B14SER

this car was rolled and banged up. roof dented , door crushed and fender. pillar where the door bolted on was pushed in a bit, so i had a frame shop pull it out.($150) now its up to us....

we put on the door and fender from salvage yard($150) and aligned them. so we started to disassemble the lights and small parts thats easy to take off to save time on taping and so they don't get scratched up when we sand.



this car sat under a tree and now has surface rust and the owner wants the wing taken off. the rust needs to be sandblasted ans sanded. the rear bumper has warp age in the middle(common in these years).



the kid on the right (andy) is the drunken owner and his friend (james) were suppose to help but they were supervisors this night. he wanted a custom scoop that would roll into the hood like the dome on dr. side. so we came up with this dome scoop. made it from his old door for the curv was already there and its metal. then marked the pos. of it and figured out where the opening should be for the ram air box. then figured where the hood bracing is so we wouldn't cut it out. we also used a alum yard stick for the curve of the hood front to rear(made it match) then we could figure out the qprox. lines to cut. we would cut a little and test its fit! over and over(make it as close as possible!) grind off all paint where you will be welding including the piece to be welded on, then prime the underneath of scoop and hood with welding primer(only use welding primer or it wont weld smooth and will chip off where it gets heat!) then you need a couple of welding magnets(harbor freight) cheap! to hold the scoop in place. we also had a second person to hold a peice of wood against the center top to make the fit perfect. We tack welded the scoop only every 3" or so to stop warpage, if you weld a conti. line with a flux core welder it WILL WARP! so make 3 goes around the scoop letting it cooldown and no problems. grind the welds smooth and put a coat of dura glass in corners or where any deep areas are to fill.



i always use dura glass as a filler on structured areas and where it deeper than 1/8". and when you put this on let it set up till you can scratch it and it feels warm. then you need a cheese grader to take off the ruff, dont let it set up too long or it gets hard as glass! if its close dont use a grader, just use a piece of 36 grit file paper to take the resin off the top till it all looks even( or youll wast allot of da paper to get started).

had them wipe the whole car down with prep solvent(gets all the waxes and so forth out of the paint), then i got them to sand the complete car with 320 grit wet/dry 3M paper(put a little dish soap in the buckets of water and the paper lasts longer as well cleans the car)we use sponges to keep the area sanding WET! ALso try to always move your sanding pattern so you dont get the uneven job. this car was ruff so we used 320gt., but norm. we start with 400.(sand and dry, if theres ANY shiny spots....GO OVER IT! your paint will stay on in the long run and you will have all the impurities sanded off.



we had to da sand(dual action orbital sander) with 120gt. the tops of the doors and quarters because of the rust and cracked paint. sand evenly until no more cracks or rust, and if theres dark spots left i sand blast till even then re sand with da.as you can see its covered in lighter spots( thats filler duraglass). what you don't see is we tape with masking tape all the black crome or anything you don't want scratched when sanding. the tape on the window is to mark the wiper position before we pulled them off.



this is how dull the paint should be when you dry it off. i have found it useful when water sanding to use a new puddy scraper squeegeeing the water off and shows the deal. as you can see i have added lightweight body filler over the duraglass on the hood, only in thin amount to help fill it smooth.



these eclipse's don't have any supports under the roof so we had to make and weld some bows in with a rubber strip on top to steady the roof so we could repair the dents and fill what we couldn't. as you can see, roof tops are not easy to fix! and theres enough room over headliner to do this and it all still fits perfect.





we had to weld in some metal in the hatch and fill where wing dented it over the years.



the bumpers had been painted 5 or 6 times and when you get that much paint on a flexible bumper it tends to crack allot! it was nothing but a marble design. so we had to da the complete bumper down to the plastic.we then primed the car in urethane high build primer and sanded with 400gt. to show the high spots to work down and low spots to fill. if your lucky like we were it was no spots to work and we then taped the complete car up and cleaned booth. i sealed the car in a nasons 2K sealer then put the base coat paint on in three layers( most paint takes 3 layers to cover solid) most base coats mix 1/2 paint and 1/2 reducer. then came the clear coat, it takes a mist coat (semi dull looking)to get a tacky film and then you lay on a coat that looks wet. always stay around 6 to 8" away from surface at all times. always paint past the edge of you area and overlap 1/3 with every pass.you need to wait about 15 min. between coats and you need 3 to 4 coats totl for a average job. urethane clears mix 4:1:1= 4 oz. clear:1oz.hardner:1oz.reducer. Always strain your paints,clears,primers and so on when pouring in your gun.and make shour you stir very well!!!











all and all we have $700.00 invested and when its all done give it 4 to 6 hours to dry and be careful! it is still curing for a couple of days. good luck and if any Q&A .......

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ButcherRacing

nice write up

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B14SER

thanks!

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B14SER

next i will be showing how to add stripes to your car and have it smooth and all done with paint!

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trtrex

Great job!!!!!!!!!!!!!

not sure about the none functional hood scoop though=/

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Chris
'03 WRX S4+

TEAM

danmanrn

I'm pretty sure he said it's functional. What would be the sense in going through all that if it weren't functional? You could just stick on a pre-fab aftermarket mockup made of plastic, that I gaurantee is easier and non-functional.
Check out his other cars too....

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"It's better to burn out, than to fade away"-Kergan

B14SER

yes it is fully functional. i will post more pics soon. and thanks trtrex!

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