My major project!

[interloper393]

nice job i used a die grinder to polish a few bits a while ago, have the bench grinder aswell tho lol.. amazed me how much quicker it was

[shaunwil]

Very interesting project. Looking at aero catches for mine, just unsure how you fit them :Giggle

Shaun

[leeroy_25]

Despite the bank holiday due to crap weather an having to work I haven\'t got as far as I would have liked..

I threw a heavy dose of primer at the arches and they are not bad. there is a little bit of a ripple in the blending which I should be able to flat back ready for next time.. The ripples are so faint that you can hardly feel them.. but if the angle of light is right you can see them in the panel. So being that I want perfection I will give them another go over!!




I will have to get some pictrues of my latest tool aquirement!! A very nice Devilbiss spray gun!! Well if you are going to do these jobs properly (Or try to!) you at least need to have to right tools!
That\'s my excuse and I\'m sticking to it!!

Till next time!

[ENVYD]

looks very good mate, you got a pik of the arse end? DeVilBiss guns are ok but some times i find that the spray still just does not come out the gun as fine as you want it! i use a SATA 3000 i know its £300+ more then the DeVilBiss but you get a really nice effortless glass finish! but then again if you just using it for lil odd jobs i guess they are ok.
 
also a taste of what yours will sort of look like
 

[leeroy_25]

Envyd.. That is what I am hoping my car will look something like! That\'s a good pic!

All I am short of really is the side skirts.. I was looking for something along the burnout lines.. or possibly C-west would work too? Anyone with some going cheap I would be very interested.. don\'t mind if they are copies or damaged.. As long as they fit!

Being that I have learned to spray on cheap rubbish guns. spraying with the devilbiss is a breeze! The bumper and bits i did before were done with the works Devilbiss Gti gun.. The set I bought is the finishline range. I did look at Sata but I could not justify spending that much!

Cheers
Lee

[interloper393]

then you`ve learned the best way lol, if you cn get good results on a bad/hard to use tool then buying a far better bit of kit your results will be way better... iv been using a old upol gun thats kinda half blocked n humped lol.. but you addapted to it and i was getting good results, just bought the latest upol gun fer £200 and WOW!! i dont even have to sand back anymore WOOHOO!!! well sometimes some small dust imperfections but now just a good machine polish with some g6 and it`s like a mirror

[ENVYD]

the first gun i even used was a halfords own then on to devilbiss gti then sata but i have to use a sata gun as i may be starting to paint at a aston martin restoration place beside myn and they are very strick on what set up the gun is and you know what PSI the gun is putting out and so on... to get the best finish you can to the rest of the car! but if i was not going there i would probs just stay with the devilbiss

[leeroy_25]

Well.. News for the week!
The main bodywork is black now! Still have the doors and tailgate to do and then my latest edition which is a set of C-west style skirts and a C-west style rear bumper!! So still lots to do!! it seems never ending! I reckon the kit will finish it off just nicely!



My spraying hasn\'t quite come out as well as I would have hoped.. a bit more orange peel than I was hoping to get.. I was struggling with the temperature in the garage so had to aim a bit on the thick side with the paint. The roof is pretty spot on as it\'s flat so I could get a nice wet layer on it.. just the sides that are going to need a good flat a polish! so some time soon I am going to have a good long day with wet and dry and a polisher! then is will look pucker! I think I wil take the rest of the bits into work and use the oven as you get such a difference in finish! The front wings and bumper I did at work and they don\'t even need polishing yet alone a flat off!

This is the car with a base coat applied all over:



Then with the lacquer on..



I really wish I had gone thinner and lighter on the lacquer now.. But nothing that can\'t be sorted with some elbow grease! Only I am running out of elbow grease at the moment!
I am toying with taking a long weekend either this week or next so I can really impact on the progress. It is so frustrating getting 1 day a week to do it.. And it\'s starting to drag on which is not good for my enthusiam! Then you rush things and make stupid mistakes trying to save time which only end up costing more time in the long run!
It will look so much different if I can just get it on the ground on it\'s lowered springs and wheels! And put all the interior back together. Then I will feel like I have made some proper progress!
Where I am at the moment all the work going into it prepping and blending and paint does really show so much till the end result can be seen.. So I feel like I have done about 3 weeks work and have nothing to show for it! And I am sure you guy\'s must be thinking the same!
Some time off work has to be a good idea!

[interloper393]

what mixtures do u use for painting then? do u do a wide heavy spray? your finish looks great

[leeroy_25]

The finish has settleda  bit today now it\'s dry. so not so bad a s the picture looks on the orange peel front. Mixture wise I generally go 50/50 on a base coat.. So light and thin. Always go for the biggest fan spread I can get that lays down a good quantity of paint in rasonable time.
The lacquer I use is 2K and I have previoulsy gone about 50/50 with hardener then 10% for thinners as I am essentially air drying it when it really requires an oven! this batch I went by the can a did 3:1 plus 10% but it was too heavy.. Should have either used more hardner or thinner. But generally I try to follow the same principle from primer to top coat. thick enough so it doesn\'t run, thin enough to avoid orange peeling and get it on nice and wet with as wider spray as possible! I guess really it\'s trial and error to see what suits you and your equipment?

[leeroy_25]

Hello all my patient followers! If I still have any left!?

This weekend was okay on progress but not quite as I had hoped, for a couple of reasons. **** poor weather and dodgy fitting pattern bodykits!
My plan had been to remove the standard rear bumper completely which means pulling all the remaining trim out from inside the car to get at the fixings! Then I thought it would be a case of offer the C-west replica bumper up to the car.. mark on the hole positions give it a little tickle over and then paint it! While the paint was drying put the interior back together finally!
What actually happened went a little more like this.
Rear bumper off... Easy! Drill a couple of marked fixing holes on the top of the bumper, attempt to offer it up to the car.. Then reaslise it doesn\'t fit! Curse heavily.. Take it outside to start grinding bits away from it.. At this point it decides to chuck it down so I return indoors and put the interior together while the weather sorts itself out. So the interior is basically back in now! just got to fit the radio and that\'s all sorted.
After grinding the bumper a bit I tried to put it back on but no joy.. I realised it\'s fouling itself on the rear bodywork skins where is has been made a bit to thick. So I delicately relieved a few of the bits sticking out on the bodwork with a block and set about grinding the inside of the bumper back bit by bit! Which I can tell you is not a fun task! By the end of the day I looked like frosty the snow man and felt like someone had filled my clothes with itching powder!
Anyway, a few hours later I had managed to hook the bumper on one corner!
At at this point I reaslied the bumper is essentially a bit wide for the car also or someone has trimmed a bit extra off of it as it gapes down the side of the car.




Also it is clear that during manufacture the mould has been spread/flattened a bit as the bumper does not natruallly follow the curve around the back of the car correctly.. it requires some serious load to get it on! Eventually I ground enough out of the skins to hook it on both sides! And in the process of forcing the other end to hook on it put a small crack in a corner of the bumper from the load required.. I prefered that happened now rather than when it was all painted! So I have gone around it being deliberately heavy handed with it to get any cracking out of the way now!



Now I had to do something about the huge gap between the bodywork! So I flash taped the side of the car and set about bridging the gap with fibre glass.



This is where I am for now.. So I need to remove the bumper again now. Tidy up the fibre glass and reinforce if need be.. then re-tape the car with some fresh tape and build up some filler on top. Then I need to grind back and fill the damaged areas and blend it all back in ready for painting! So probably a weekends work in that!

Essentially I am a weekend behind where I wanted to be! Again! So about 2 months in total!

This is by far the biggest project I have taken on! and maybe I did under esitmate the amount of work to be done! But hopefully it will all be worth it in the end!

Keep Checking back.. one day it will be finished!! and there will hopefully be some lovely pictures to see! I think week after next I will look at putting on the suspension and wheels regardless of how the rest of the painting and bodykit work is coming along as then it will look like a massive load of progress has been made in one step!

[ENVYD]

looking very good mate shame that the bumper dont fit, pain in the ass when that happens but looks like yours doing a good job to get around it!

[leeroy_25]

Hopefully it will look like a factory fit when it\'s done!

Cheers
Lee

[interloper393]

iv got the same rear bumper bud, similar probs, not as bad as yors tho, it1s stuck down with double sided tape at the sides to pull it in a little more, gunna sort it next day im off looking good tho.

[leeroy_25]

yeah I thought your bumper looked the same!! What a pain! When it comes to cars nothing is ever easy! If I had just rebuilt it as a standard car I would have been on the road weeks ago! Who\'s idea was it to do something different??

Oh that would me!
DOH!