My major project!

[S3TH]

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!

Perfect opportunity to do something different though, I love your project & the way your rex is coming along, have definitely learnt a lot from this thread- so glad you\'re doing it!
When is the projected finishing date?

[leeroy_25]

Hi Folks!!

Had a bit more progress today! Fortunately the weather was nice! Unlike yesterday! But I couldn\'t work on the car then anyway so all good!
So last week I discovered the P*** poor fit of my rear bumper and started hacking at it to make it fit! It was on there but under some serious load which I wasn\'t happy about! As it was very likely it would start cracking when I eventually get to drive the car! So I wondered to myself whether a bit of heat would help relax the bumper and get if fitting a bit better! So one heat gun later we had this!


And that\'s after I had ground some of the worst bits off!
Some major reworking required!! but it had had the desired effect which I was pleased about! After grinding out all the bits that had buldge and split I removed the bumper and backed it up with fresh fibreglass. then I hung it back on the car and filled over the outside with some filler.
So it looked a little like this!



The difference in fitting the bumper up now is huge! Much less load on it.. and it just pops very slightly when you release the screws.. Hopefully this will sort it!

Next job was to finish blending in the gaps along the sides of the bumper.. I put fresh flash tape on the bodywork and waxed it to make sure the filler didn\'t stick! Then put some general purpose fille rin first to build up the majority. After that I removed the bumper. Knocked all the edges off. Applied fresh tape and wax to the bodywork agian!! Then put on the top coat filler ready for flatting back and final shaping. So by the end of the day after a quick sand it looked like this.




In between waiting for filler to dry I set about the side skirts. Fortunately these could never be too far out as they are pretty straight! But hey they still managed to end up with a big gap near the door! I will have to bridge this with fibre glass and filler like the bumper! I also had to grind away some excess material from inside the skirts again to get them to sit on the sill and still allow the door to open! I need to tickle the front wing fit a bit as when the sill is on it pushes it in slightly and makes the door catch it.. I think the easiest way it to put a rubber packing block behind the wing so it keeps it pushed out in the right place. Anyway one side is basically there.




That is just hanging there of it\'s own free will! Need to decide how I am fixing it now! I was hoping to have no fixings visible but I don\'t think that will be possible so I will probably get some nice black c/sunk self tapers and rivets to go in the sill.

Progress is being made!!

[leeroy_25]

Sorry Seth.. Only just saw your post!

Projected finishing date!! LMAO! about a month ago! I have been telling people it will be done in a month for weeks now! So I guess it gets done when it gets done! I don\'t want to rush anything and make it anything but perfect when it\'s finished so although I moan it\'s taking so long I am not one for doing things by halves!
Even when it goes on the road it will be far from done! I think this thread could be going for months! I am planning my engine bay enhancements in my head! and also my I.C.E build has to get done! then I might look at performance parts! and I have a spare engine in the garage I hope to rebuild some time and post about it step by step!

At some point I will have to post all the spares I have left over to clear some garage space! I have bits of bodykit, standard panels, interior, engine parts, gbox! I could porbably build another car out of it all! if anyone is looking for something probably worth an ask!

Plenty to feast your eyes on in the months to come!

Cheers for the kind words!

Lee

[S3TH]

Fantastic posts Lee, can\'t wait to see it finished!
You\'ve got to get that engine tuned to go with the looks!
Oh and ICE, I\'d love to see what you\'re going to do, if you need any gear give me a shout, my attic is full of Sinfoni, Genesis, US Amps, top stuff... too lazy to put up for sale... :Giggle.

[leeroy_25]

Seth buddy. Drop me an e-mail.. I need an amp or possibly two and also maybe some good 13cm mids. I am intending to have two subs.. one in place or each rear seat.. then some good 6x9\'s either in the seat back or if I can make them fit i\'ll put them in the rear quarter panel where the standard ones go! The some decent mid range for the front and possibly some tiny tweaters? Was thinking about some sublte lighting in there to illuminate the amps but not sure if that will look tacky and too \'chav\'!! Then I need to cover it all in nicely.. maybe black suede (faux suede!) or some black carpet with a sublte blue or red fleck in it.

my e-mail is leeroy_25@hotmail.com.

Thanks
Lee

[S3TH]

Sure buddy I can give you a shed load of advise with ICE. Get yourself over to talkaudio.co.uk if you\'re interested in more detail. Will email you later to figure out how important SQ (sound quality) is to you!

[leeroy_25]

Hi S3th, Now that we are back online is there any news on the stereo stuff you have??
Talk audio looks like it might be pretty handy when I get to that stage!
I do like to hear my music. (everything) not just a mash of bass and resonance!) I used to do a bit of producing a la bedroom DJ style so I have a pretty good ear for what sounds right level wise! Never really been to town on a car ICE as I haven\'t had the time, money, or patience. But being that I have managed to collect up most of good set-up I thought I would give it a bash!

Thanks Lee

[S3TH]

Sorry Lee! Will write you up an email right now .

[leeroy_25]

Firstly S3th, thank you for the e-mail! A lot to digest! May take another read later when I have some time to take it in properly.. You are well ito your audio equipment! My knowledge of actual euipment is far less but some of the things you mention are logical to me even if I wasn\'t fully aware of them! Anyway.. I wil drop you a line later.

Well folks what a glorious day Satruday was! I sadly didn\'t get any pictures this weekend.. I forgot my camera and the ones I took on my phone are really poor. I will try and get some this afternon if the weather brightens up.. Basically my task for the day was to get the side skirts fitted correctly! I took the decision in the week to mount them differently and hence get a better fit with luck! The lip that hooks over the top of the sill leaves very little room for the door to open so I decided it would be better to remove this and then attach an angle to the outside of the sill for the skirt to sit on and be fastened too.. So that\'s what I did. looks much better.. And the door doesn\'t rub on the top of the skirt!

I used a bit of right angle aluminium extrusion and riveted this to the outside of the sill. then popped the skirt on and fettled it till I got the best fit I could then spotted through with a 1/8" drill for c/sunk rivets to go in. All I was left with was a bit of a gape towards the rear of the door and a tiny bit to fill in where the vent fits as I have left them out of the wings. So out with the flash tape and filler again! In good old car fashion it was to all be so simple as when I offered up the passenger side skirt I realised it was twisted and going to be a bit harder to get a decent fit on so I tried the same trick as with the bumper and got the heat gun on it. a few layers of skin later the twist was reduce enough that I could get it fitted properly! By the end of the day they were all done and backed up with fibre glass ready for priming and painting.
Made a start sanding back the bumper but didn\'t have time to finish it.  Good progress though and the fit will be perfect! Worth the extra time in my mind.

Was having a thought the other day as I keep saying I think this is taking forever. I worked out that sine I have had the car. If I have worked every Saturday on it (which I haven\'t) I have been doing the project for about 32days! When you look at it like that I guess it\'s not too bad considering the state it started in! Plus all the stop starting wastes lots of time!

Until next time..

[leeroy_25]

Hey Guy\'s.. Made some good progress so far this weekend! I did a deal with work I would do saturday morning if I could have Friday afternoon so that gave me an extra hour or so in in total work time and meant I didn\'t have to wait around for paint to dry so to speak!
Hopefully next weekend will mean it\'s starting to take a final sort of shape on the exterior!

I flatted the bumper and skirts and primed them first off.. (Friday)




Saturday everything was ready to paint and lacquer. So I gave it a quick rub over and set about with the spray gun.
Whilst waiting for the base coat to dry I flatted off the car body work that had already been painted ready for polishing.



Also here is a quick shot of my side sill mountings I mentioned from last week,



Finally I could get around to lacquering it all. I have to say this time I got my paint mixture a bit better and the temperature was a bit more sympathetic to the painting! It shows in the finish!





It\'s all off the gun and mirror smooth! quick poish and it can go on..
And here are some I did with a better camera!!




Those vents are going to look lovely when I get some stainless mesh in them!

May do a bit more tomorrow if I get let out to play!! but looking forward to next weekend already!

The end is nigh!

[fil_auto]

fantastic work mate #;o)

[leeroy_25]

Cheers Matey!

I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.. and I know this time it isn\'t a train coming towards me! Check back next week and the car shoul dbe looking a lot different.

Thanks everyone for all the encouragment and patience!!

Lee

[Ricco_04]

Ahh looking rather good, lot of work you got going on but should be so satisfying when you start bolting it all in place :yes :guinness

[rx7boy]

Dude your spraying is amazing you should set up shop !!!

[leeroy_25]

Why thank you sir! Not sure I could set up my own paint shop!?? one day when I retire I might set-up a mod shop or something as a hobby to give me some pocket money!
Check back after this weekend as I am really hoping to show some big progress on the car! Fingers crossed!!

Lee