danteisme's 1996 DB8-Found and Rebuild Thread
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Alright, here is part one of my updates. I took off 6 days from work to get the car done, it was MOSTLY a success, especially for this being the first entire vehicle i've ever painted solo. I spent way more time on the bodywork than i intended. A long time ago in college, someone backed down the side of this car. I thought the body shop had replaced the door, but as it turns out they did not. They used a dent puller and filled over with filler. This door was the biggest PITA...i spent 3 days tearing it down and building it back up with filler trying to get it to look good. Finally, i just accepted that I was not going to get it perfect and i needed to move on. Also learned that guide coats are not the most fool proof thing. According to my guide coat, my car was pretty level and evened out. It was not...but, this isnt a show car and I can't expect a miracle for my first time.
So, here is the car getting ready for the epoxy primer and a quick run down of the garage and setup. I'm running 2 air compressors as I mentioned before with inline check valves and then the 2 are tied together at the wall mounted regulator.
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So, here is the car getting ready for the epoxy primer and a quick run down of the garage and setup. I'm running 2 air compressors as I mentioned before with inline check valves and then the 2 are tied together at the wall mounted regulator.
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Here comes green and gloss.
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I did 2.5 coats of base over the whole car, and i had one small catastrophe. I needed a bit more paint to put the second and then the half coat over the trunk. I rushed screwing the cap on and cross threaded the cap to the paint gun, so i proceeded to dump paint all over the trunk. Ugh...so i had to remove the trunk lid, sand it down, and paint it with the rest of the other parts.
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Next comes the shiny stuff, my favorite part. One medium coat just to introduce the material to the car, and a second heavier coat with a larger overlap.
I did 2.5 coats of base over the whole car, and i had one small catastrophe. I needed a bit more paint to put the second and then the half coat over the trunk. I rushed screwing the cap on and cross threaded the cap to the paint gun, so i proceeded to dump paint all over the trunk. Ugh...so i had to remove the trunk lid, sand it down, and paint it with the rest of the other parts.
Next comes the shiny stuff, my favorite part. One medium coat just to introduce the material to the car, and a second heavier coat with a larger overlap.
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And here's my ugly mug on the hood and the driver's door.
Still need to wetsand and buff, and i had one run in the clear coat by the rear door.
Overall i'm very pleased at how the body of the car came out. Next, i'll post pictures of the other parts for primer and paint and talk about the terrible situation that ensued.
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Thanks guys, i couldnt be more pleased with how the body of the car came out. If only my luck had held out for the other pieces...
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2,700 Posts
So, lets fast forward to the last day of painting and when it all went downhill...
The underside of the formerly red trunk lid.
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The setup for the other pieces, this was too crowded. I had to really calculate my walking path through the garage while doing this work. Here is everything in primer (except for my fix on the trunk lid) and sanded ready for green and gloss.
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At this point, everything was still going great.
Here is the trunk all done
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A bit more orange peely than the car, but cut and buff will fix that. This is the only separate piece that came out good. As i was spraying the base coat on the trunk lid, i noticed as soon as i finished the trunk lid both air compressors were kicking on. Which was odd considering I had made it 3/4 of the way around the car before that happened before. As i continued moving through the garage, i could tell something was wrong. My pressure was steadily dropping well below where the gun could get proper atomization and was starting to spray inconsistently, which is great when spraying something with the amount of pearls this paint has (sarcasm). Because it wasnt atomizing efficiently, i quickly ran out of material and had to go buy more. After i got back from buying more paint, i had more mechanical failure. My second air compressor stopped filling up to fully capacity and it stopped letting air out. No idea what happened here. But, i was more than half way through so i just pressed on, spraying at well less than the required PSI. Not what i wanted to do, but it was going to be in the 50's for the rest of the week and the foreseeable forecast so this was the last day i could do this as it was in the lower 80's. I had one paint reaction between the paint and the primer on the front bumper as well, not sure if i was sweating and i missed a drop getting on the bumper or what happened there.
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And the rest of the pictures, most of these pieces will need redone next year.
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Overall, i'm still happy and proud of this work. I know now that if I dont have mechanical failures, i can lay down a halfway decent paint job. I'm going to take a closer look at these parts in the sun to check for coverage, and hopefully a cut and buff is all some of these will need. The front bumper, one fender, one side skirt, the mirrors, and the front lip definitely need redone with paint and clear. I can tell the paint is just too inconsistent with a couple of blotched areas where the pressure wasnt enough to get it to lay correctly. And the mirrors and the front bumper by the grill were an absolute PITA to get paint into all of the right places. The mirrors only need redone because i didnt get adequate coverage in some of their body lines and that will just drive me nuts if i leave it as is. Same with the bumper, even if i didnt have that reaction i would still need to redo the area by the grill. When i do this again, i'll do fewer parts at once and really take my time making sure the paint goes where it needs to on these more difficult parts. I think i'll figure out a different way to mount the mirrors too, hanging them was a little difficult. Between now and then i'll also look to replace my air compressors with one bigger one. Or, i'll paint 1 or 2 pieces at a time and just use my larger air compressor of the two that i have. Still, overall i'm really proud of myself with this and it was fun. At least the pieces that need to be redone are easily removable from the car and this didnt happen in the middle of the quarter panel or the roof or something.
The underside of the formerly red trunk lid.
The setup for the other pieces, this was too crowded. I had to really calculate my walking path through the garage while doing this work. Here is everything in primer (except for my fix on the trunk lid) and sanded ready for green and gloss.
At this point, everything was still going great.
Here is the trunk all done
A bit more orange peely than the car, but cut and buff will fix that. This is the only separate piece that came out good. As i was spraying the base coat on the trunk lid, i noticed as soon as i finished the trunk lid both air compressors were kicking on. Which was odd considering I had made it 3/4 of the way around the car before that happened before. As i continued moving through the garage, i could tell something was wrong. My pressure was steadily dropping well below where the gun could get proper atomization and was starting to spray inconsistently, which is great when spraying something with the amount of pearls this paint has (sarcasm). Because it wasnt atomizing efficiently, i quickly ran out of material and had to go buy more. After i got back from buying more paint, i had more mechanical failure. My second air compressor stopped filling up to fully capacity and it stopped letting air out. No idea what happened here. But, i was more than half way through so i just pressed on, spraying at well less than the required PSI. Not what i wanted to do, but it was going to be in the 50's for the rest of the week and the foreseeable forecast so this was the last day i could do this as it was in the lower 80's. I had one paint reaction between the paint and the primer on the front bumper as well, not sure if i was sweating and i missed a drop getting on the bumper or what happened there.
And the rest of the pictures, most of these pieces will need redone next year.
Overall, i'm still happy and proud of this work. I know now that if I dont have mechanical failures, i can lay down a halfway decent paint job. I'm going to take a closer look at these parts in the sun to check for coverage, and hopefully a cut and buff is all some of these will need. The front bumper, one fender, one side skirt, the mirrors, and the front lip definitely need redone with paint and clear. I can tell the paint is just too inconsistent with a couple of blotched areas where the pressure wasnt enough to get it to lay correctly. And the mirrors and the front bumper by the grill were an absolute PITA to get paint into all of the right places. The mirrors only need redone because i didnt get adequate coverage in some of their body lines and that will just drive me nuts if i leave it as is. Same with the bumper, even if i didnt have that reaction i would still need to redo the area by the grill. When i do this again, i'll do fewer parts at once and really take my time making sure the paint goes where it needs to on these more difficult parts. I think i'll figure out a different way to mount the mirrors too, hanging them was a little difficult. Between now and then i'll also look to replace my air compressors with one bigger one. Or, i'll paint 1 or 2 pieces at a time and just use my larger air compressor of the two that i have. Still, overall i'm really proud of myself with this and it was fun. At least the pieces that need to be redone are easily removable from the car and this didnt happen in the middle of the quarter panel or the roof or something.
Joined
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2,700 Posts
I love this color when the sun hits it.
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And after some quick reorganization, the car is back in the garage for reassembly. Even though some parts need to be redone... It will be nice to have all of the parts back on the car and get full use of my garage again.
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And after some quick reorganization, the car is back in the garage for reassembly. Even though some parts need to be redone... It will be nice to have all of the parts back on the car and get full use of my garage again.
Joined
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2,700 Posts
Hey welcome back!! Glad to see you still pop in every now and then. Thanks for the compliments, I'm super happy with how this work is turning out. Its not perfect, but its something I can say that I wasn't afraid to try something and I put my everything into to do it myself!
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I havent updated in a while. Still havent buffed this paint job yet, really slacking in that regard. So, i'm stilling messing around with a "partial" reassembly so that i have room to maneuver the buffer.
Made some new gaskets for the OEM spoiler since they are discontinued.
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Finished up the re-wiring and mounting of the trunk lid.
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Mounted the jdm fogs (ignore the garage mess...). Should have the rep lip on next weekend.
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Finished the retrofit's harness wiring. Still need to finalize the cap for the rear of the headlight housing. Also finished mounting the boxes.
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Picked up a new part. Neuspeed short shifter kit. I'll install this when i remove the exhaust to fit on the type r exhaust.
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Then I pulled the car outside of the garage to hose down the engine bay. It was full of body filler dust, paint dust, grease and dirt from all the work over the last....well long time.
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Its slightly more presentable now, still need to finish cleaning up the HID harness wiring at the battery. I will be adding an aux fuse block at some point to keep the connections to the battery itself to a minimum. Once i clean up the garage a bit more and get the rest of the pieces on the car, i'll have a little more room to move around the garage. Then I can really attack the sanding and polishing. Right now, i'm sort of tip toing around the car trying not to step on any pieces not on the car yet or knock something over and cause more work for myself next year.
Made some new gaskets for the OEM spoiler since they are discontinued.
Finished up the re-wiring and mounting of the trunk lid.
Mounted the jdm fogs (ignore the garage mess...). Should have the rep lip on next weekend.
Finished the retrofit's harness wiring. Still need to finalize the cap for the rear of the headlight housing. Also finished mounting the boxes.
Picked up a new part. Neuspeed short shifter kit. I'll install this when i remove the exhaust to fit on the type r exhaust.
Then I pulled the car outside of the garage to hose down the engine bay. It was full of body filler dust, paint dust, grease and dirt from all the work over the last....well long time.
Its slightly more presentable now, still need to finish cleaning up the HID harness wiring at the battery. I will be adding an aux fuse block at some point to keep the connections to the battery itself to a minimum. Once i clean up the garage a bit more and get the rest of the pieces on the car, i'll have a little more room to move around the garage. Then I can really attack the sanding and polishing. Right now, i'm sort of tip toing around the car trying not to step on any pieces not on the car yet or knock something over and cause more work for myself next year.
Joined
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2,700 Posts
I've been seriously slacking with work on the car. I value sleep so much more right now lol. My daughter is hardcore teething and is up every 2 hours almost, every single night. And when she starts screaming, there is a 50-50 shot she wakes up my son. So lately, anytime I have had to work over night on the car, has been switched to catching up on sleeping lol. Hopefully that changes soon. I got about 2 hours of work done on the car recently lol. I got the side skirts mounted back on the car, started wring up the horns only to realize that the one does not work now and started putting the interior back together. I grabbed a very nice headliner from the U-pull yard for $15 that is 100X better than the one I had in the car.
I started rinsing some of the car off to get ready for wet sanding, and I noticed water running down the front pillar on the inside of the car. WTF... so I start checking around the windshield and realized that I can push the glass off the car...not good considering this is a relatively new windshield. Called the glass company and said they would be out the next day. They came out and completely re-removed the windshield and determined that the adhesive did not bond to the surface that I had done some rust repair on. Even though it was something most likely I did, they did not charge me for the re-replacement. Good guys.
Also, I had to flip the car around in the garage so that they had easier access to the front of the car. The new headlights are completely unaimed, but it was night so I thought it would probably be a good idea to turn some lights on. Even with them not aimed at anything, I love the cutoff of these S2000 retrofits.
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I started rinsing some of the car off to get ready for wet sanding, and I noticed water running down the front pillar on the inside of the car. WTF... so I start checking around the windshield and realized that I can push the glass off the car...not good considering this is a relatively new windshield. Called the glass company and said they would be out the next day. They came out and completely re-removed the windshield and determined that the adhesive did not bond to the surface that I had done some rust repair on. Even though it was something most likely I did, they did not charge me for the re-replacement. Good guys.
Also, I had to flip the car around in the garage so that they had easier access to the front of the car. The new headlights are completely unaimed, but it was night so I thought it would probably be a good idea to turn some lights on. Even with them not aimed at anything, I love the cutoff of these S2000 retrofits.
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