Bodykit and Paint
As part of the 'wide track' idea, the car is being fitted with a fibreglass bodykit from Magnum Motorsport of St Helens. The kit Includes rear Bumper, rear wide arches, front wide arches and a modified pattern front bumper with big enough cooling vents to embarrass an EVO 8. Ive also opted for the fibreglass bonnet as this is a considerable weight saving over standard.
Fitting the kit involves fabricating mounting brackets for the front and rear bumpers, and permanently bonding the rear arches to the shell.
Fibreglass Arches
Its time to fit the Fibreglass bodykit, The most difficult part of which is the rear wheel arches, which have to be bonded directly on to the shell and blended in with filler. After test fitting and a bit of careful trimming The rear arches are bonded to the Shell with Sikaflex mastic, I also drilled and self tapped the arch into place to pull everything together nice and tight. After twenty four hours the self tappers are removed leaving a solid bonded wing. Next step is to blend the arch into the car with bodyfiller. I have to thank my friend Barry for this part as he has a lot more patience with body filler than I do, so the hopefully invisible finished job will be thanks to him.
After all Barry's efforts, At last I have put some paint on the car, Im using two types of undercoat, a light grey etching primer for the bare metal areas such as the roll cage and inner arches, and two pack Polyester spray filler for the exterior. This is great for covering up tiny scratches and blemishes before the colour goes on. Only snag is that Two pack paint is poisonous so the use of a proper mask is very important.
With the wide arches in place and in primer, I could clean up the outside part of the modified wheel arch, this involved a bit of time with the grinder and wire wheel before I applied a coat of 'stonechip' body protection. This is sprayed on using a special 'schutz' spraygun and the results are pretty good, Its amazing how a coat of primer transforms the look of the car, the wide arches are now just part of the body.
After applying primer, the interior is 'flatted' off with 1200g sanding paper and then a coat of two pack gloss(Ford diamond white) is applied, white is a sensible colour for the interior as its nice and bright and can be easily repainted even by brush as the car gets used and dirty. Its quite difficult to paint a roll cage as there are so many different angles to get at, you also seem to waste about 70% of the paint as you spray the tubes. the first coat has come out quite well though with no significant runs or reactions anywhere.
Thanks to Imageshack.com for hosting my pictures
Ive discovered that painting a car is easy!!, preparing it for painting is a never ending task though. many hours of filling,cleaning and masking are required before its finally time to apply a drop of top coat. I started in the engine bay and front wheel arches, carefully applying the first coat of two pack Ferrari red. Putting three coats on all the panels as well as the main body is quite a lengthy task, but Im really pleased with the colour, Ive added a little diamond white to the rear spoiler and front and rear bumper, and Ive painted on the door square as I can never get that sticky plastic stuff on neatly.
