Aaron Donohoe (Operations Manager) and Patrick Donohoe (Transport Consultant).
Above: Alan Donohoe, who kindly donated his time and expertise to paint ‘Lucy’ is pictured applying a ‘Tack Coat’ to the nearside. Alan has been professionally respraying coaches, buses, cars and trucks for over 20 years, and it was an honor to have him work on our vehicle and to donate his time to the cause. The finish Alan applied exceeded our expectations!
Above: Waiting for the second coat (of four) to dry, you can see that at this point the roof hasn’t yet been painted. The roof is generally given a more liberal coat of paint, which was given shortly before the commencement of coat three. Pictured is our vehicle manager Karl Roche inspecting the paint finish!
Above: Once the paint had cured, we couldn’t resist removing the ‘masking’, and pulling her out of the workshop, to check the paintwork in the sun - the photo doesn’t do it justice, but she was has a mirror finish - a credit to Alan who did a superb job of her.
Above: Frontal view, with all auxillary parts (grill, dest. glass, head light surrounds etc…) removed. The rubber trim had been refitted by the time of this photo, but the rock guards located below the lockers haven’t been painted, due to the fact they have to be straightened and will be painted black!
We’d like to take the opportunity to thank the following people who without their input the project wouldn’t have been able to progress to this stage:
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Mick & Johnny Fortune
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Alan & Paddy Donohoe
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Willie & Paddy Doyle
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Stephen Lynch
Weekend of Activities 8-9th March 2008
Posted by Stephen Payne | Filed under Events, General, Restorations
Another great weekend was had at the Wicklow depot with restorations on both 355SZB & 79MN522 well advanced. ‘Lucy’ went for a well deserved spin across Wicklow and ‘Suzi’ Enjoyed the sunshine on a short trip.
Two vehicles - our Park Royal decker 78D1065 as well as the Mosley Bedford 87MH3474 both were involved in Birthday celebrations of Johnnie Fortune, who rolled over the 50 mark on Sunday!
Our VW transporter pickup was also in attendance, having been featured on the MTV ‘Pimp my Ride’ programme.
We were joined by Stephen Lynch from Cork, who took control of a number of vehicles for road testing, as well as organising for our CIE collection to be mobilised within the next two weeks, as well as having our KR receive a new gearbox shortly.
Another visitor was Stephen Kearney, who came along with Jennifer Bergin and Karl Roche, and participated in a road test in 355SZB.
Thanks to everyone who helped out over the weekend, photos and restoration reports will be online on the main website shortly.