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I'm back with another project thread for my money pit of a 1978 Ford Fairmont XC. This time I'm getting serious with it, as the title says - I'm putting a 4 litre Barra straight six from a 2006 BF Falcon ute into the XC, along with a 4 speed auto (BTR I think?) and a disk brake diff. For those that haven't seen it before, this is my XC:  I'm not going to go over how much I've spent on it so far but it was way too much. I'm pretty attached to it though, so that's why I still own it. A few months ago someone I know wanted to get rid of an EL fairmont:  $500. Bargain. Everything works, I've replaced a single belt and regassed the A/C, that's all I'll end up doing to it most likely. Buying it let me work on the XC without worrying about if I can drive it to work on monday. Then today I spotted an ad on facebook, some guy selling a whole '06 BF Falcon ute, Dedicated LPG (apparently these had the rods out of an XR6T in them). Motor runs like it's new, transmission shifts nicely. The only thing seriously wrong with the ute is that it was hit in the rear and it bent the whole tray. I drove it a little bit and honestly you couldn't even tell it was hit by driving it. I got it over to a mates place where I'll be keeping it before it gets pulled apart. He wasn't too happy about it being dedicated LPG because it just makes it harder, but I couldn't pass up a motor this clean (honestly, I had no idea how clean the oil in an LPG motor is). I'll be getting started on pulling both cars apart and trying to fit all the puzzle pieces together, I'll have a few friends helping out which will make it a bit easier. Oh an the car is getting resprayed after the motor is done too, so big things coming.
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Mar 7, 2016 12:22
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Ansith posted:(honestly, I had no idea how clean the oil in an LPG motor is). Generally much cleaner than petrol.
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Mar 7, 2016 12:48
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Ansith posted:I'm back with another project thread for my money pit of a 1978 Ford Fairmont XC. could be difficult iirc the 4.0 barra has an integral sump thats pretty hard to modify, you would probably be better putting a vct sohc in it out of an au.
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Mar 7, 2016 15:01
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some texas redneck posted:Generally much cleaner than petrol. The oil in the motor was crystal clear, I'm not used to anything but solid black Big Daddy Keynes posted:could be difficult iirc the 4.0 barra has an integral sump thats pretty hard to modify, you would probably be better putting a vct sohc in it out of an au. The BA/BF sump will fit into an XA-XF with a different sway bar. The FG+ sump is the opposite way around and doesn't fit. I've seen somone use one of the FPV turbo motors in an XD and he just swapped a BA sump on.
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Mar 7, 2016 22:44
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....Okay, this has got some serious potential. Even NA I6 swap will make the XC get up and move
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Mar 8, 2016 00:09
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Ansith posted:The oil in the motor was crystal clear, I'm not used to anything but solid black Much, much cleaner combustion. Wait till you see the pistons and valves! I hope you'll be keeping the LPG (if you have a choice), because that poo poo is freaking awesome. Edit: and if you think v8's are for bogans then maybe you should go gently caress yaself, ya fuckin' oval office, ill fuckin' bottle ya! Edit 2: , ya oval office! Pomp and Circumcized fucked around with this message at 00:37 on Mar 8, 2016 |
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Mar 8, 2016 00:33
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CAT INTERCEPTOR posted:....Okay, this has got some serious potential. Even NA I6 swap will make the XC get up and move I'll be pretty close to doubling the power that the alloy head crossflow puts out, and it'll be close to what a stock XC 351 cleveland was putting out. N/A Barras are pretty sweet. ShittyPostmakerPro posted:Much, much cleaner combustion. Wait till you see the pistons and valves! I hope you'll be keeping the LPG (if you have a choice), because that poo poo is freaking awesome. oi mate, keep ya fuckin' mouth shut or I'll fuckin' bash ya! I'll be going to petrol, one of the deciding factors was the mixer set up on the BA/BFs is pretty outdated. It drops around 40kw. If I was going to go LPG I'd get a better set up but that's a bit too expensive for me. It does mean I'll have to grab a bunch of extra parts almost making the whole buying a donor car thing pointless. I couldn't pass up a decent motor though, I've seen some real shitters over the past couple of months. I think I'm looking at intake manifold and all the bit associated with it and the wiring for the petrol bits. ECU I'm unsure about, I've read that it's possible to get it remapped for a petrol engine.
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Mar 8, 2016 11:17
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Ansith posted:I'll be pretty close to doubling the power that the alloy head crossflow puts out, and it'll be close to what a stock XC 351 cleveland was putting out. N/A Barras are pretty sweet. Actually, arguably more as well as better usable torque - Looking about, I see realistic figures would be 160ish Kw with 410Nm for the 351, A Barra on petrol started at 185Kw with 380Nm. And I bet the Barra is lighter. This might go faster than you expect.
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Mar 8, 2016 11:58
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I don't blame you for ditching the mixer ring setup as those things are a poor way to efficiently add fuel and are likely a big cause of the 'you lose loads of power when on LPG!' myth. If you were sticking with LPG then you should go for a proper sequential setup, which may or may not even be viable depending on the kind of petrol ECU you are running, and will have higher start-up costs. Don't forget to check/change your plugs when switching back to petrol.
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Mar 8, 2016 23:46
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CAT INTERCEPTOR posted:This might go faster than you expect. Definitely hope so, I got to drive a friends FG XR6 once, it felt really quick and I wasn't even pushing it. I have a feeling it'll feel very different in an XC. ShittyPostmakerPro posted:I don't blame you for ditching the mixer ring setup as those things are a poor way to efficiently add fuel and are likely a big cause of the 'you lose loads of power when on LPG!' myth. I'll definitely make sure to change over everything I need to from the LPG gear to petrol. That'll probably mean oil too. My plans are changing daily right now, I've just got in touch with someone who needs all the front panels off the ute. Turns out he has a BA wagon sitting around that he doesn't want and said I can take the intake manifold and all off it for free if I go around and get it. That should have everything I'll need because as far as I can tell BA and BF intake manifolds are the same set up. I was going to take the ECU and wiring loom out too but while the BA ECU works on the BF motor it won't have the variable dual VCT control that the BF ECU does, I know this really comes out as very little gain but I'd rather just go for it. So I got a quote from a wrecker for a BF ECU and engine bay loom for $250. I was expecting more so I'm happy with that. I'll pick that up in a few weeks when I can throw the money at it.
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Mar 9, 2016 14:42
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Ansith posted:Definitely hope so, I got to drive a friends FG XR6 once, it felt really quick and I wasn't even pushing it. I have a feeling it'll feel very different in an XC. FG - 1760kg XC - 1340Kg Noice
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Mar 9, 2016 23:51
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CAT INTERCEPTOR posted:FG - 1760kg I was thinking that looked a bit light, according to the stats I have the XC is 1475 kg. That's still a massive difference. I might shave off a bit of weight with the Barra vs cast iron everything crossflow too. I'll be going to take a couple of parts off the BF ute today, I'll grab some pictures of it while I'm there.
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Mar 12, 2016 04:56
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Ansith posted:I was thinking that looked a bit light, according to the stats I have the XC is 1475 kg. That's still a massive difference. I might shave off a bit of weight with the Barra vs cast iron everything crossflow too. Think that'll be the kerb weight of the V8, which also had a higher trim level. The stats I found suggest the 6 are all around the 1350kg mark, which given the lack of crap in them, sounds about right. I wouldnt be surprised if the Barra took a few more kgs off as well, the old 4.1 is one big lump of cast iron to say the least. Thnk evil thoughts and turbo it.
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Mar 12, 2016 06:37
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CAT INTERCEPTOR posted:Thnk evil thoughts and turbo it. I don't hate myself that much yet, I'll probably turbo it once I forget how much pain this swap is going to be. I've just been around to see the ute and discuss it with my friend and I'm now officially at the stage where I'm asking myself what the gently caress am I even getting into. We're going to pull the motor and box next weekend, then someone is coming to pick up the rest of the ute from me for $200. Doesn't even cover the towing I paid, and people sell these engines for $100. In the end, buying this particular ute was completely stupid, I thought they were worth more than they really are. At least I got to see it running? That's worth at least $700... right? Here is my bad purchase:   Is it bad that I'm already annoyed by this project?
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Mar 12, 2016 11:38
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Yes! Please do this!
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Mar 12, 2016 13:47
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Why don't you keep the donor vehicle for awhile? As soon as you get rid of it, you will probably find some little gubbin that you needed that you now need to go buy retail. Might as well keep it until the swap is done, and that will give you longer to part out the bits you're sure you don't need (interior, body, etc) and make back some extra money.
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Mar 12, 2016 22:44
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Put a v8 in that white ute, ya oval office.
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Mar 13, 2016 03:17
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ShittyPostmakerPro posted:Put a v8 in that white ute, ya oval office. please ignore this post, boss v8 falcons are the most terrible things to work on (unless you get the single cam, which is merely slow). source: worked at a ford dealership that sold shitloads of the fuckers. edit: ls swap the ute and i will hug you for building a modern falcon v8 that doesnt suck.
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Mar 13, 2016 06:10
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Big Daddy Keynes posted:edit: ls swap the ute and i will hug you for building a modern falcon v8 that doesnt suck. 
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Mar 13, 2016 07:25
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Big Daddy Keynes posted:
That's an LS swap I can get behind.
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Mar 13, 2016 07:34
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Big Daddy Keynes posted:please ignore this post, boss v8 falcons are the most terrible things to work on (unless you get the single cam, which is merely slow). I never said it had to be an original falcon V8. Where's the LS3?
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Mar 13, 2016 13:54
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how
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Mar 13, 2016 14:16
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Well you see it's Ford tough with Chevy stuff and has stock suspension so...
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Mar 13, 2016 14:25
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Mr-Spain posted:how Fords and Chevys have different firing orders and the guy didn't engineer that in
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Mar 13, 2016 17:45
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Mr-Spain posted:how Torque actually generates lift.
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Mar 13, 2016 17:58
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Mr-Spain posted:how "Stock Suspension!!"
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Mar 13, 2016 19:19
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Raluek posted:Why don't you keep the donor vehicle for awhile? As soon as you get rid of it, you will probably find some little gubbin that you needed that you now need to go buy retail. Might as well keep it until the swap is done, and that will give you longer to part out the bits you're sure you don't need (interior, body, etc) and make back some extra money. I agree with that strategy, it's what I did with the last car I took the motor out of then parted out the rest. Problem is once the motor is pulled from this it'll be in the way. I'm doing the swap at friends place because gently caress doing it out of a single garage, building a motor and putting it in was hard enough at my place. So what he says re the wreck goes. Sorry to disappoint everyone else, the ute has a nice big kink in the chassis. It looks good in the picture right? The back end is hosed. I'm sure once I turbo this bitch I'll be able to pull off a stock suspension flip no problem. Though I did have an extra leaf put in the rear springs so I might have hosed up that plan. People keep bugging me about the turbo so there will be a turbo in the future. It'll be easy once the N/A motor is in.
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Mar 13, 2016 23:48
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In the interest of freeing up garage space I started on fixing up the GS/GXL bonnet I've had for a few years. I've been dreading it because I didn't really give it a full inspection before I bought it. It was super cheap for the condition it was in but there were a lot of pin holes in the skin and the frame is completely stuffed in a few sections. It was just going to be a quick "it'll last for a couple of years" job but then I ended up splitting the skin and frame to do it properly. Where it started, my panel beater friend made up some replacement corners for both sides even though I only needed one. He did the welding for me too because I have bad memories from welding sheet metal last time.  Made a tool out of a screwdriver to bend the fold in the skin back to split the two.  A bit of rust under the fold but no holes so it was all good.  The skin and frame successfully split. All the 40 year old sealer still attached, the mix of the sealer and bare metal actually caused a lot of rust in these and the boot lids. The ones still on the car have it really bad. Luckily on this one it only ended up causing some pin holes.   Cut out the corner and drilled out the pin holes. There was about 8 pin holes in the skin total, a few more in the frame.   After a bunch of sanding and a quick sandblasting, the frame came out looking okay at the back. The whole front lip is hosed though.  My friend bought some bronze wire to use with his mig which made doing the pin holes a lot easier. Minimal grinding.  Lining the replacement corner up and welding it in.   I missed getting a picture of the corner once we had finished it. After a lot of work with the hammer it turned out really nicely. Once it's painted up you won't be able to tell. Next up will be fixing up the frame which I'll need to cut off a section of my regular bonnet to use. Both actually use the same frame but because of my past repairs my other one isn't much better.
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Apr 2, 2016 11:29
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Been slowly making progress on the bonnet and I got started on the boot lid too. Excuse the portrait pics, someone else took the pictures while I was doing poo poo. The section cut out of my standard bonnet that's on the car.  Adding a bit more strength into the bonnet frame, it's the most common spot for them to bend right there.  Cut the lip off the skin and made a fresh piece.   After taking the frame off the standard bonnet, I needed to patch it back up so I could drive it around. So I just welded up back up without the frame.    As some of the welding on these parts was a bit easier, I did a fair bit of it. The patch job was me, which for something without body filler didn't turn out too badly. The bronze wire in the mig made everything so much easier. What to do with the engine conversion has been a big discussion recently but it's looking like some good things are happening now. The guy that sold me the XE wagon which the XC's motor came from is now selling me a BA wagon minus brake booster for $750. It almost makes the purchase of the ute pointless but I'll use the motor from the ute and everything else comes from the wagon. I'll have plenty of spares at least! My plan at the moment is to get the ECU in the wagon reflashed so I can disconnect the security and all the interior poo poo. Then while the motor is in the wagon work out the wiring to get it running in there, make up any brackets I'll need for the XC while it's still running over a few weekends. Then when it's all ready to go, try and throw it into the XC. Minimising time that I'm tying up my friend's shed. Before the wagon came up for sale the swap was looking pretty dead, I was very close to buying an EFI 302w from an AU. Back on track now though, looks like the engine swap and respray will be happening in parallel.
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Apr 23, 2016 11:29
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Excellent news on the donor front. That bonnet is so good - I've always loved those big intakes/vents. Looking forward to the next update!
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Apr 23, 2016 12:22
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 This makes me feel sick for some reason.
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Apr 27, 2016 13:51
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Ansith posted:
were you indoors? paintstripper is outside only
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Apr 27, 2016 20:20
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Yeah it was done with all the roller doors open in the shed, no issues with ventilation. It's just how the paint looks peeling back that makes me feel sick. I really don't know why.
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Apr 27, 2016 23:03
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A-wise from your gwave. I don't know why I missed this thread the first time, being a bogan Aussie Ford fan
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Aug 2, 2016 00:04
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To be fair I was lazy with updates, poo poo keeps getting in the way. I've made a bit of progress recently so I'll upload some pics tonight. Was actually thinking I needed to revive the thread yesterday. The hard part of the bonnet and boot lid are done, the lid is ready for paint and the bonnet just got put into primer after gettng a bit of bog put into it. Going to pick up some temporary flat green so I can throw them on the car. The plan is to do the real top coat all at once to get a matchng finish. Looking back at the thread I didn't even realise how far behind I was on the updates, I'll pick up my game from now on.
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Aug 2, 2016 00:57
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One day late because I'm a lazy piece of poo poo who would rather hoon around in my 944 than post A few of these shots are going back a couple of months now, sadly my friend's brother died and all this work is being done in his shed so we had to stop for a while. The brother owned a Holden WB (I think?) ute which is done as a HQ mock up, nice ute. I helped do a bit of suspension work on it after we finished up priming my panels last weekend, it's funny how parts of it are almost exactly opposite from what Ford did at the same time. The boot lid came out pretty well after a bit of bog, I hosed up buying the wrong poo poo for sealing the panels together. Couldn't find the right stuff so got some sikaflex, I think I bought it from a Boating shop too. It pulled the skin down on the frame too much    We didn't go with the factory method of sealing two pieces of bare metal together either, the inner parts of the skin and frame were primed separately. Probably the reason they rusted out so badly. As I mentioned earlier, I picked up a BA wagon. I did an elderly couple a favour and sold the BF gas motor cheap to them since they had one die on them. Wreckers wanted $1000 for a new motor, I did it for $300 including a 200km delivery.  Can't say the colour suits the wagon too well. 301k on the clock and the motor is still loving great. Ford really did a good job on these barras. A few days after, I picked up this flash tuner which cost more than the wagon.  Also on the hunt for random other parts I scored a GT style fuel cap for a decent price. Came with the proper ring for it too but I need to drill holes into the panel to fit it and get rid of the spill tray.  Probably my favourite day in doing all of this was fitting up the GS bonnet on the car after finishing up with all the metalwork, at the same time I threw in some hinges stolen from a mates long gone XA. The result of that was the bonnet not sitting really high up the back like most do.  Had some fantales on the roof too, delicious fantales The fucker went into primer shortly after that to stop it rusting during the month break we had.  Up to date! I picked up my solid colour today which cost me $230 for some poo poo that I'll rub back eventually, cars are expensive. I'll also just throw in what I've been daily driving too, I got rid of the EL Falcon because gently caress fixing $500 cars. It went to a good home who actually decided to fix it (sold it for $350 with 3 months rego on it). Drove the XC for a month, then I picked up a Porsche 944 because ???, I wanted something that doesn't want to swerve off the road.  When I told everyone they thought I'd given up on the XC, I'm way too attached to my lovely Fairmont to ever replace it with something else. e: gotta post my shitboxes together (the xc gets the garage) 
Ansith fucked around with this message at 13:03 on Aug 3, 2016 |
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Aug 3, 2016 12:55
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Ansith posted:e: gotta post my shitboxes together (the xc gets the garage) There is a tremendous contrast between these two vehicles, but in the best possible way...
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Aug 3, 2016 13:33
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I'm really glad you didn't get frustrated and gave up, the last thread was a little depressing. Also that 944 looks pretty mint.
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Aug 3, 2016 14:50
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Using sikaflex to seal the skin to the frame is biting me in the rear end now. Rubbed back the primer to get some colour on but we found more low spots and high spots. Got some more filler on and primed again. The boot lid was the worst but it might be due to rushing things after taking the month break, there were a few things we forgot to finish off. Did another test fit of the bonnet. It isn't perfect but it's better than most of what's out there for $1000. I bet if I paid a shop to do it there would be more than $1000 in labour there.  Inbetween doing that we also butchered my radiator support panel to test fit the BA radiator and condenser. The best part was cutting my car up and then looking at all the poo poo on the floor and thinking I need to drive it home. Didn't get any pictures because coolant and dirt don't go well with phones.
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Aug 9, 2016 23:21
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Just got back from laying down the first bit of colour on the bonnet and boot lid, which was meant to be a temporary coat of solid 2 pack. It came out really dark compared to the metallic version. I like the dark green a lot. My friend suggested that we go with it instead and I'm close to agreeing with him. I'm going back tomorrow once it's dried to get it out into the sun so I can see it under some better light. I'll grab some pictures tomorrow but I think a solid colour might be the way I want to go. Plus it'll be cheaper, the 944 has stolen my wallet and won't give it back so I need to save where I can.
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Aug 13, 2016 06:42
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