My Cefiro #16: Bonnet swap

My Cefiro #1: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-cefiro-1-carsales-ad.html 

My Cefiro #2: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-cefiro-2-inspection-and-test-drive.html 

My Cefiro #3: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-cefiro-3-buying-it-and-bringing-it.html 

My Cefiro #4: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-cefiro-4-starting-modifications.html

My Cefiro #5: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-cefiro-5-first-drive-and-photos.html

My Cefiro #6: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-cefiro-6-exhaust.html

My Cefiro #7: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-cefiro-7-wash-and-photos.html

My Cefiro #8: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-cefiro-8-hills-run.html

My Cefiro #9: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-cefiro-9-respray.html

My Cefiro #10: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-cefiro-10-gathering-cobwebs-in.html

My Cefiro #11: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-cefiro-11-bringing-it-back-to-life.html 

My Cefiro #12: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-cefiro-12-on-road-again.html

My Cefiro #13: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-cefiro-13-second-round-of.html

My Cefiro #14: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-cefiro-14-boostworx.html

My Cefiro #15: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-cefiro-15-daily-driving.html 


I had been pondering for a while what to do about the black bonnet, and was thinking a respray would probably be best. I had looked around for a white bonnet, but Cefiro spare parts and panels can be hard to come by, so I wasn't having much luck.

Clicking around facebook one afternoon, I saw that local drifter Christian Pickering actually had a white Cefiro bonnet up for grabs in a 'garage sale' photo album. He hasn't had the easiest time with his health either, fighting and beating cancer a few years back. He was still competing in drift competitions between bouts of chemotherapy and surgery, and even managed to place second in the 2007 Toyo Drift Australia Series.

After a couple of quick messages, I organised to buy and pick the bonnet up from Nisswreck the next day, where it was sitting on a Cefiro front-cut. He was about to head off to Japan for some drifting at Ebisu, so reduced the price a little for a quick cash sale before the weekend. After seeing a couple of his drifting videos the next week...

  

...it reminded me how much I would love to get over there myself one day for some sliding. He's got the reverse entries down pretty well by the looks of it.

So after hooking up a trailer to my parent's Commodore, I headed over to buy the bonnet and bring it home. I took photos of the load and trailer on the day, but unfortunately I seem to have neglected to actually copy those photos onto the computer at the time, so I only have pictures of the swapping process.

I used what was likely an excessive number of ropes to make sure the bonnet was tied down and secure in the trailer, before carefully making my way back home again, keeping an eye on the trailer in the rear view mirror to make sure it was ok.

Unhitching the trailer from the car, I pushed it to the back of the garage and spent a few minutes unraveling the maze of ropes. 

With some help from my girlfriend Sally and younger brother Todd, the white bonnet was moved into the backyard for some cleaning, followed by unbolting the black bonnet and putting it in the trailer.

While the bonnet was straight and free of dents and scratches, there was some gaffer's tape on each side, which I think was to stop it being scraped by ropes or tie-downs. 

It had gone hard being out in the open weather, so after a few marginally successful attempts at peeling the dry tape off by hand, we decided it needed some attacking with various cleaning and grime removal products. My arms are obviously not the strongest for tough cleaning, so my awesome girlfriend Sally started scrubbing away with some sponges, a toothbrush and a mix of Windex, Jif and lots of water. Judging by her comments, she was not particularly excited to be spending a sunny afternoon scrubbing a car bonnet in the backyard.

Under my careful and expert supervision, she managed to get all the tape and gum completely off the bonnet, leaving it much tidier looking than before.

We stood it up to dry in the sun for a little while, and then I supervised the transportation of the bonnet from the backyard to the garage.

At some point a courier had dropped off my Ensure liquid feed supplies at the front door.

With a ratchet at the ready, I watched as Sally and Todd carefully lowered the bonnet down onto the car. For some reason it looked like it wasn't fitting properly, which didn't make sense considering the bonnet was from another Cefiro, and I didn't see how they could be any different. But it was quite a way off actually being in the right spot. I spent a minute or two being confused, until looking more closely at the corners of the bonnet. I then realised that since the white bonnet came with hinges, it would probably work better if I removed the black bonnet's hinges from the car first.

With that low-IQ moment out of the way, a couple of minutes with the ratchet had the white bonnet secured to the car. Despite being a cooler shade of white compared to the slightly creamy car, it was immediately a big improvement to the look of the Cefiro.

 

 

After seeing it for so long with a black bonnet, it was great to have the car pretty much all the same colour. Not a perfect match, which was more apparent from some angles than others, but as far as blatantly sticking out in traffic went, the obviousness was dialed way down. I did manage to put a lot of greasy fingerprints on the previously clean bonnet though.

 

 

From the right-hand side, the paint appeared to be more similar, although that was partially due to the different light I think.

Feeling like I'd removed the target from my car with the white bonnet, and not having too bad a day health-wise, I decided it was a nice afternoon to go for our first hills run in a very, very long time.

Coming up in Post #17; a hills run to Hahndorf.