tuffty 4 Posted June 8 Author Report Share Posted June 8 Finally a dry day!!!... weather has been a bit of a challenge of late but the sun was out and so was the compressor!! Drivers wing was already prepped and ready... been watching a few vids on you of tube on painting and blending stuff... so thought I would give it a go... Base coat went on a bit better after faffing with the gun settings a bit... Clear coat was aerosol though, HB Body 496 2K HS Clear... its one of the nicest clears I have used and compatible with the 2k base coat I am using... it was a bit of a challenge to lay it down though due to the wind... always something with the flippin' weather!!! Its a little duller than it normally lays down but I will give it a few more coats later as ironically the weather started to cloud over and it was looking like it might rain (which it eventually did!) The colour match actually looks decent but I will see once I have given the wing a once over with the DA... either way this was more successful than the passenger side so I am going to revisit that wing a bit later and see if I can get a better result now I have had a little practice... While waiting for the wing to dry enough to be handled I moved on to the front brakes... I had noticed the rotors had started cracking in the grooves which is a shame as they were generally fairly decent still... They have had a good innings mind... Bill had retired them from the Badger Wagon some 5 years ago as they had a few micro cracks... so I fitted them to the car and been using them ever since They have lasted well but they needed to be changed so got some rotors from Reyland Motorsport... I also had new pads... Mintex M1155's like before as I kinda like them... I had cleaned up my old bells back when I fitted Bills rotors as he had gone over to a floating disc setup so I used the discs complete with his old bells (which is why they have extra holes as was drilled for 4 x 100) New bolts fitted (also from Reyland) and on they went... Just need to let the clear dry a bit longer then I can fit the wing back properly along with all the bracketry etc... I have finished off the passenger side fitting the A pillar/door jamb splash guard trim and the arch liner... Once the drivers wing is done I will be able to safely drive the car... quite looking forward to that.. <tuffty/> Quote Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted June 16 Author Report Share Posted June 16 Sooooo.... I have been driving the car Front wings are fully bolted up and all relevant plastic parts are on... feels nice to be driving the old girl again... Not a massive fan of the drivers wing overall finish... in the sunlight its really difficult to tell the "blend" but in shadow its quite obvious... the paint appears to be a darker tone overall which in itself is fine but I think I may actually revisit both wings and just repaint them all over... at the end of the day they are silver, the rust has been removed and future corrosion issues mitigated (hopefully)... I had left the sill covers off for the time being as they needed a little tlc... and by tlc I mean sorting the crack that the jack made when it went through the sill!!! First up... drill a hole to stop the crack from growing... Used some aluminium tape to hold the crack together... its got no flex so holds stuff like this well The scuff up the back to help with adhesion... I had watched more than a few youtubes on plastic bumper crack repairs and there are a fair few ways to do it... some requiring a substantial investment in kit!!... so I decided to go cheap and step it up from there if needed The metal mesh is to help reinforce the the epoxy... seems to have worked ok.... There was some damage on the other sill cover too... Once that had set I took a dremel to the other side and dig out a groove for the epoxy... ...and all done Its sorely tempting to finish these off now and paint them but they are plastic and given my level of experience so far I think I will practice on some spares I have plus I will need to get some special "stuff" to allow the paint to work with the plastic shizz... I think for now I will just fit them as is though as I have plenty of other things to sort out first and in anticipation I cleaned up the screws and painted them Next up will be sorting the bottom of the doors... <tuffty/> Quote Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted June 20 Author Report Share Posted June 20 Decided to take advantage of the nice weather to start sorting the bottoms of the doors... went in heavy with the wire wheel to reveal what I already knew was there... Out came the MIG and I threw some metal at them... The metal was getting quite thin and was blowing holes left right and centre... trying to get a decent angle to grind back the welds was proving to be interesting too... so I will try getting her back up on stands to see if it helps... failing that I will look to swap the door with my dented spare and then work on it at my leisure... I called it a day on that work for now and just etch primed over it for now... wanting to actually achieve something today I fitted the sill covers... Also fitted the passenger side but only the front section and not the end cap as I still have a bit of filler to sand and paint on the rear arch... Looking more like an S3 every day <tuffty/> Quote Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted June 23 Author Report Share Posted June 23 Jacking the car up gave me better access to the door... so made a small plate to fill the large hole on the corner of the door Tacked that in and then decided it would be easier to remove the window frame to get to the inside of the door... I also removed the lower crash bar to be able to see what I was doing a bit better Not pretty I know but never said I could weld While the door was this dismantled I took the opportunity to swap out the door lock... I little fiddly but pretty straightforward and works like a charm.... Back to the "welding" (I use the term loosely lol) I threw a load of metal from the inside of the door as this was actually easier to do than welding from the outside... this is where the fun began!!!... the steel seems quite thin at this point probably due to the folds in the steel stretching it a bit plus the corrosion... this meant I was faffing with the MIG settings quite a bit as I was essentially chasing blown holes in the door... the result of which is not pretty at all!!!... But it did give me a bit more to work with on the outside.. Needs a little more work and have ordered a power file to be able to get a bit more control over finishing the weld on the edge as I want to minimise the amount of filler I will end up using... I also need to get the hammer and dolly out I think as chasing the holes warped the area around the weld a bit 😕 I really don't know how this will end up at the moment... I still have some pin holes to fill and grind back and one blown hole to fill... there is also the issue with the blade mount pins... most are corroded which in itself is no biggy as there are 4 screws holding the blade in place but I would ideally like to do something with the bad ones and one idea is to use part of a nail... drill a hole where the old pin was, cut the head off a suitable nail and weld it in... that is of course assuming I can recover the door well enough... I do have another door but its dented and not sure if thats more work to sort out than what I am doing to my current door... Will see how I go but I think I will be looking out for a replacement door all the same... be silly not to get a minter if I can for the respray <tuffty/> Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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