Picked up the grill from the powder coater. He had a heck of a time trying to get it from out gassing from little tiny air pockets in the cast aluminum outer rim. I included a photo of what that looked like. He went through several (I think 8) Powder-Primer and block sands before he got it to stop. He also took the time to slightly grind down the ribs in the back so he could get a clean transition line from the powdered chrome to the flat black. I got it home tonight and had to install it.
Began wiping down the doors and trunk with wax and grease remover before I start working the fitment of those. I also rounded up the door brackets and began filing down the powder in the holes so the bolts fit and that will be all ready when I start to fit the doors.
Super nice details. looks great! Outgassing is a big problem on porous castings. I try to "cook" them bare first when I suspect an issue. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. I try putting them in the oven at a slightly higher temperature for up to 30 minutes. let it cool below 200F before hitting it with powder. Sometimes your fighting humidity. If you coat it first you trap the contaminents or moisture in the material and it just keeps blowing out.
Thanks Jay, Much Appreciated! Erlihemi, yes, the outgassing was a pain. I feel lucky I have a powder coater nearby who really cares about his work. His process sounded similar if I remember correctly it was just with that piece of metal it was a pain. He also noted when he did the initial warming for outgassing he found that adhesive/glue or something like that flowed out a bit from behind where the horizontal rib meets with all the verticals so he needed to clean all that out. Take Care
Needed to get the EBrake together tonight so I can continue on with the transmission tunnel fitment. I took a few photos of the before, prep and assembly. Unfortunately when I unwrapped the polished aluminum end piece I found there was a scratch in it. Tried polishing it out but no luck on that yet. I should have unwrapped the thing during my initial inventory. I also coated the zinc brackets that hold the brake cables to a powdered chrome.
Took advantage of the nice weekend last week to move the body and roof out in the driveway and begin sanding down the seams. Goal is to get first coat of primer on before winter. Found several roof areas in need of repair. I found several pockets under the windshield area and a few under the back window where there must have been pockets of air when it was formed. At first I thought I sanded through, but after looking closely the fiberglas is thick around the holes. I pressed my thumb around the rest of the bottom seam and was able to push through in several areas. So I am in the process of cleaning those out and stuffing some fiberglass strand and resin in them.
I also found that the underside of the front corners weren't glued or seamed at all. I didn't want things to split or crack later if I just used bondo as a fill, so I fed an emery board on threads through the opening and pulled it back up into place with the threads. I was able to put fiberglass mat on it and then taped down the threads to keep it in place while I applied resin. I then used short strand fiberglass bondo to level once the resin dried.
Okay, I start by noting I know nothing about painting. I painted a Harley fender once and that is the extent of my experience with auto paint. That said, I still would like to tackle paint and graphics (if any) myself or at least as much as possible. I built a shed last year that I plan on using for my make shift paint booth. Since my colors will be High Gloss Black and Candy Apple Red I thought I better start practicing now.
I wanted to see if I could ghost things in between the Silver Metallic and Candy Red so I tried airbrushing this weekend for the first time. I'm using the driveshaft and transmission tunnel for practice since I will be covering them up with Dynomat when I'm done anyway. Also starting to see what I need to do to match frame color.
I'm hoping by spring I'll have things figured out. I'll post the pics for laughs along the way.
Ok my friend! I have to call BS on your very first post!!! "Rookie builder"! Really!? I've looked at and read almost every build on this forum and there are some outstanding projects by some very talented folks but yours seems to stand above most. This is not a competition and the main factor that attracted me to FFR is still true, the individuality of each project is amazing! But yours is so crisp and sharp and it is obvious you take the time to wipe the dust before each picture! your work seems flawless and I can't wait to see the "Rookie's" final product! Great build and thanks for the detail of your post! My kit is ready for pick up as soon as I get time to make the trip I will bring her home.
Thanks Warden!, I appreciate the comments. I am just trying to do a decent job with it and I am making plenty of mistakes along the way but I think that is part of the fun of it. I got the frame powder coated too early in the process but I think that has forced me to be more careful with everything and keep things cleaned up. Reading the prior build threads prior to getting the kit helped out a lot.
Congrats on your kit being ready. Yeh, kit pickup day is pretty exciting. Not sure if you are picking it up from FFR or not but if you are picking it up from the factory take your camera. It's pretty neat to see the different cars done in the showroom. They also had some in go-kart stage that I took a ton of photos of while I was there. I'll keep an eye out for posts that you got it home. Have fun.
Great photos and descriptions, please continue!
You wrote you got the frame powder coated too early in the process, when should it be done or what should before powder coating the frame?
I just picked up my kit last weekend and ready to start, now that everything is inventoried and organized.
Congrats RacinShark on getting your kit and inventory completed. Keeping in mind that I am going without side panels and hood so the front frame on my will be completely exposed. If I were to do it again, the key things I would do before powder coating would be to test fit the upper and lower control arms, position the upper and lower firewall panels, and check and recheck for weld splatter. The frame brackets for the upper and lower control arms fit tight against the pin that goes through the bushing. You can slightly bend those brackets apart so things will insert without scratching, but I found out after powder coating that the welds for some of those brackets squashed some of the bushings and also prevented two of the nuts from tightening down completely. I still have one that I need to take a little more off the weld.
The firewall frame welds visually looked fine before I sent to powder coat so I didn't grind them any further down. When I went to place the firewall panels is when I noticed that I needed to grind a few welds down for the panels to sit flush. Since the welds show through the round openings in the firewall I needed to find a paint that was close in color and touch those up. Just drilling and tapping the firewall holes around the frame tubes would have gone a lot faster if I didn't need to worry about scratching the nearby frame tubes. Both my lower firewall panels needed notching (inside the passenger compartment) so they would fit without rubbing against the frame rails. Both panels are a snug fit so for me personally I would position those before powder coating.
I thought of one more while typing this. A lot of the metal parts that are laser cut have one or a couple V shapes on their outer edge. I assume this is where the laser starts and finishes it's cut. I've been trying to grind those flat whenever I see them. There are a few on the Frame brackets that I didn't recognize or see before powder coating. The first I noticed it was with the upper/lower control arm end pieces. Those were small enough so I ground them down, stripped the powder coating and re-coated them. Hope this helps.
I was able to remove 1.5 inches from the width of the transmission tunnel in hopes of gaining more clearance for the gas pedal. I patched with fiberglass and I am in the process sanding that down.
I also traced the shape of the door curve on construction paper and used that as a template to reshape the lower arms that I cutoff earlier. And although it doesn't look like it, I spent a lot of time this week rough fitting/shaping the roof on the body while it was on the body buck. I thought before I go too much further though I should actually have the body on the frame. I have a lot of work ahead of me with that fitment. My wife helped me put the body back on today so I could think through and measure how I will need to fiberglass in the edge for the lower arm return, work on the roof and doors.
I rough sanded down the doors to just fit snug into the openings in preparation to hopefully start mounting the door hinges and arms this week.
Sorry if I have overlooked it but what is the backspacing on the fronts? I want to go to 15" wheels. Also, thinking of double deadlocking the back wheels wondering your opinion on fitment?
Thanks Jay. Yeh, I liked the way Tony's turned out with the rails completely open in the front so I am trying to do something similar. A few months ago he mentioned that he also tried more of a tear-drop going forward. I haven't seen pictures of that but that sounded pretty cool too.
Sorry if I have overlooked it but what is the backspacing on the fronts? I want to go to 15" wheels. Also, thinking of double deadlocking the back wheels wondering your opinion on fitment?
Hi WRP. I have 15"x6" rims on the front with 3.5" backspacing. The calipers show outside the narrower rims. Guessing the look isn't for everyone, but I kinda like it. I probably would not go 15" in the back if I did it again. I had to grind down quite a bit on the rear calipers and even with that probably only have a 1/16" to an 1/8" of clearance. I have been thinking of calling Billet Specialties to see if I can get the 15" with higher caliper clearance closer to the spokes.
Before starting on the doors I worked on positioning the body and began mounting it in a few spots to the firewall, passenger compartment frame rails and trunk rails. I took the car off the jack stands and used a level as it sat on the ground. Like a few others suggested I ended up raising the passenger side of the body nearly a quarter of an inch before using 1/4x20 screws to keep it in position.
I then did a quick inventory to see if I had everything. I still have two pieces for the front latch area that I need to re-powder coat.
I was able to mount both door hinges although with bricks for hands it was difficult to maneuver around to get those carriage bolts into place. Also, I'm thinking the manual pictures on how to mark the cutouts was done for easy illustration with the body off the car. With it on, it is tight to see anything or move around. Also difficult to get help to remove the body so I am trying to do the cutouts with the body on the car. I've posted some pics of where things sit so far with the drivers side door.
On one of the forums there was a write up on the 1/4" offset. Is this readily visible or is it laser level time? I have set the body, but haven't started checking alignment yet.
Fantastic job brother… and great pictures! It's all in the details and yours are exemplary. I picked up my hot rod on Sept 19 and just installed the aluminum floors for the final time. One concern I have about you drilling and tapping into the frame to mount your aluminum and brake lines etc. is that it is very thin and you are only going to be holding on to a single thread with your bolts. I highly recommend either riveting or using riv nuts instead with a thin bead of silicone between. The combination of adhesive and the proper fastener creates a superior bond and most new car manufacturers are using these methods now in their subframes instead of spot welding. Unless you plan on removing a panel, using a threaded fastener seems like overkill and a lot of extra work. Keep in mind once you silicone and rivet aluminum together it is very difficult to get apart so lots of test fitting is recommended before squeezing the trigger LOL. I do love the look of the button head screws though and I'm sure you used a lot of Loctite! Keep up the good work and let's see some more pics!
Okay, sorry I was away from the build for a bit but hopefully I am back in action. Schedule has been rough and took some time to get the garage ready for winter. We've already had over a foot of snow. I replaced all the seals and wheels on the garage doors and had a garage heater installed so I can work through the winter.
Thanks Jrrose69 !, much appreciated; Erlhemi I was able to noticeably spot it at the firewall and with the frame level I needed to raise passenger side of body about a quarter of an inch for the body to be level side to side. Not sure how that will bite me downstream. I am just trying to get things as close as I can but I am sure my measurements are far from perfect and I find I am doing little tweaks here and there to compensate. I also still don't like the fitment of the firewall so I am still tweaking on that as I get time.
Hi Cdub, Congrats on the pickup in September. Yeh, I am not sure why I went that route other than as I keep on changing my mind on coating finishes as I go through the build it has been helpful to easily take the panels on and off. The larger side rails where i have the brake lines and will run the fuel lines is thicker, but I know what you mean on the smaller rails. I haven't had any stripping or tightening issues with the 10/32 threads, but I tried a couple 1/4 x 20 on those smaller tubes for the inner dash and did have stripping issues with those so I ended up using 1/4 x 20 rivnuts to take care of that.
I was able to get the door frame assembly done on the driver side. Nothing particularly hard about the work but taking the door on and off repeatedly was a pain. I still haven't done the final door gap spacing yet, but the gap is enough now to allow the door to easily open and close.
I do have a bit of work ahead of me with the inside Dash to Door top and half moon alignment. With the outside of the door half moons aligned, the inside Dash to Door is probably well over a quarter of an inch off. I will tackle it one I see what the passenger side looks like, but I don't want bondo that thick so I at this point I am guessing I will need to do some reshaping with fiberglass/resin. Time will tell.
Thanks for the pics! I bought a batch of 10/24 riv nuts and button heads so I could thread faster! That requires a different tool than supplied also btw. I ran into left/right alignment issues for some reason. Looks like I'm hitting the drivers side door hinge mount. I have the mount up as far as it can go and the body sits 1/4" to the left in the rear. I need to measure with the laser hanging off the garage door or something.
Well I had a heck of a time mounting the passenger side door. Things were going smooth until I got to mounting the latch pin bracket to the frame. What I ended up figuring out was that by raising the passenger side of the body up 1/4 for level I messed with body distance from the latch pin. The latch pin has a non-movable washer on it and if I placed it behind the body the latch pin wouldn't come quite out far enough to latch. If I placed the pin on the outside of the body it was too far out and went slightly past the door latch so the door wouldn't close. I ended up drilling out the latch pin hole in the fiberglass to the size of the washer so I could continue on with the rest of the panel placements. Next time I have the body off I will need to resin in a recessed area for the latch pin.
Last edited by Midwest 33 Build; 01-10-2016 at 11:04 PM.
So both doors are now mounted and swing open and latch without binding so I started to rough in the top door to dash area. The inside door half moon to dash distance was off by quite a bit on the drivers side door so I first put some layers of resin and fiberglass mat down to build the area up. I sanded that down and used Short Strand fiberglass filler to get basic shape. The very thin top coat is Rage Extreme. I'm still roughing that all out but I've attached a photo of where is sits now.
I've also been working on the roof fitment. The front and back bottom edge of my roof had quite a few air pockets where the glass just broke through. I've been working on those edges filling pockets with resin and mostly using the short strand filler to fix the bottom edges. Things are still in a pretty rough stage but thought I'd post what it looks like at this stage.
I also got the trunk lid mounted on it's hinges. The lid fitment at the top is decent but I will need to figure out some adjustable tension type bars to increase the bow a little bit more. I left the bottom edge slightly long until I get that figured out.
I have been continuing on with the body work although I am slow as heck at it. Kind of fun to do, but you don't visibly see as much progress each day like the earlier parts of the build. I created a make shift paint booth in the garage. Fumes on some of these products are pretty nasty.
I hate to admit it but I probably have 3 weeks of work in on the waterfall alone. Mine didn't fit that well so I finally decided to just cut the lower legs off both sides, mounted the top half to the body, and then fiberglassed the legs back into place.
The first photo is from about midway though. After I got the holes for the roll bar and pull pins done I spent a fair amount of time to get the side pieces to match the driver and passenger body lines. Second photo is after that work and a second round of polyester surfacer.
Had to laugh though. The manual shows measuring where to mark the holes in the waterfall for the roll bar by placing a pen inside the roll bar mount and dragging it around the inside of the tube. I marked three times and each circle was in a different place (just like the photo). I ended up picking the center of the three circles and figured I was going to have to do a bunch of clean up once I drilled the hole but damn if it didn't work.
I've also been working of the shaping of the front returns that I cutoff earlier in the build. I used fiberglass for basic shape and then am using short hair filler and regular filler to finish. Still working both sides, but I've attached a couple photos of where that sits today. Second just has some rattle can primer on it so I could get a better view of how it was starting to take shape. I'll sand that back off and continue on.
In earlier posts I noted that the bottom corners of my trunk lid sat slightly high (about an 1/8"). I ended up tracing the shape of the trunk opening on the body and ran those down to a local welder and asked for a couple T brackets with the same shape. I plan on drilling a series of smaller to larger to smaller holes in it for looks, but attached is a photo of my starting point.
I've decided on paint colors and substrate products. I don't really know much about this, but I've stopped in local body shops to get input and they are thinking I am on an okay track.
First I am using an Eastwood Polyester Surfacer (spray on filler). It comes out thick. I am using a 2.2 needle in my HVLP gun and it took a few parts before I got the gun setup so it would come out smooth. Most of this is getting sanded down and ending up on the garage floor.
Next - Eastwood 2K Urethane Primer
Next - Sealer
Next - Colors - Cuda Black for the top section - and Ford Ruby Red Pearl Tri-Coat for the bottom section. The ford Ruby Red has a Red base coat, then Tinted Clear mid coat, then Clear coat.
For the sealer, colors, and clear I went with Standox for no other reason than that is what one of my local custom car shops uses and if I get to a point I am doing a crappy job then I will take it over to them.
Last edited by Midwest 33 Build; 03-13-2016 at 10:21 PM.
Spent the weekend tackling the trunk lid fitment in the bottom corners. Drilled holes in the brackets and then went to attach them to the trunk lid. I had assumed (silly me) that the trunk lid would have metal strips in the raised areas like where there is to mount the hinges, but I was wrong. When I drilled for the rivnuts I found the that there wasn't a metal strip in the areas I needed to mount. I was able to use 1/2 deep rivnuts but the fiberglass is so thin that it would bow up when I tightened the mounting screws versus pulling the entire panel to the bracket.
I decided to fill the voids in that raised area by cutting access holes and pushing resin cover fiberglass as far the opening as I could. I could also tell by the bracket fit where the trunk lid started to go off and I cut openings there and pushed in wet fiberglass in on both sides of the opening. I mounted the brackets while that was still wet should it would take shape to the bracket. I then covered the openings with short strand glass filler. I've attached photos from the start to 2k Primer where I left off this evening.
I am trying to learn what I can about painting and prep before I get to the actual paint itself. Photos of the tunnel cover with surfacer and then my first spray of 2k Primer. Lot of work for a part that will be covered with Dynamat or something similar but I would rather learn and get a visual on these types of parts. The 2k Primer is thinner than the polyester surfacer, smells a bit worse, flows better, drys much faster and for me, generated a lot more overspray and mess. I am happy with the results though.
Since I finally figured out that I was going with the Ford Ruby Red on the lower half of the car I was concerned that the frame color would be noticeably different. With all the angles and the weight of it I didn't think it was something I could tackle on my own so I asked a local shop to spray it. I just got it delivered back. I like the color and 90% of it or so looks great, but I found a run on the very visible driver down tube and a few pesky dry spray areas from the clear that will need to be cleaned up. I am sure painting with all those angles and tight areas is a B.... I don't think they'll have a problem getting the run shaved down and buffed out, but the dry spray I'll want to see how they tackle that.
I was a little smarter this time and asked them to tape off the vin number. I had to use powder coat stripper to find it after powder coating.
Same as with the powder coat. The paint color is challenging to get in photos in the garage. With the doors closed and poor garage light only it looks like a burgundy, some photos show as a normal red, but out in the sunlight it is lighter and you can see the pearl.
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your work seems flawless and I can't wait to see the "Rookie's" final product! Great build and thanks for the detail of your post! My kit is ready for pick up as soon as I get time to make the trip I will bring her home.
Originally Posted by wrp
