Project Boondoggle (or, so I went and bought a Z!)

[charliekwin]

It actually never occurred to me that all the AC components were sitting there under the dash.  Kind of makes it difficult to get easy access to the firewall!

 

My dash is already cracked so badly that there's a fair chance I'd somehow improve it during removal.  I wouldn't risk removing an uncracked one either.

[Consigli]

If you want your dash restored right, send it here: http://www.justdashes.com/

 

Its expensive, but heck, "in for a penny, in for a pound!" 

Edited November 29, 2015 by Consigli

[charliekwin]

Kind of slow going lately.  Things like football, family, holidays are all getting in the way of important stuff like working on the car.  The floors are almost ready to be painted, and I'm not feeling particularly comfortable about relying on a mask while doing that, so I cooked up this little system with some inspiration around the internet.

 

- A brand new cheap vacuum/blower, that won't be used for anything else

- Tyvek hood

- 50ft pool vacuum hose

- Some PVC couplings

 

 

Needed to shave down some of the couplings and sacrificed one of the included vac attachments, but everything fits together.  Tested around the house and it all works as expected, it's light and not terribly unwieldy, and provides plenty of air.  An OSHA inspector would likely have an aneurysm, but for the hour or two of total use it'll get, I think it should be an improvement over the mask.

[Captain Obvious]

I hope you know that a post like that absolutely must be followed up by pictures of you modeling said contraption. There's no way you can toss that out there without supplying pics of it in situ. 

[charliekwin]

First coat of silver went on the floor pans this evening.  The DIY supplied air contraption worked a treat!  Better than the mask (though more awkward).  I'll have my wife take a photo of it in use when the second coat goes on tomorrow.  Wish I could've read her mind when she got home today when I was in the middle of this project!

[Patcon]

A ladies mind can be a scary place best avoided if at all possible...

[charliekwin]

Well, she knew what she was getting into when she married me, so I assume she was probably questioning her own judgement more than mine

[wheee!]

I always tell my wife I have better judgment than her. After all, I picked her, she picked me....

[charliekwin]

Progress!

 

Two coats of the Masterseries Silver have been applied and it looks a lot prettier now.  I spent yesterday evening masking off all the areas that needed seam sealer, which ended up being a ton of work I probably didn't need to do.  Since I don't have a gun for the 2k sealers, I chose the 3M Ultrapro.  I also don't have a gun for that, but thought I could do the old homemade pastry bag trick.  Turns out that seam sealer is way thicker than frosting!  Spoiler alert: it didn't work  I ended up digging the stuff out and applying it with my fingers, which made a pretty horrible mess and isn't something I really feel like doing again, but it came out nice enough.  Hopefully on Wednesday I'll have time to put on the black finish coat.  

 

[Patcon]

Looks good. Make sure the bottom side of those seams are sealed up good, they are the bigger issue

[charliekwin]

More floors!  Got the top coat of paint on and then some Raammat I had left over from the audio install I did a few years ago in the G.  A lot of people like to put this stuff on with full (or even overlapping) coverage, but that generally doesn't work well.  Those sheets don't block noise, they reduce panel vibrations, so I stuck it in places that sounded the worst with the very-scientific knuckle test.

To block the sound, I'm going with mass-loaded vinyl and closed-cell foam.  I used this in the G as well, with good results.  Here my plans start going sideways.  Originally wanted to cover the whole floor with MLV, and even made a very elaborate template that took a lot of time and back pain, which isn't going to be used.  The old MLV I had left over probably would have worked with enough finagling, but the new stuff (from the same supplier) is about 25% thicker and a good bit stiffer.  Here's a comparison, and you can see how the old stuff lays in better on the passenger side than the new stuff on the driver side.

So the current plan is to scale back and use the new stuff on the flat sections of the floors, lay the old stuff over the tunnel, and not be so fussy about getting it to fit, since it's all covered by carpet anyway.

Edited December 30, 2015 by charliekwin
Trying to figure out image uploading...

[charliekwin]

On 12/21/2015 at 5:47 PM, Patcon said:

Looks good. Make sure the bottom side of those seams are sealed up good, they are the bigger issue

I'm doing my best not to think about the bottom side!

I'll take that on whenever I can finally get to -- or farm out -- the body work.  Fortunately the Z only goes out in fair weather and spends the rest of the time in the garage... (kind of like me...)