Shoota_77

#escalation If I'm as bad at spray painting as I expect I'll be, I've really got myself in a world of hurt... I've decided that it would be stupid NOT to paint under the car until at least passed the end of the gearbox. That way when I decide to finish full resto on the back half at least I don't have to take the engine and gearbox out again. All I'd need to take off would be the tailshaft and everything behind that. I'll tidy up the sill sections as best as possible (they're not great but far from the worst I've ever seen) and seam seal and paint them at the same time. The floor and myself are currently covered in a shit tonne of shredded tar... Wish me luck digging myself out of THIS hole....

Sexy billet goodness!! 🤤🤤

Got the right wheel arch pretty much ready to go. Just needs a bit more seam sealer removed and then give the whole thing a scuff up with sandpaper. Ended up giving the wire wheel on the drill a go for cleaning up the residual body deadener. Worked quite well but not good enough to remove the deadened at full thickness so persisted stripping the bulk of it off with the heat gun and scraper on the left side as well. As you can see it took it back to bare metal in some spots but shouldn't cause any dramas. I may have to etch primer the bare sections prior to high fill primer over everything but I’ll talk to the paint shop to get their opinion first. Picking up the paint/primer/clear this week so I'll ask then. Right (post wire wheeling)- Left (pre wire wheeling)- Hoping to have all the stripping and then seam sealing done by the end of this week and then start painting the week after that.

Started removing Nissan's horrid efforts at seam sealing in the engine bay. I'm sure a blind dude has been given that job back in the factory. It's terrible how little effort they put into it! 🤣 Some of the carnage left over (most of it is still sitting on the frame rails) Started (attempting) to strip off the undercover sealer from the wheel wells. Damn is that a thankless job.... Used a heat gun and scraper to get the bulk of it off. I'm hoping nasty chemicals finish off the rest of it as that cooked me!

Sorry I've forgotten more that I've read on this site than i remember 🤣 Enjoy the drive you lucky bastard!!

She's looking good! Is the paint factory? Looks bloody good if it isn't.

Yep, she was certainly due for that bath... Probably should have chammied it but at 9:30PM the inclination was low. My fingers were frozen by that point. She certainly looks a lot better now.

It actually surprised me how stable it is and how easily it rolls around. I had to roll it over a 75mm gap I have in the concrete between inside and outside and it was fine over that. No signs of being unsteady at all. I ended up washing it at 9:30pm last night. I couldn’t wait til today. Was absolutely gross before the scrub but nice to see it clean again afterwards. The paint on the body of the car is amazingly good. It’s just the bumpers that let it down. If I achieve a good enough job on the engine bay and I’m confident enough in my painting ability then I’ll be painting those too.

Cheers mate. Yeah probably needs another few scrubs and blasts before it’s ready for paint prep.

Success! Sits the front very high as you can possibly tell but that's perfect seeing everything I'm doing is at the front so will make painting underneath a lot easier. It rolls around insanely easily too. Hopefully get home from motorbike riding tomorrow so I can give it a bath.

Ok, I admit it... Tool version 1, massive fail. Right from the start I was going to have it on legs but in the excitement of getting it finished I completely dodged that step of the (unwritten) plans... Couldn't even get the dolly caster wheels to the ground when I lowered it down... Version 1- Back to the drawing board... Version 2 (code name lanky legs)- Quick lick of paint and she's good to go- Once the paint dries I'll get it mounted up and drop her on the floor. Hopefully my welds hold.... I probably should triangulate the bottom corners but it should be fine. With nothing in the engine bay it's probably a few hundred kgs lighter than normal.

Shoota's workshop tool construction post # 57..... Got a start on my front dolly last night (until I ran out of MIG gas....). Getting more gas after work today then hopefully by tonight I can get it finished off and rolled out of the shed for a wash for the first time in I can only guess at 5 or 6 years..... It looks like it to. If I'd died people would have stumbled over this thing thinking it was the best find in 10 years.... There are rat foot prints up over the roof... I found some munted rims at work to put it on to roll it out (don't wanna scratch or get paint on the Advans....) and as an upside I'm pretty sure I now have V-tec. Yo.

What sort of dollars were they back then? They were probably still at the upper end of the scale then before they plummeted back to the $25K mark before flying back up to where they are currently?

Found this on trusty ole Wikipedia- 8HP70 BMW 7 Series (F01/F02), BMW X5 50i (E70), BMW 5 series (F10/11), BMW 3 Series (F30) 330d and 335d, Chrysler 300 V8 (2015-), Dodge Durango V8, Iveco Daily, Jaguar F-Type (V6 and V8), Jaguar XE 35t, Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7L 8-cyl Engine Code [T] EZH (2014 -), Jeep Grand Cherokee 6.4L 8-cyl Engine Code [J] ESG (2014 -), Jeep Grand Cherokee V8, Grand Cherokee EcoDiesel (2014-2016), Ram 1500 V6, V8, & diesel, Range Rover Sport (2012), Rolls-Royce Phantom, Maserati Quattroporte (2013–), Dodge Charger V8 (2015-), Volkswagen Amarok V6 TDI 550, Dodge Challenger V8 (2015-), Aston Martin Vanquish (2015), Aston Martin Rapide S (2015),[18] Alpina B3 (F30/31), Alpina B4 (F32/33), Great Wall Haval H9, VW Crafter (longitudinal engine), MAN TGE (longitudinal engine) 8HP75 (2nd Generation) Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio, Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio, Aston Martin DB11, Aston Martin V8 Vantage (2019), Alpina B5 (G30/31), BMW 5 series (G30/G31/F90), BMW X5 M (F85), BMW X6 M (F86), BMW 7 Series (G11/12),[19] BMW X5 (F15),[20] BMW X3 30D (G01), RAM 1500 (2019-), RAM 2500 (2019-), Jeep Grand Cherokee EcoDiesel (2017-), Jeep Wrangler EcoDiesel (2020-), Jeep Gladiator Ecodiesel (2021-), Jeep Wrangler 392 (2021-) The 8HP70 DEFINITELY makes it a lot more attainable in terms of the vehicles it's in. A lot more common models and a bit older so more likely to be written off and sitting at a wreckers!

What car is that version of the box in? Is it only higher performance cars that run that version?

No oil surge on an electric motor.... Yeah the sound/rawness/blah blah blah of ICE engines but once leccy cars are affordable people are going to lose their minds how fast and smooth they are. Handling is nuts too because of such a low centre of gravity. A little to hate but a lot to love. Hard to see where tinkerers like us dinosaurs are going to get our kicks though.....

Ordered a new spray gun yesterday. Read a few reviews and watched a few Youtube vids and even though it's a pretty cheap gun even some well regarded painters rated it as a good beginner gun. It's a Devilbiss FLG-5. Hopefully when they were referring to "beginners" they meant absolute retards. Should be fine if so! Will most likely practice a bit of painting on a spare bonnet I have or just pinch some transit damaged panels from work that just get chucked in scrap metal. Looking forward to learning a bit of the art of proper spray painting. I'm a highly advanced guru of the rattle can but aren't we all! 🤣 Hopefully my dolly wheels arrive soon so I can get cracking while the motivation juices are still flowing strong! They have a tendency of running dry if I'm held up for too long.

Yeah you're right, I may as well! If it was chock full of rust I probably would. Very happy with how little rust there is actually. Just a couple of the bolt holes where the alloy guards bolt to the body have a touch of surface rust, everywhere else is perfect.

All Jap Drift Day. Sounds like a good say out!

You should write a book about bolts! It would be an epic saga! I used to use Amayama a lot but did notice how slow the last delivery was. Took months! I presume there's no pump E85 up there? I think we might finally have it in Shepp. not that I've needed to trouble them yet... Make sure you get someone to take some videos of you thrashing them in the events. Be nice to see a GT-R getting used!

Put up a whiteboard so I could keep track of where I'm at. Kicked things off with some inspirational words. Seemed to have worked! Got absolutely everything out of the bay today. Ain't no turning back from here! Not going to go crazy in terms of filling holes or smoothing everything off. Just going to clean up all of the (horrible) factory seam sealer and reapply it neatly. Trim it all up like this and then transition everything nicely. Waiting on a set of heavy duty 1000kg casters so i can make up a dolly to be able to roll the car outside when I'm sanding. I refuse to completely destroy my shed cleanliness with body filler dust! Unsure as to whether I'll paint it on the hoist or outside on the concrete pad. I'll make up my mind when I'm ready to paint. Obviously advantages to both. Would make painting under the chassis rails and getting inside the engine bay a hell of a lot easier doing it on the hoist so will likely go that way. I barely slept last night, all I could think about was stripping it all down and painting. Bit sad really 🤣🤣 but I'm excited to see it sparkly white!

Probably not. Will never drive it fast enough for it to matter!

Decisions were made and regrets were had today. No turning back from here, looks like the engine bay IS getting painted. I've procrastinated that many times over this but finally decided to do it after all. God I hope I can make it back from here! And I thought I was in deep before! 🤣 A bit nervous as I've never done any real body work or painting before. Surely nothing can go wrong......

They do come in a nicer box that looks great sitting on the shelf though. Worth it for that.......

Ordered all the fittings and hoses to make up custom PVC coated, braided brake lines. Still tossing up where I run it all. Options are behind the heat shield as per my last post or seeing I'm going full custom now I may run the right front and the rear line across the k-frame under the engine instead of across the firewall where they currently run. This will reduce the lines across the firewall to just 2. I'll possibly then drop the lines down lower under the crease/join that they normally run above. Then I can drop the heat shielding lower too so it doesn't have to sit as high and should look neater. Is it a waste of time and money? Yep but I'm determined to do it! This is all going to be a bit of an experiment as I'm going to TRY to convert the fittings on the master and ABS module from M10 flares to banjos. May mean I have to machine a tiny bit off each of the outlet/inlet points on the ABS module and the master cylinder to create a sealing face for the banjo washers but it should work. If it was easy it would be boring.... Went with black for the PVC coating so should hopefully look nice- Wish me luck, it could get ugly.....