So because of the beautiful Colorado sunshine today (note the sarcasm, it's snowing, cold, and wet) I can get the thread caught up to where the car sits now. I wanted to ditch all the holes in my original hood, to clean the car up a bit so a new hood was needed. Miniconcarne came through, and I got a new OE hood that didn't need much work, just needed Maaco's best removed, and the hole made above the air box for a NACA duct. It was hour upon hour of cut, weld, and fill, just for a fancy hole to fit the duct. I decided to flush mount the duct as much as I could, so I needed to fabricate a mounting plate to weld to the underside of the hood, then stick it all together without warping the sheet metal too badly. I also cut the bottom of the duct off, to open it up a little more than the 2 1/2" hole that was meant to be connected to a hose. The completed mounting plate, right before welding it in: And post weld test fit:
After a few hours with the filler, a coat of high build primer revealed a near perfect hole... A mock up was in order, at that point: Then a full coat of primer, and seeing how it will look on the car:
After that, it was time to start priming and perfecting the rest of the body... As Dragon time crept up on me, I decided to shoot the mirror caps so I could take one down to Fontana with me to show it off. Here is the whole process: After priming, apply the first coat of rust color... Then you need to splatter on more rust in different shades and amounts of pearl mixed into a clear base... Step 3 another coat of rust color... (Note: the small bumps in the pic are going to be your rust spots coming through the color ) After that it's a light coat of primer, then your color base (in this case I used Pure Silver)... After a good drying period, you start taking paint back off... Keep wet sanding until you are happy with the look. (Notice how the PS color coat, and the primer are REALLY close in color... That's why I wasn't mad about needing to redo the roof.) Then it's clear coat time... With a ton of candy pearl mixed in to give it the brown/orange/yellow glow in the sun... After that it is just the matte/flat clear as a final coat... I stuck one mirror back on the car, the other made the trip to the Dragon, and that's where I left off... Well that's where I stopped, so you are all caught up! more progress pic's will be coming as I do the work. :cornut:
Nope, still have all the factory stuff that goes with the ChronoPack. Everything on the dash is all additional, with a BIG central BOOST gauge, Wide Band AFR, Exhaust Temp, Fuel Pressure, and Voltage along side. Also in one of the center vents is a dual channel intake temp gauge, so I could see how much the Sprintex was cooking my engine before it poped...
Amazing the # of hours of work it takes to reproduce an effect that nature will do for you by leaving the car out in a field for 20 years or so! I can't wait to see the finished product. IMHO: That dash needs to be handed over to an old-school pin stripe artist with a few color chips to aim for and instructions to 'go crazy' (something that I seriously considered with my R53 when styling it years ago).
I've finally got it! I was thinking what is this guy smoking/drinking to spend so much time making a car look like it's been in the shed for 50 years! most folks spend their hours polishing their cars so the Modfather must be the anti-polish! I just saw a rat-rod photo in the classic Mini and finally get what's going off here! Not to many rat-rods in the UK. Anyway I like the concept, looking forward to the V8 up front!
Not getting a V8 Chris... That would be pretty insane to do, but I like the car too much to kill it that way. Ive got an engine sitting here ready to be put in this summer, for temporary use. The kicker is going to be when the original gets built... Lots of stuff in store for it, and with a rusted out looking mismatched body, nobody will ever see it coming.
I had thoughts of doing just black and primer spatter on the plastic pieces, but the rust looks so much better.