With the bulk of our first Sunbeam Rapier(A3811473) gone, I’ve had a chance to clean up and reorganize my garage. In the last week or so, I’ve dropped the front front grills, bumpers, door handles and other miscellaneous small bits off at the plating shop to be re-chromed. I also dropped a 5 gallon bucket full of hinges, brackets and hardware off to get clear zinc coated. I placed an order with BritishWiring.com for a new semi-custom wiring harness. The new harness will be set up for negative ground, a single wire alternator, and a single wire high torque starter. It should be pretty nice, and very “factory” looking in appearance. I also cleaned and repainted the front window regulators, and start sandblasting a small mountain of trim bits and pieces.

I’ve also been busy prepping the Rapier hood and trunk lid for epoxy primer. The parts were sandblasted a while back, and once I started sanding out the course blasted surface, I quickly realized why I’ll never use sand on body panels again. Baking soda blasting, though more expensive, saves a bunch of additional prep time and eliminated a ton of unnecessary sanding. Both the hood and trunk lid needed minor lead filling, and once that was completed, I gave them both a phosphate coating and a nice thick blanket of epoxy primer. Next, I think I’ll focus my time on repairing the door.

Oh, I added the Lucas Fault Diagnosis service Manual to the manual page, so check that out too…

Categories: body, manuals