charliekwin

Arrrrrgh, I am a first-class idiot today. Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk

MZR must've hired a new press person; this is like the 4th or 5th place I've seen them pop up in the last two weeks. Some nice details on their cars, though some things I'm not a big fan of (shaved drip rails and center exhaust, for instance). Interior treatments -- especially the consoles -- are particularly nice.

In all the time working on the hood trying to get the metal on the left side straight, I somehow overlooked that it was out of shape. Instead of having a slight crown, I had a slight dip. Someone probably leaned on it or used it as a table or something at one point. I do not have the patience or ability to try to coax that panel back into shape, so I forced it instead by cutting up a few pieces of ~3/16" steel bar and hammering them between the top of the hood and the bracing underneath. Seemed to work. But, while I had the hood turned over, I also noticed that the two sides still didn't match. There's are (supposed to be) some rubber pads sandwiched in there, and the driver side ones in mine are missing. I cut some replacements out of a rubber sheet and stuck them in there. Everything's even and back in shape. Then just more filling and sanding, and the hood is done. So is the cowl; at least that was easy. Was hoping to get all the panels finished before going on vacation, but didn't quite make it. Only have the one rear quarter and some final work on the rear panel left.

JAMC!?! You're even cooler than I thought! Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk

I have it too in my CA-spec 78, but a large piece of thin metal is a pretty poor choice for sound deadening. Cap's guess about safety regulations makes more sense, though I admit I didn't give it much thought until this thread...

Yup, welded the seams. Hoping it will look as nice in real life as it does in my head. Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk

Fenders done. Hood...not done.

I hope (of course) the panels look good when the next layer of paint goes on. I shaped, blocked, and feathered everything as best as I could and it feels good, but it's darn near impossible to see some of the details through the layers of paint and filler. And the lines...it's the subtle fade at the very top of the wheel arch I'm most worried about getting right. I'm comforted, at least, by knowing you can't see both sides at the same time :) Speaking of paint...anyone with experience want to talk me into our out of using a few coats of the epoxy in lieu of high fill primer? I know there are people out there that do that and I've convinced myself it might be a good idea because I: have a ton of that stuff left over, am not in any rush, am comfortable-enough spraying it, and always happy to save a few bucks if I can.

Been chipping away bit by bit as time allows. The doors, hatch, and the roof required a lot of work and are as good as I think I can get them. Had to use more filler than I want, but less than I thought might need. I've gone through about a half gallon so far and probably 3/4 of it ended up as dust...much respect to the pros out there who can do it in one try, quickly, without wasting a ton of materials! The passenger rear quarter and the rear panel are almost finished. The rear quarter on the driver side is going to be a challenge reshaping the wheel arch and that swage line. Saving that for the end. Just started on the hood and fenders...hopefully they go quick.

Looks great. Thanks for being the guinea pig! I'll need a set of bumpers sooner rather than later, and the rare ones that pop up on Craigslist are usually in rough shape and still pretty expensive, so this is looking like the best bet right now.

Enjoy your time in LA, Jeff. Way worse places to be than Newport! Ortega Highway's probably your best drive down there.

Finally: everything is in epoxy! Took longer than I thought (I'm as bad at guessing times on this project as I am on, well, all my other projects) and got tied up with some other things the last few weeks, but hey, it feels like real progress. Mainly, I'm happy to not have to strip any nasty stuff any more! Since it's just epoxy and I really didn't want to go through the trouble of setting up the tent, I painted everything al fresco. There's a bug or two on the bottom of the hood; I can live with that. Still playing around with the gun: I thought I was was a little too fast when I did the body last month, but overcorrected and went a little too slow on the first coat on things like the back of the doors. Second coat was better. And started with filler a couple weeks back. Roof and quarter are coming into shape. The good side won't need much work at all. With everything painted, I can do the seam sealer and start filling all the things.

Here are the relevant sections of the CVC http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&division=12.&title=&part=&chapter=5.&article=2. http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&division=12.&title=&part=&chapter=5.&article=2.5. I would call the DMV and ask what they do to clear the ticket. If they just go out there with a noise meter or send out a designated exhaust-listening guy, it's probably worth either getting a cheap meter from Amazon for $15 or even an app for your phone to give you a rough idea of how loud your exhaust actually is.

Lots of bumples on the roof and rear quarter from the stud welder. I wish I knew more about the history of the car, because there is a lot of mystery there. The roof, driver side rear quarter, driver side front fender support, passenger side rocker, and the area of the passenger side tail light and hatch all had damage that looked like it was caused by low-speed collisions. But the body panels, for the most part, were all relatively straight! I'm optimistic that I won't have to use too much filler except for the roof and rear. I think I'd rather fill and sand than strip off old paint and try to reshape metal anyway. At least for now. Maybe not in a month or two.

I was waffling on a lot of things (paint myself? do the jambs? paint panels on or off the car?) and that indecision made it easy to just do little bits at a time so I wouldn't have to make those choices. Shooting the fenders and hood brought some clarity and has helped get things back on track. Finally feels like real progress is getting made. Last week I was hoping to paint the body. Figured the prep work was a two day project, but by the time day one was over, I was already a day behind That carried over to this weekend, and was further delayed by cold weather and rain, but I had enough blue sky by 2:00 on Sunday afternoon to shoot the epoxy. Whatever plan I thought I had for the first coat went out the window as soon as I started spraying. Easy to get ahead of yourself and start to rush. Second coat went better than the first. Just have the hatch, doors, and some of the little bits left to do, then I can move on to filler.

I've wrapped interior panels and other bits and pieces, with varying levels of success. General comments from my experiences: It's harder to apply than you probably think. Paint and vinyl probably have a similar margin for error. Vinyl won't last anywhere near as long as paint. Vinyl allows for some more interesting finish options (if you're into that), but a good paint job will always have a cleaner application (e.g. no seams or cut lines) than vinyl. Vinyl is thin, and therefore only marginally more forgiving than paint. The panels still need to be straight. A good vinyl install isn't likely to be cheap , but if you're looking for something different or non-permanent, it's a nice option.

Quick catchup on the last month or so of work; mostly body stuff. Got the holes patched up pretty well and the front of the fender support back into as good a shape as I'm willing to make it. The roof required a fair amount of work with the stud gun and a completely non-dodgy use of a bottle jack. I desperately wanted to avoid pulling out the headliner, and am happy with the shape I got the roof in to. Same with the driver side quarter panel. And a fun discovery: it turns out I've had torsion rods for the hood all along. They were just sitting there under the hood hinges. One less item on my shopping list. Now for the fun(?) stuff. Finally got something painted! Taking a cue from @Home Built by Jeff I bought a 20x10 canopy on ebay for $70. When I put it together, it turned out to be a little taller and longer than my garage, but I chopped off 8" from one end and 4" from the middle and got it to fit pretty well. If I didn't live in the Los Angeles suburbs, I'd just put it in the driveway, but I don't want to invite that much scrutiny. (Fun fact: the former tenants used our place as a grow house. I imagine the neighbors look on those days fondly and wonder when our lease is up!) Stuck a filter and box fan on one end, and a filter on the other and taped up the big gaps. Took way over an hour to put everything up and is kind of a tight fit both inside and out, but hey: it worked. I managed to get epoxy on the hood, fenders, and cowl, which were the only ones I was able to prep. The SPI epoxy sprays really nicely, and aside from a couple spots where I was a little too quick with the gun, I think I did a pretty good job. There's a long road ahead, but this felt like a milestone. I wanted to avoid pulling the doors (mainly because they're hung well, and they're wired), but will probably just go ahead and do it. It'll be a lot easier to paint the doors and I can easily do the jambs if I remove them. Doing just the roof and the rear quarters in one shot is also more manageable in the space I have to work with. Also: it'll be a lot of work, but now I think I might do the primer and color myself.

Mine was in good shape, so I left the existing trim in place and only did the headliner, but yes, 1/2" was enough. Not much room for error though!

I made my own headliner, so YMMV with the MSA one, but I cut mine about a half inch or so big and tucked it under. (I was actually going to make it a little bigger, but didn't account for the curvature of the roof. Oops.) A large plastic panel removal tool worked really well for that.

Things are still happening, and FedEx delivered some goodies today. Hoping to get at least parts --if not all of it -- in epoxy this weekend or next! Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk

Another vote here for Red Kote. Added bonus, it was available at O'Reilly and was maybe $30 for the quart, so easier and cheaper to get than stuff like POR15.

Beyond the name, if you look at the warning label on the container, it doesn't really look *that* much different than what's on something much more innocuous like acetone: https://goofoffproducts.com/product/pro-stripper-1-gallon/ http://www.kleanstrip.com/uploads/documents/J8132_J8133_GAC18.pdf The MSDS on the stripper makes it more clear that it's fairly nasty stuff, but those aren't on store shelves and even then, how many "normal" people know what the NFPA or HMIS labels mean? Banning is no good (though if this stuff is available at, say, Lowe's, I think there's an argument to be made about keeping the worst stuff away from the general public) but designing some better industry-standard labeling might be a worthy step to take.

Tempe police released video of the accident: It's dark and low res, but based on that video alone, I think it would be tough for any human driver to have avoided the collision. This is one of those situations where you'd actually think newer technology (not just self driving tech, but the current crop of driver assist/collision avoidance, too) should help -- LiDAR/RADAR don't care about shadows -- but it's been widely reported that the car didn't slow or brake beforehand. I'm going to guess that the car a couple hundred feet ahead probably mucked things up. At least in this case, it would have for me if I were driving.

A few reports from Waymo (Google's program): https://medium.com/waymo/the-worlds-longest-and-toughest-ongoing-driving-test-44464867865b https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/42aff875-7ab1-4115-a72a-97f6f24b23cc/Waymofull.pdf?MOD=AJPERES This one gets into a fair amount of detail and is good reading for anyone curious about autonomous vehicles: https://storage.googleapis.com/sdc-prod/v1/safety-report/waymo-safety-report-2017.pdf One thing to note: my understanding is that Waymo is the consensus leader in AVs. The standards and capabilities of Waymo won't necessarily be the same for Uber, GM, or any of the numerous other companies that are racing to make it work. That, to me, is the bigger concern to worry about. Self driving cars are not an impossible problem: the technology is already here and it will only get better.

We don't even need to go that far back, or look at other modes of transportation. There's been plenty of it with automobiles, too: seatbelts ("you want me to be trapped in my car if I get in a crash?"), stability control ("you really think some computers are going to do a better job of getting the car under control than I can?"), cameras ("I got my own two eyes!"), and plenty other automotive technologies have been met with skepticism over the years. Self-driving technology will be the same way. 20-30 years from now we'll explain to Those Damn Kids that "when I was your age, anyone 16 and over could be handed the keys to a 4,000lb chunk of high-speed metal that was entirely under their control." They'll ask "and it wasn't dangerous?" and we'll say "Of course it was! Thousands of people died every year. But we thought that was normal. You have to understand: it was a different time."