steering knuckle

[Nugget]

It's a Mk5 with a Mk6 front, but if I could turn back time I would buy another, brand new, so no issues with panel gaps or paint imperfections, a nice working heater and luxuriously trimmed, as I'm not sure when the alcantara, hide and deep pile carpets were removed from mine

[davrian6140]

By the way the e type column is adjustable.
Dave

[Hal Mercier]

It's a Mk5 with a Mk6 front, but if I could turn back time I would buy another, brand new, so no issues with panel gaps or paint imperfections, a nice working heater and luxuriously trimmed, as I'm not sure when the alcantara, hide and deep pile carpets were removed from mine

I think you would have needed to buy it from Tim Duffee then, as Davrian clearly weren't too bothered about panel fit. I was a bit surprised by the lack of symmetry when I made the alu door cards in 1991 for the Mk 4.

Tim used to do a sort of refining process...he'd get a shell from Adrian & co and build it up properly.

Charles Barter, now in charge of Historic racing including Imp based classes in the UK, had a Mk 7 (the Golden Watercress racer) sent to a bodyshop to have all the shut lines rectified, all the ripples ironed out. His car was the only Davrian known with such a level of cosmetic surgery.

The Alpine-Renault A110 is quite like a Dav, though it has a steel spine chassis, and there are lots of restorers in France, as the things have lurched up in value enormously over the last 15 years.

I bought one in 1999 for £10k equivalent, sold it a year later in the UK via a specialist for £13K (I think I may have been err...misinformed about the real selling price...) but the same car now is worth over 50,000 euros.

The point is, there's one restorer in the Charente who restores them "as they were" which means no rectification of this type. The cars had a GRP body and it wasn't symmetric....he's the only person here who reproduces the shells with 'as original' faults!

Part of the charm of the Dav is its devil-may-care, buccaneering "You want perfect shutlines? Get a Porsche....I'll still eat it in the corners!!" attitude.

Dolores was running rings round 911 RS Porsches in the corners in practice at Nogaro...it was hilarious!

[Nugget]

It's a small world, I work for an Organic Watercress Farm (I'm their engineer) based in Warminster, they also have another farm near Dorchester and I was chatting with the chap who manages the Dorchester cress beds, got talking about cars (his Dad is a car nut/proper old school mechanic), and he told me about Charles Barter who he used to work for at Warmwell and a few stories about having a ride in his Davrian Imp, Charles now apparently rallies 240z's, I didn't know he was still involved in Imps.

Back to the panel fit, I think this may be one issue I have in my head with the Davrian, the panel fit is in another league of fit even compared to my old G15 which was poor, I'm a bit of a perfectionist and the G15 took hours to correct, the Davrian will take many hours more, there's parts like the top of the passenger door not being the same height at the point it meets the rear wing which are real head scratchers and would need loads building up, the removable front and rear brings with it a few issues of fit and rubbing in use.

The question is how far do you(I) go, bodily my car requires some attention and paint, like you say Hal a resto to factory condition would embrace the imperfections, and be relatively quick, this would suit me, my children have grown up a lot since I restored the Ginetta and I have far less time on my hands, and I don't want to take the car off the road for an extended period, on the other hand I would have trouble explaining to myself why I didn't go the whole hog on the bodywork and try to achieve again a mass produced pressed steel finish from a low volume GRP car.

[Hal Mercier]

Nugget, I think the door to B post point is not easily rectified, but can be helped a lot by painting the 'B' post and the area around the rear side windows black (satin) to match the door window frame.

This then gives continuity between the rubber door window seal and the rear side window surround. I think it looks as if it's supposed to be painted black!

[Nugget]

That looks like a tidy solution, and another job to add to the list which is growing, I've still got a fair few basic requirements to sort before I get to that level of fettling though.

Stuff like, fitting a battery master switch, an inertia switch for the fuel pump, a heater, an electric cooling fan, fabricate and fit a carburetor/exhaust manifold heat shield, sort out an expansion tank, sort out the behind dash wiring (there is a bunch of red spaghetti there at the moment), I'm also contemplating fitting a pair of fuel gauges using these sender units:

http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/motorspor ... -vdo-gauge

Once all of the above is done I'll move on to the bodywork, top of the list will be some different front indicators flush mounted.

They are all quite nice weekend jobs which is good, because like i said before the main thing is to keep it roadworthy and enjoy it.

[robfromsomerset]

You. Can buy a new mk6 from Davrian.

[Hal Mercier]

I didn't bother with fuel gauges....with two tanks, and a crossover switch, you can just use one as a reserve. I also have found it unnecessary to run a fan of any sort, mind you I do have a larger capacity rad than the original Davrian one.

A heater is definitely a good idea though. Dolores may well be used for some sort of road rally/regularity bimbles with my wife in the nav seat.

It seems nobody but me likes the original Imp front indicators! I actually sourced brand new ones.....

[Dave6091]

Just reading the posts regarding panel fit!!!. It is this that has totally stalled my Mk6 rebuild. New front panel which was stored badly for a number of years fitted where it touched and the new back panel purchased from Tim altho not a bad fit still needs a huge amount of work to bring it to good std. I must of spent hours and hours getting the gaps looking uniform. I have several good bodywork guys I know in the trade who would be happy to paint the car but don't want to get involved time wise with panel fit. I think Tom Goldsmith had the right idea sending his Mk5 off to Tim to sort the front and rear panels out altho' I understand at some considerable cost!.
I've owned the mk6 nearly 40 years now on and off and driven it over 100k miles but it's been resting more than half that time. I'm too old to be doing it again so it's got to be right this time!.

Dave.