It turns out i have managed to find something else to get on with rather than doing bodywork. I may have mentioned that l had left myself a problem to fix at a later date. Well that date is now. Radiator fans. A few options were considered from buying a premade setup to making my own shroud and fitting some quality high flow fans or just modifying the existing ones. I pondered for a bit and after consulting my wallet i was firmly encouraged to modify the existing shroud and use the factory fans. Good fans are very costly so would be around £60-80 each and i need 2 of them. Cheaper ones are available but i bet the originals will be considerably better than any ebay specials that are available. So here we go. Im using my spare set of shrouds just incase it all goes badly wrong i havent cut up my best set. Out come the blades and motors.
A few rust repairs to do
Quickly done its only a fan shroud afterall.
Lopped off the original mounting points.
I made up a couple of mounting points for the top. I cut a bit of 1mm sheet 10mm or so larger on all sides than a bit of thick flat bar that i can use as a die to hammer the edges and corners over for a bit of strength
Welded in place
Onto the bottom fixings. With the original mountings trimmed back I could put a slight bend into a bit of sheet that was looking hopeful in my scrap bin.
Drilled the holes and trimmed it back in a few areas before welding it in place.
And since its still 2 pieces fixed together i cut the lower strip in half so they can be unbolted. Mostly so they fit in the blast cabinet as cleanup is the next job.
I guess you could say the issue has been shrouded
There has been cause to get the sprayguns out too. Since i was happy enough with the metalwork on the wings i could repaint the insides. It all got rubbed down with various tools and abrasives.
Dont forget the other one.
And then sprayed with some epoxy mastic since i have a tin of it floating about.
Not a brilliant finish but its never seen and my gun was starting to clog up, i suspect by the time i was spraying the final coat i was pushing the limits of the paints pot life. It will be getting well sprayed with cavity wax too since none of the inner wing is exposed due to the arch liners.
Great progress on this, there can’t be many mk2s in excellent condition any more.
There have been a few in the past to undergo some very good restoration. They still come out of japan as very clean examples too but i think once this is finished it should be in the shortlisted few that have seen this amount of attention.
Been a while since i found time to sit down and update you all, so grab a healthy dose of your chosen tipple and find a seat. Alot has happened while also seeming that very little has changed. Some time has been spent stripping any area that saw the last respray since it really didnt stick properly. I was able to take the lacquer off with a scraper for most of the car, so it really doesnt want to be under my new paint
Working on the roof mostly as the rest is already done I went over it with the da sander and got down the the factory paint at minimum.
Inside the door shuts aswell since they had also seen some dodgy paint in the past from yours truly.
There is a few prominent areas that will be needing filler, in particular where i have welded up the holes in the rear quarters and the drivers arch that has been bumped and repaired early on in the cars long and exciting life, i masked up and spot primed so that progress can be made on the filler work.
The front bumper has been getting some attention too, there was a bit of damage to the front of it along with some numberplate screw holes that i fiberglassed up on the back and just needed filler on the front.
Im happy with how thats gone. So happy i apparently forgot to take a picture.
Lots of filling, sanding and then more filling ensued on the rest of the car, Im bad at bodywork like this so it took quite a while before i was happy enough with it. But in the end i had the areas done to a point i could live with and i was also aware that if i continued trying to work on it i was just as likely to make it worse.
I re-epoxied over the filler as there was a few areas that were down to bare metal.
Also spending a bit of time fitting up the spats to the rear bumper. They are rather poor quality reps of the phoenix power spats and i dont know who made them but i was given these a few years ag now and figured id make them work. They are a long way off being able to go straight on
They are also not the same, the profile where it meets the bumper is different on one side to the other. If i fitted them like that it would drive me mental so its going to need a bit of work.
Build the edge up
Fiberglass bridger to make up the missing edge and a bit of filler to make up the extra
I also sanded down the curve to try and bring that into line with the other one and a few other tweaks
Then i lined up the bottom edges and bonded them to the bumper, ignoring the predrilled holes for bolting on as they are so far off it could have been a different timezone.
Plenty of clamps while that sets
Then the bumper has to go back on the car before i line up any of the other bits.
Pretty much the same as before with more adhesive and clamps to bond the top edges where i want them. It took a bit of twisting and clamping for everything to line up. The gaps were glassed over
The passengers side was still a mile off so i had to do some cutting and tweaking to the top edge
And the remaining blending is done with the flexible bumper filler.
There will me a bit more work to do on this to finalise the shape. Im also trying to decide how blended i want them. Im thinking of still leaving a defining line where it meets the bumper.
Progress on the side skirts too, I made up a stainless plate that fastens to the sill under the door trim. I might just have to take a slight trim off the factory plastics to get it fitting flat.
This is bonded onto the skirt with the plan to glass over it and blend it in. Lots of clamps
Not forgetting the other side
Where the plates fasten to the sill i drilled a hole and welded a nut flush with the top of the sill.
This should let me use a small dome head bolt that will fit under the trim.
My paint has arrived and i was rather eager to have a test spray of it all just to make sure i wasnt going to have any issues.
Now for something small with a bit of shape to use as a paint test panel. Wing mirrors will be perfect.
I sanded off all the lettering on the mirrors since i didnt want any old paint in there and it always collected muck anyway. Coat of high build primer applied
And sanded back up to 800 grit
With that dont the final main painting can be done so first a wet on wet primer 1 mist coat and 2 heavier coats of colour Then 2 coats of lacquer
Im very impressed with the overall colour and finish. If the rest of the car comes out even close to this good ill be happy.
Speaking of the rest of the car i have some work to do Starting off i have cleaned up the workshop and done a considerable amount of scrubbing on the floor to remove as much of the dust as possible.
At this point my little diesel heater gave up and its a saturday night so cant get new parts anytime soon. Glow plug error. So i pulled out the old gas heater, the only bottle with some in was a small one so i wasnt too optimistic about the life span. But it ran most of sunday while i prepped the car and workshop keeping it rather toasty in there. So i got the high build primer sprayed onto the shell and wings.
Monday was spent rubbing it down, the view being that i would get the colour and lacquer on it that afternoon, i got it to 400grit and it was looking good but decided it needed another coat since i had gone through in a few areas. Another coat sprayed on but it wasnt hard enough to dry sand by the end of the day and my gas bottle had run out so that put an end to the painting.
The plan now is to spend tonight flatting it down and then probably tomorrow evening cleaning up, sheeting all the walls and remasking the car. However it goes I expect we will have some colour on the shell by the end of the week.
Post by grumpynorthener on Jan 4, 2022 21:11:12 GMT
Its normally sometime around this stage of a lengthy build process that most owners start to rush the process of getting paint on to the car - they wont wait nor listen to advice - they just want the paint on and on it goes - Then it all goes wrong, lack of attention to detail, attitudes of only I will see it & no one else, materials go unchecked, corners are cut on masking up, lack of dust mitigation etc - The end result is a clearly rushed paint job with glaring defects all over the place - What's refreshing to see then is that you are applying your time & care to the paintwork preparation process - you are not accepting of incorrect workshop temperatures when applying the paint and you have trialed the paint prior to applying the paint on the main bodyshell - All excellent methods & routes to a decent quality paint job - well done - hope the rest of it goes just has well for you
Its normally sometime around this stage of a lengthy build process that most owners start to rush the process of getting paint on to the car - they wont wait nor listen to advice - they just want the paint on and on it goes - Then it all goes wrong, lack of attention to detail, attitudes of only I will see it & no one else, materials go unchecked, corners are cut on masking up, lack of dust mitigation etc - The end result is a clearly rushed paint job with glaring defects all over the place - What's refreshing to see then is that you are applying your time & care to the paintwork preparation process - you are not accepting of incorrect workshop temperatures when applying the paint and you have trialed the paint prior to applying the paint on the main bodyshell - All excellent methods & routes to a decent quality paint job - well done - hope the rest of it goes just has well for you
Been there and done all of that.
I just keep reminding myself that have so much time and effort into this car that cutting any corners at this stage with ruin all the other work i have done.
Part of the reason for trialing the paint was so i could satiate my need to see what its going to look like
Last night saw the primer flatted back from 240 to 800grit, Pretty sure i now have it as flat as its ever going to get. Have to say this primer sands so easilly im rather taken with it.
There is alot of overspray and muck on the masking by now so i made the decision to pull it all off and remask with fresh.
It just removes the chance of any flakes of paint breaking loose from the masking and ruining all the work up to this point. So i made a start on resheeting everything.
Tonight should see the final prep done and fingers crossed the parts for my heater arrive soon since the temp has dropped like a stone over the past few days.
With everything ready to go i was only waiting on my new glow plugs to arrive for the heater. The car was all masked up and cleaned back. The only problem being that the glow plugs never arrived. Now i have a certain level of patience but the parts are 2 days late and its a saturday so they certainly wont be here till monday so i gave up waiting.
I got the gas heater pumping some heat into the place and sheeted up the walls and ceiling in an attempt to keep the dust down along with the fact that it keeps trying to rain on me from the condensation and i really dont want splash effects in my new paint.
I wet the floors too
And with everything ready i climbed into my new onesie and got busy
There wasnt much time for photos of the process so here is the result of several hours painting.
And with the masking removed.
There is a rather large run on one side
But i can clean that up, the whole thing needs cutting back and buffing anyway, overall im happy with the finish.
other than the minor squiffy , that is looking absolutely superb out of the gun.
Cheers, im happy with it.
its not a particulatly high quality gun so i guess its probably about what you would expect, a bit of wetsanding and polishing will see it even better.
stay tuned for some painting. 
