After three years and 25K miles my Locost needs an overhaul. Nothing drastic, but it'll involve putting the car up on blocks and out of action for a month, longer than any time since I completed it. In all that time I haven't gone a week without driving it, except when work has had me out of town, and I commute in it regularly. So it's not going to be easy to tear it apart, but it's needed engine work for a long time, and a month ago I dinged up the frame (photo) and need to straighten that out, and then last week the hood flew off on the freeway.
The hood has flown off before, but each time I was able to stop and recover it, relatively undamaged. Not this time. The hood ended up in the number 2 lane, right side up, and looking good until I stopped and ran back for it. As I waited for traffic to clear so I could make a mad dash out to retrieve it, a truck ran over it and crushed it flat.
So I need to make a new hood, and I can't really do that with the engine in the car, because the engine doesn't fit under the hood. Since the engine needs work anyway, I'll go ahead and pull it, along with most of the front end pieces on the car, so I can bend up a new hood, weld up the frame damage, and overhaul the engine. It's not really part of the original build log, but I'll post the progress here anyway as part of the car's permanent record.
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bentcorner.jpg