The Frame Is Painted. It has been over 100 degrees in this shop everyday for most of the summer. At least it is good for the paint drying. Now I can start to put the cart back together. The hood seems to fit relatively well. i will just need to trim it up some and reinforce the edges. Next thing to do is sanding and painting. i am not looking forward to sanding fiberglass.

This next photo is something you don't see everyday. I bet some of you old Air Dogs will recognize it right away. It is the B17 Flying Fortress from WW2. It is on display at the Flight museum in Galveston Texas.

I can only imagine what a couple of dozen of these must have sounded like converging on selected targets across Europe and who knows where else. I know a few people who personally flew missions in this type of plane. It was known for it's ability to sustain major damage and still limp back home.

Now that the cart is back together it is time to do all of those tedious finishing tasks like being sure all the nuts and bolts are secure, fine tune brakes and drive train, adjust shocks and front suspension, and various other things. For some reason the hydraulic storage tank seems to have a small leak that must be fixed. All of the other hydraulic connections appear to be tight.
I discovered a few changes that needed to be made after the first test run. I could hardly steer the cart because both rear wheels are under power and pushing at the same time without benefit of a rear differential. You can steer the front wheels all you like but it mostly just goes straight ahead.

I was able to correct this by removing the
key from one of the universal joints in the rear drive train. This makes for sort of a make shift differential so steering is no longer a problem. Hopefully the cart will not be ridden a lot in the mud and should not miss the positraction. Now I need to put in the floor and figure out some kind of bed for the rear.

Modified hood form. I got the form for the hood straightened out and it is almost ready for the fiberglass overlay.
All of the open ends in the frame tubes need to be plugged. Just a small piece of 1/8" thick metal is all that is needed for this.

Now comes the fun part of sand blasting the frame. I am setting up a crude sand blasting cabinet at the back of the warehouse. A portable sand blast unit is all that is needed. It was well over 100 degrees the day this picture was taken. I was more concerned about avoiding a heat stroke than getting a good sand blast job.
Use of a plastic tarp will aid in capturing the sand blast media for recycling.

The hood form has been covered with plastic packaging tape to keep the resin from sticking and is now ready for fitting the fiberglass cloth. The cloth is draped onto the mold and I am using a magic marker to show where the cloth needs to be trimmed.

The final step before applying the epoxy and glass is to coat the surface of the mold with paraffin to help keep the epoxy from sticking to the mold.

Just mix a small amount of resin at a time so you can thoroughly wet the surface before the epoxy sets up. You can simply mix another batch and start where you left off. Just a little bit goes a long way. I got about half way with the first batch and it was almost too much to work before it stated setting up.