One of my favorite w/shop tools for working on the zed just found another use extendable magnetic pickup tool .... with a LED light having a gander down the inner sill prior to fitting the skirts. pumped in some wax..... refitted the bung added some sound deadner refit the guard its all good to go skirts are next
yesterday's work..... trial fitting of the skirts: this is the start, clamps holding it basicaly in place so I can mark it where it needs triming..... Once the triming was done I screwed it into place, checking as I went that it wasnt over stressed anywhere.... the rear valance has also had the same treatment.... Last night ( late when I finished ).... the skirts and rear valance are now urthaned in place.. no turning back now in this shot I'd added the clamps and adjusted 2 screws just for a slightly better alignment on the door reveal the shed's temp was hot..... around the 35mark, had trouble with the urthane starting to cure before I was 100% happy, luckily it all worked well and this morning the skirts are loking good and the urthane is well on its way to a full cure, should be able to start the final trimming later today if this hot weather keeps up...... The screws will stay in place for aleast 48hours, this should allow a full cure of the urthane and there wont be any movement once the screws are taken out...... Kingy
Nice work :thumbup: Its always good to see a damaged Z brought back to life. The set-up with the coolers looks awesome. Any plans for engine mods?
Not major ones.... a couple of very minor mods tho ..... the exhaust system ( stainless extractors / mufflers etc ) and the pod setup WILL be changed ( stainless Tee piece with duel pods attatched) have to remember.... P platers FIRST car so I'm leaving it as stock as posiable performance wise for the time being.... it should look the part, the "perform like it looks" can wait till he has some real road time experiance. Kingy
The rear wing had me worried...... I figured it would be a perfect fit and need SFA in triming.... WRONG !! Gonzo as obviously made his mould from a 2+2 so fitting it to a 2+0 wasnt going to be as straight foward as I had thought... No matter how many times I'd laid the wing on the back of the car it just didnt line up like I'd wanted it to...... so it was time for the longboard to come out (again) after 20 odd swipes you can still see the highs n lows on the back edge in this pic..... aslo some of the sanding dust is just begining to pile up After another half an hour I had it straight and some bog was needed in a couple of spots to fill the holes I'd created, again another sand back and it was good ...... on that area Then came the rest of the fit..... and out came the grinder...... note the 'off cuts" on the ground I also took off nearly 50mm from the leading edge( laying on the tressle) and 45mm from the corner shape ( not shown in this pic) The grinder in the pic has a "flap disc" fitted at this stage.... I'll post a closeup pic of the actual disc later so you can see it better. Flap Discs are ideal for working fibreglass even more cutting and heavy sanding was needed before I was 100% happy with the fit to the hatch..... :bash: PLEASE NOTE: The wing IS a Gonzo wing for a ZX...... BUT he's molded it up from the back shape of a 2+2 NOT a 2+0 I in no way hold him responsiable for the inital bad fit as it was never designed for this car... the hatch shape between the 2 cars IS totally differant in many ways. Dont expect it to fit your 2+0 ( it did fit realy well on the missus 2+2... ) Kingy
the final fitting of the rear wing...... :zlove: The back edge came in sweet as only 2 clamps were needed to get it sitting 99% (pre glue stage) In this shot you can see just how much I cut from the corner shape.... The finger mark on the dusty hatch shows roughly where it sat before I chopped it down The next job was to remove the paint along the basic line of the wing with the sander/polisher ( NB: 36grit sanding disk was used ) The paint HAS to be removed as bog doent like sticking to it, it wouldnt be posiable to do this if the wing was allready glued on so its done prior to the urthane comming out NB: ok... so you havent seen me sanding off the paint for the skirt fitting.... relax ... That WILL happen and you'll see why I didnt do initally in this one the urthane is on as is the wing.... I'll allow it 48hours of cure time and then I'll trim the excess urthane off with a stanley knife before giving the join a good hit with the sanderpolisher again.... then comes the bog .... should only need a cup full of bog at the most.... trimming it made it a great fit in the end The final glueing setup I added another clamp and single screw per side to get the fit spot on You can also see now just how much I hacked off of that corner the original line was near the sanded bit and the remaining red duco ( have grinder ....... will hack [TIS] ) NB: The texta lines show where I was prepared to trim it back to as a maximum amount..... Generally I guess where the limit is then mark it at that point... the first cut is halfway to the mark then test fit... then go halfway again if needed.... its easier to take a bit at a time than finding out you've cut too much off Kingy
Back to the rear valance...... I've taken the screws out & the flap disc ( pictured) has been run down the rebate between the valance and the original bumper, this cuts the excess urthane out and leaves me with a cleanish edge. From here I'll take a tad more out before the bog is applied to the join. NB: this is an IMPORTANT STEP once the screws are removed you HAVE to fill the holes with Urthane, otherwise moisture WILL get to the bog from the back and it WILL do funny things later on down the track..... causing UGLY dimples on the paint is one obvious "oh shyte no" :bash: dont forget to do ALL the holes.... the skirts will also get this treatment and its even more important for them..... moisture wont only effect the bog but it WILL also cause RUST to set in... I ran a 3mm drill-bit down each hole after the screws were removed to ensure I get a good "plug" of urtahne in the back. p/s sorry for the poor pic quality, took it with my left hand Kingy
Sorry if theres any confusion.... yeah I know I'm jumping between jobs but thats what ya have to do at times Skirts again..... special tools .... nah just ordinary ones like a round file / flat file / hacksaw-blade holder / ...... and that grinder again triming off the excess resulting in .... a quick file down (round file for corners & flat file for flat sections ) NB: my hair isnt grey form oldfarts syndrome...... its from all the dust cutting disc in the grinder and a trimming we shall go Once the trim was done I swapped the cutting disc for the flap disc and finished off the join..... this is when I removed the paint from the adjoining area ready for the bog. You can just make out some of the sparks comming off from the cutting disc bumping into the front guard.... this is a minor bump as it will be ground up nice n rough before the bog is applied anyway. EDIT: some of you will have noticed that I have numbers near the holes on the various glass parts, the reason for this is so I dont loose em, often the dust will cover a hole over or it will be in an unseen spot .... you'll be halfway through priming or some other job when you realise you've missed a hole..... and thats when the backtracking starts..... Its very easy to forget to do every hole at times so the numbers keep me in check more to come.... off to the shed for another days work :zlove: Kingy
had 2 calls about this..... the problem is obvious from the pic..... the single pod hangs down past the fibreglass front.... 1/ cop bait 2/ rain effected easily 3/ looks like shyte 4/ cause I have a 3" stainless Tee handy I'll post more on this in a couple of days.... there will be a few spare moments where I'm waiting for urthane to cure / bog to go off / etc so I'll do the T conversion during that time and post up da piccies hope that answers a few questions. Kingy
All I hear from my old man is "why don't you just pay for someone to work on your car" I tell him "cause its a hobby, and its cheaper than cocaine and hookers" This will be a beastly P-plater ride when done. Nothing shabby about a NA, I still love driving mine even thought there is a TT in the shed too :zlove:
You're an inspiration mate. Where do you get your energy from ? Never mind eating, sleeping, or "sundry husband's duties"... Damn straight. I'm putting myself up for adoption, will you be my new dad please Kingy ?
The urthane still hasnt gone full cure yet ..... its close but I'd rather leave it for another 24hours before I start the real work so I figured I'd do that Tee thingy instead and a few jobs on the troopy and the kids billycart and the missus wanted me to do some stuff for her and ... the day was soon gone BUT ...... I managed to drag the tig out..... and hey presto..... 1 twin pod adaptor ok so I couldnt find the 2 new pods ..... they are in the shed ..... somewhere but you get the idea and from the front. the pods now sit up out of the direct airflow area but still fit under the headlight panel..... so they are : 1/ not so cop bait anymore 2/ not in the direct path of the rain 3/ covered better all round 4/ dont interfer with the airflow to the radiator 5/ nice bit of stainless bling ...... not that anyone will ever see it :rofl: Having a day off today.... Geelong zedders BBQ.... bog work tommorow Kingy
hey man , great work as all ways ,, " the door sill " . you know that section on the bottom of both doors , how it is rough , are you going to smoothen it out , or are you going to leave the stock look . i would like to see it smooth , i think it will look nicer, i dunno just my 2 cen . either way looking hot man keep up the good work ,, and hurry up and finish it so you can do mine while i just sit back and drink my V's lol .. great work man ...... . p.s tell your young son, that my car is better then yours . lol..
Hey Kingy Thought I'd have a gander at the thread after talking about it yesterday. The car looks great. Coming together really well. If you can do it (with the ease you've shown) Bry shouldn't have any probs with our one. We'll compare pics down the track! Looking forward to seeing more pics re: painting the car.
The sills are covered by the skirts so I didnt have to touch them bar for a "rough-up" so the urthane would stick The bottoms of the doors where the stoneguard is will be scraped off and made smoooooooth
rear wing time..... the urthane has set well..... the shed doors have been left open and its catching the morning sun so it dried much faster than the skirts have which are still showing some minor movement .... another day should see them ready. First job was to hit the hatch and wing join with the sander polisher and cut the join back as close to flush as I could, then the wing itself was hand sanded back to "roughen up" the jel-coat I also ground off some more paint to allow the bog to extend out further, this will give me a better chance at getting it to "flow together" and look like a single unit. closeup of the join and sanded back jel-coat
first load of bog hits the deck the "spillage" on the rear quarter and other painted areas isnt a problem... as I said earlier Bog doesnt stick to paint so its an easy chip off later on the entire width of the wing was given one load then the long board came out and took off the highs and bumps, a 2nd load bourght it up to almost spot on, again a swipe with the longboard and it took only a thin layer to bring up to where I was happy enough to start shaping the join The time taken to fill the area was aroung an hour..... it will take atleast another 3 to shape it to the point where its ready for primer. The sanding process is a long and fiddley job
