Random stuff I'm working on

NOT A TA

reliable source of info
I thought a bunch of you might be interested in some of the stuff I work on that I never post about because it doesn't involve long term projects or high performance upgrades deserving threads of their own. I don't do the same things at the same job every day so there's a wide range of things I do. I know many won't fall into the paint and body section I started this thread in but I do quite a bit of that type of work so I figured I might as well start it here. Some of you might find some things interesting, entertaining, or informative.

I'll give a brief description of what's being done and post pics. If anyone's interested in more details or technical information, just ask!

On with the current subjects!

I've been working on a Factory Five GTM Supercar build on and off for a couple years. A few days ago the customer asked me to reform the rear wheel well openings so they would appear more concentric. It's a common problem with these particular fiberglass bodies wheel openings not lining up with the wheels and looking "funny". So I took a pie slice out of the body near each wheel opening after which the panel will be bonded inside and glassed over before final body work. Seems weird to just start slicing up a $20,000.00 fiberglass kit car to "fix" it. But hey, it work and kinda challenging and different.

In the first pic you can see pie shaped marker on the tape where I will cut the body out. Second pic shows the pie shape removed and the fender well lip taped in place where it will be bonded. The lip of the well was not cut off completely but left attached near the top of the well to make it quicker/easier/stronger.



 
I wish I could have won the DupliColor one done on one of the Horsepower TV shows.
All DupliColor spray can finishes. That is the way I would do it so that it would be a driver.
 
This one will be a driver. The owners other car is a GT 40 kind of kit car from the 70's on a VW chassis that was his DD for many years. I am going to get to drive this one on track though so that'll be fun. I put an LS 2 with G-50 trans in it with Kooks exhaust and lots of other other cool stuff. Here's me in the mandatory pic from engine install day.

 
great post and photos!
I have to point out that a lot of guys won,t understand exactly what section of the fender you cut out,
and re-bonded and assume you just cut the opening larger ,or why you did it that way.
You don,t simply enlarge the wheel well opening by cutting it larger, thats not normally done, because you would loose the wheel well opening contoured rolled edge,
you generally cut out a long slim section of fender under the dark blue marker then re-bond the two adjacent areas that remain.


vaguely related
http://garage.grumpysperformance.co...well-flares-and-related-info.2155/#post-45046

http://garage.grumpysperformance.co...erant-c-4-hoods-and-hoodscoops.353/#post-5243
 
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I wish I had 1/10 your body skills.... nice work!

Keep those post coming, good info!
 
Yes, that's exactly what was done Grumpy. Just the thin marker section was removed to keep the rolled fender lip. You can see a gap of about an inch in the lip at the rear bottom that occurs because of the increased radius.

Sometimes I help out at a local production body shop a bud of mine works at. They'll call me if there's a backlog of work and there's a job suitable for my skills. There's 6-8 body guys there and 3-4 painters. I have no desire to work there full time but happy to help out occasionally. Tues morning they called and asked me to work the afternoon.

The car is a Honda CRV that got hit from behind and driven into the car in front of it. So both ends needed work. Parts had been delayed 2 weeks so the shop or insurance company was paying rental car fees and so then the "git er dun" pressure gets applied.
I worked on the back removing interior then cutting out the trunk floor and tail panels so a new floor could be sectioned in and new tail panels installed. The idea is to replicate what the factory panel looked like and methods of installation. First after interior and wiring etc. is out of the way all the seam sealer is removed with various air and electric tools with wire wheels. Then the crumpled panel is mostly cut out with air tool like a small sawzall and different sizes of cutoff discs on air or electric tools except where it was welded in. There is then a strip 1-2" wide left to be removed which is spot welded to other panels. If the spot welds are only holding 2 panels together instead of drilling out each spot weld the area where each spot weld is gets ground down with a wheel on an air powered tool till the original sheet metal is very thin. Then the metal strip gets popped off. After the strip is removed there is a lump where each spot weld was which gets ground off flat. At this point the remaining sheet metal in the car is like new with no drill holes so the new panel can be positioned and spot welded exactly like the original panel was. It's a perfect kind of grunt work job to have me come in and do because it's time consuming prep work.

 
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Go Jacks are awesome tool for moving cars around however when they're not under a car they're a pain to have around and move because they're heavy. My bud I do jobs with bought this cool little roll around storage rack for them so I put it together this afternoon.



 
Customer wanted a little piece fabricated for installing corvette wipers in a kit car. It's not going to be seen so it doesn't have to be perfect, just perform a certain function. Made it out of an old battery tray that wasn't used. And yes one of the "thin" sides is supposed to be a bit wider than the other and the bolt holes are slotted slightly to make installation easier. Had some time this afternoon so I made it.



















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2014 Camry bumper cover repair job arrived this afternoon. Was raining hard when it got here so I didn't get a pic before taking the front end apart. Disassembled the bumper cover and grills, lights etc. If you've never removed the front end plastic pieces on a modern car there's lots of weird fasteners compared with old cars where everything was bolted and screwed. I'll update over the weekend as the damage gets repaired/painted.





 
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IM jealous , your saw looks like a tool I need in MY shop, what is the brand and model number and who sells them??
and how much do the blades cost?
have you had and problems with it? what would you change?
 
It's a 14" Wilton model 8201. A year or two ago I traded some extra work hours for it with a customer I was building a car for. At the time it appeared to have little use but had sat in the garage for years. A quick test showed that the covering on the wheels the blade rolls around needed replacement but the electrics and motor seemed fine. My customer offered to get me the new stuff for the roller wheels as he really wanted me to do more work on the car so I said "Fine with me!". I did my extra time, took the saw home with the new roller material, cleaned it up, and started using it with a couple old blades for metal he gave me. I just now really need to get a new blade so I'll find out soon how much they are. I use it often on aluminum up to 1" thick and frequently on steel as thick as 1/4" with the same blade so the blades he had lasted pretty long IMO. I'll probably buy blades with different TPI so I can speed up aluminum operations by using one with fewer teeth than I'd want for steel. As it is now, I make a lot of my heavy steel cuts with a 4 1/2" right angle grinder with thin cutting wheels and only use the band saw for steel sheet metal most of the time. Occasionally I need to make a curved cut in thicker steel but not that often. I'll probably get a blade for wood also.

Came out pretty nice with a good cleaning and lubing. Haven't had any issues with it and at this point it owes me nothing if it died. I see no reason it won't last the rest of my working days. It's in an area with AC so the FL humidity won't kill it as fast.


 
Moving along on the bumper cover job. The cover was washed with dish soap water to remove any waxes. All clearcoat scuffed with Grey (fine) 3M scuff pads with soapy water. The "dented" part was heated with a heat gun and reformed then sanded with 120. Bulldog adhesion promoter applied to bare plastic followed by 3M 5887 flexible parts repair material. Then sanded down with 120 and primed with PPG Omni primer, currently waiting for primer to harden. So I'm headed back out to the shop to work on other stuff . >>>>>







 
Did you use air tools to sand it to the current condition? It looks really thick and
would need a considerable time and work to get to the final pic.
 
Thanks for posting the info and pictures,
its impressive to see someone who knows what they are doing work on an area of a car,
that I can use a bit more experience in,Ive done lots of old school leading and bondo repairs but fewer plastic modern part repairs.
and I'm sure acquiring, the finer points in those skills is always going to be helpful

http://garage.grumpysperformance.co...ol-lead-tin-auto-body-filler.8350/#post-33689

http://garage.grumpysperformance.com/index.php?threads/adding-a-hood-scoop.195/#post-1261

http://garage.grumpysperformance.com/index.php?threads/useful-mig-weld-info.441/

http://garage.grumpysperformance.com/index.php?threads/welding-auto-sheet-metal.4604/

http://garage.grumpysperformance.co...st-can-t-avoid-using-at-times.1139/#post-6460

http://garage.grumpysperformance.co...well-flares-and-related-info.2155/#post-45046
 
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Did you use air tools to sand it to the current condition? It looks really thick and
would need a considerable time and work to get to the final pic.

The filler is "EZ sand" flexible repair material. that was roughed in using a palm sander with 120 grit and a bit of hand sanding with a block. My bud Jeff and I are doing this job together. He did the filler, sanding, and paint on this one while I'm doing all the things no one thinks about. I'll list a bunch of the support tasks at the end.

John, I don't see a lift, do you have room for one?

Don't have room for a lift now. If I build a detached shop I'll get one. There's one at the machine shop (close by) I have access to if I need one but I rarely use it. I've gotta go over there and make a custom spark plug wire set for a BBC in the beginning of the week so I'll take a pic of the lift. Come to think of it the wire set would be a good topic for this thread.

Thanks for posting the info and pictures,
its impressive to see someone who knows what they are doing work on an area of a car,
that I can use a bit more experience in,Ive done lots of old school leading and bondo repairs but fewer plastic modern part repairs.
and I'm sure acquiring, the finer points in those skills is always going to be helpful

The past couple years I've been learning more and more about plastic repairs and fabrication. I've done similar repairs to this one on bumper covers but I'm not as fast as Jeff is. He works in a production shop so he does this stuff every day. I only do it occasionally, so it takes me a little longer. Thats why he did the filler, sanding, paint so it would be in clearcoat by the end of today, dry overnight, bake a while in morning sun, then reassemble Sun afternoon and clean the car so the customer gets car back Sun eve.
 
So once the primer was hard it got wet sanded with 320 and then 600 grit. Then the entire bumper cover was cleaned with wax and grease remover. The cover was wiped with a tack rag then a few coats of PPG Deltron base color were applied to the repair area and blended in with ample flash time between coats to prevent chemical abnormalities. Two coats of coats of PPG 2021 clear coat were applied to the entire cover. Scuffing the entire cover with the gray Scotchbrite in the beginning was in preparation for the clear coat on the entire bumper at this point. Second coat of clear got shot about 10PM and I just locked up shop at midnight.





 
love the sequence of events in the repair, process chain, tips!
 
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