Some pics of todays work

[filipvdv]

had quite a productive free day, started at 9am, no breaks, no eating, finished at 6pm

finished the bonnet




and finished the roof ! thank god this job is finished, think i would never do it again using the drill machine

[madragon199]

looking very solid now....great job...wish i had your dedication....mark

[andy-v]

looks even more amazing out in the light great work, all credit to you

[filipvdv]

thx guys, appreciate it. so happy this is finished, onto the next stage (might strip it again to bare metal )

the grill between the front window and bonnet still had to be done, so finished that and put the car back into the basement

[Ruudje]

Looking good!

(might strip it again to bare metal )

WHY...???

[filipvdv]

Looking good!


WHY...???

I have 2 options for further paint :
1. paint epoxy over this red primer, then filler or filler spray paint over the epoxy to fix the dings
2. bare metal, first filler, then epoxy primer

The second option is normally the way to go.. IF (and only if) there is a quick way to clean the red paint of, and this should be a lot easier/faster then all the old paint layers, i might go option 2.
To think i asked the painter which primer to use when cleaning the car ..

I'm also contacting a second painter for a second opinion.

Now back to ordering a complete bolt set for the car

[filipvdv]

ordered the weber lp2000 throttle linkage and an ITG air filter. Hope this air filter isnt too big for the engine bay.

[filipvdv]

not worked much on the car lately, but there is some progress to report

made this table for the missus to for good measure.. can't always be working on the car can we


found some drum brakes to be reconditioned


back plate and drum powder coated, have new inside parts on order


Ordered some bolts from Retrobolts, very happy with the labeling and bagging of all items.


Spoke to some other painters then the one i worked with and they all say to remove the red 1k primer. I now know why..
So invested in some 3M removal tools




and some proper epoxy primer this time ..


did a test piece, removed the red primer, cleaned and sprayed epoxy primer. Removal tools work great btw. Also using a rupes sanding machine




Then started the most difficult to reach area first, engine bay


and epoxy primered

[Stu.C]

I guess I can get used to having white primer envy

What's the reason the red primer is so bad?

[andy-v]

great work fella

[filipvdv]

thx guys :-) spirit was critical after the primer news, now back on top of my game

Several other painters indicated this is a 1K primer, which could react with the paint layers that will be sprayed on top. This primer also dissolves very easily with simple thinner. New paint also could crawl under this red primer when sanded down a little too far and start eating the layers from below. I dont want to risk anything when doing and expensive paint job. But since already 3 painters all say the same, i'm guessing removal is the only good option.

I also did a test where i sprayed my good epoxy primer over this red primer. I then sanded through the epoxy so there was a only a little bit of red primer visible. Cleaned this with thinner, and both layers just dissolved which is not good.

this primer apparently is mostly used when you need to protect bare metal during work, but never for a good basic layer.

lesson learned, i followed the guidelines of the wrong painter i guess.

[PSweeney]

I was reading the pages where you were using the aerosol primer and wondering why....glad you found out now and stripped it. A 1K aerosol like that is just acrylic, very little adhesion or corrosion resistance, certainly not worthy of being used ona full bare metal respray. The 1k will be porous if left for any time outside or in damp conditions and will shrink and crack finishes on top of it. You may find it easier rather than stripping it with adhasives to get a big drum of thinner and lots of rags and it will probably just wipe off. Epoxy is the way to go, but I guess you know that now.

[filipvdv]

you are right, i also tried removing the primer with cleaning thinner and this works very fast as well. I bought a big 10litre of cleaning thinner and plan on using it to help speed stuff up. Combined with some scotch brite i really eats it up. But this will be done outside, with a mask.

To be continued ..

[filipvdv]

so 2 days later, after a whole lot of sanding, 20 litres of thinner cleaning the mess and a bucket full of red rags, the car was grey again. No sign of the evil red primer left









and we have a white mk2 !









very happy with the results, so glad the red disaster is in the past

[rampant racing]

now your on the right track!!

[andy-v]

looking good, wont be long before paint

[filipvdv]

thx guys !

final pic with the doors mounted before it returns to its dungeon

[filipvdv]

Finally an update .., started working on fitting the gartrac boreham arches

Rear arches


WIP on front arches, made some templates to match other side perfectly


Fitting the front spoiler, made some measuring points to make sure its perfectly aligned


View as the car sits now : rear and front arches fitted with tek screws ready for final tweaking. The sides of the front spoiler still need work


Very happy with the results so far since this was a proper nightmare (probable due to lack of experience on this matter) ! when researching for examples it appeared everybody is doing his own thing and fits them "as they fit". So guess there is no real right or wrong

[GMB77N]

First of all, congratulations on your amazing work and dedication. Before you chop up those front wings though I think you should look again at the positioning of your front arches and spoiler which look a bit out to me (I think the arches are too high or need to be rotated forward a bit. You'll find a useful discussion about it here:

http://bbs.rallyesportescorts.co.uk/showthread.php?t=68255&page=4

HTH

[filipvdv]

dropped the front arches about an inch below the swage line, looks a bit better now. Looked at some rally cars and they had it flush to the swage line, but i'm not planning on rallying the car (yet )

Thanks also to Dangerdave80 for helping me out ! and others for pointing it out

How the car looks now :


even did some panel beating to get the arch flush to the body panel. There was quite a big gap initially


Next up, front spoiler !

[DANGERDAVE80]

Spot on

[filipvdv]

small update that took a serious amount of time. fitted the front spoiler with tec screws after lots and lots of measurements. I even made a spreadsheet so i could calculate the position of the spoiler based on pictures of other cars and even did some photoshopping merging layers

Now i'm confident its spot on compared to the example cars if follow

[andy-v]

getting there what colour ya going for.

[GMB77N]

Looks great. Top job.

[filipvdv]

thx guys ! just need to dress the edges of the front spoiler

Colour so far is white but can change. want to keep low profile on the road if thats possible with these cars lol ☺

[andy-v]

nice

[filipvdv]

finished dressing the front spoiler edges, fitment was close, but needed some trimming&hammering here and there

anyone knows a bit about galvanic corrosion. Looking into it because there is aluminium coming together with metal.

[filipvdv]

Not much work has been done on the car lately due to working, working, working...

Still managed to get a little done, but not on the car. I couldn't stand the look of the lift platform anymore, so gave it an freshen-up.

There were U-shaped metal bars on top of the platform that made on-offloading a pain in the ..
So i torched them to pieces


Then came the really fun work of grinding the huge welds away and remove the leftover metal pieces. Pretty thick metal was used when building this thing.


then gave the platform a good grind/cleanup. It got pretty misty at some times :-)


How it looks now.


Still need to extend the platform a bit so it closes the current gaps.

[raymondmarble]

Your garage never fails to impress me! But I'll admit, your car is catching up now too

[filipvdv]

Your garage never fails to impress me! But I'll admit, your car is catching up now too

Thanks man ! about time the gets an evolution now !

Bonus picture :-)

[andy-v]

the wife would have to drag me out of there, kicking and screaming

[filipvdv]

the wife would have to drag me out of there, kicking and screaming

haha i know what you mean. There is reason i tell here there is no cell phone reception in the basement (allthough there is )

[filipvdv]

did some cleanup work on the front arches



had to trim the edge a mm further to allow for some seam filler to be applied. So quickly made a tool which did the job nicely of marking a line


I had to weld some holes from trial fitting. I tried using some copper at the back of the hole to prevent a huge weld pile-up.


picture of the back where the copper plug was held. Looks good


hole filled


weld grind flush


another hole filled


the arch is now nicely trimmed

[madragon199]

nice work...coming on great..cheers mark

[Cosworthfreak1]

Nice job

[filipvdv]

Thanks guys !

[andy-v]

looks amazing job, very talented

[filipvdv]

looks amazing job, very talented

thanks man ! not talented at all, trying my best doing it right the first time; which can be a struggle sometimes (good old red primer times )

[madragon199]

thanks man ! not talented at all, trying my best doing it right the first time; which can be a struggle sometimes (good old red primer times )

No fear...thats the way to learn...love your thread ...keep doing it...cheers mark

[filipvdv]

Decided to get the engine revision on the road. Bought an engine years ago and finally started dismanteling it to check the condition



a rattling sound in the sump didnt ring any good bells... i found a crankshaft spacer that was bend and damaged...


also the crankshaft was damaged
20151029_212905 by daphilbe, on Flickr

The cylinder walls were also showing signs of overheating so i decided to ditch this engine and go for another one, since i had to find a new crankshaft anyways

The new engine, a sierra 2.0i s


i also bought a 1600gt head, so now i have to decided which head to use. The injection or the 1600gt head


new block cleaned and rust convertor applied


taping done


epoxy applied


and final colour paint, i decided on red since i wanted something different then the ford blue which is nice too


finally something shiny to work with