Ivan's coupe: bodywork is done

[Ivan141]

Some minor progress to report: we took on the roof last weekend.
With a fair bit of trepidation on my side since the roof had taken a beating during blasting and I was not sure how well I had repaired the damage.

A thick coat of filler was applied first (took quite some time).


We then proceeded to sand it back down till we hit metal in spots. Very time consuming as well. Luckily the roof held up well to the sanding with the additional supports I put in place underneath the roof skin.


Lucky for me, the roof was pretty straight after this first coat of filler. Dennis applied another much finer coat of filler, which will probably be the last one for the first stage of bodywork. No more than a single 2kg tub of filler (of which a lot ends up on the floor as dust), I consider that a win.

[banpei]

That's a lot of filler!
But I'm happy that your roof at least is straight. It took you a lot of time to get it that way using the shrinking disk, so good to see that paid off!

[Ivan141]

It's just more time-efficient to apply filler thick in the first go and then sand it all back. It's not thick enough for magnets to stop sticking to it.
I've seen 2 tubs disappear on 1 door before we gave up on it, so I'm not too impressed with the amount we used for the roof.

[Ivan141]

I can only get professional help (for free) with the bondo and sanding work at a rate of about once a month, so when Dennis said he could help me on the 21st, the 86 meetup had to take a back seat to making actual progress on my own car.

Today the main focus was getting the roof finished. A lot of all that bondo that went on last time got sanded back again, but the roof felt as smooth as a baby's bottom at the end of the day.


While Dennis was doing the more difficult roof work I got stuck in filling the small dent where I welded the antenna hole shut in the front fender (heat usually causes a little denting).
Eventually filled and finished the whole fender, so that's another item off the long list.

As usual finished parts get a generous helping of 2K primer to keep everything sealed and ready for the next step.



Next up would probably be the hood and the trunklids, which should be fairly easy items to tackle, leaving the right front fender, rear panel and doors for last (the doors can be a pain in the ass). Next session booked is beginning of December though, so I might just need to man up and try doing some of the easier stuff on my own.

[banpei]

That's really good progress and I can understand you skip the meetup. Let's just agree you have to join next year with your freshly finished car!

[oldskull]

Wow what a progress Ivan! Look great

[Ivan141]

Baby steps.. got one more item crossed off the bodywork todo list.
had a go at the right front quarter by myself. There wasnt much wrong with it but the bondo found some areas that could use it regardless.



Painted inside and out.


Still need to take both wings off to give them a lick of raptor liner on the inside, but I saved that for another day as I was not alone in the garage and did not want us to choke on chemical fumes for the rest of the day.
Ended up killing some time helping Thomas mount some Recaro's in his KE25, fabrication is more fun than bodywork after all.

[The Doctor]

and i'm happy with that!

[fantapants]

Looking great my man

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[Ivan141]

Little update because it is kinda cool (imo): I bought an aerodynamic (flip-up) grille from japan that was missing all its thermostatic bits that need to be plumbed into the cooling system. Thinking I was never really up for the whole plumbing adventure anyway, I got a little linear actuator to replace the wax element that is supposed to open the grille.

Had a tinkering session in the garage yesterday to test the principle, so here goes:

The actuator is a tiny 15mm stroke thing from china. Fit's easy enough with just a little opening up of the hole it passes through and a little bracket that just bolts on to the grille.
Took me 2 attempts to get it about right, I needed to mount it further inboard toward the hinge to get it to open (almost) all the way.
The mounting hole on the hinge was welded shut and drilled + tapped to accept an M3 screw. Here's a picture of the setup:


To finish it, it will need a small H-bridge pcb to take care of inverting the power source for changes of direction. I intend to try to make the wiring compatible with what the foglight grille requires so I can swap styles easily without any wiring worries.

The car itself is one day of sanding removed from it's first expeditions to the paint shop. I'll be finishing the sills and rear next saturday, after that we need a proper paint booth for the following steps.