Zed Body Assembled

Quick post today. This past weekend, Boo, C and I put the hood, rear hatch and doors onto Zed, in that order. That's really all there is today, but we did learn some things, as we always do, along the way.

Hood

hood, door on

We started with the hood, not because we thought it would be easiest, but because it was the closest to the car, and we didn't want to trip over it. When I removed the hood to shoot it, the hood was open. Now, that sounds kind of obvious, but earlier, when I had it off, it had been closed. Back then, I could not get the mounting brackets to shift from closed to open position after I removed it. After all the prep work, I installed it to get the fenders and such to line up. When it came time to paint, I opened the hood and removed it vertically. I was by myself, but I figured if I scratched or dropped it as I removed it, it was not a big deal. For install, though, I needed hands to hold it steady or it would get scratched and that would have been super disappointing. I held one side and C held the other while Boo got all bendy, reaching into the engine bay with the bolts. Once they were fingered in, we lowered the hood (still unlatched) to put on the other panels.

Rear Hatch

hatch, door on

The rear hatch was the easiest of all 4 to install. C and I each held it aloft while Boo fingered on the nuts. The hinges were attached to the body, so they wanted to lay down in a way that we could not get to the underside to put on the nuts. C found some scrap foam and stuffed it under each of the hinges so they popped up enough to get the nuts on. The hatch still needs some adjustment to sit a little higher, I think, but I will probably wait on that until after I have the seal installed so I can get it where it needs to go. I figure I would have to adjust it after the seal goes on anyway.

Passenger Door

C and I planning

For the doors, I left the hinges installed against the car, and removed the bolts from the hinges into the doors. I did this for 2 reasons. First, and most obvious, the bolts that run through the hinges into the body are mostly covered by the fenders when they are installed... like they are now. With the body kit epoxied in place, those fenders are going nowhere. Second, the majority of the install wiggle is in the bolts the go into the car body. Once I got the doors where I wanted them before the last tear-down for paint, it is much easier to get them back where they belong with just the hinge-to-door bolts. Still, this is at least a 2-person operation: one holding the door (from the inside: protect the paint) and another threading in the bolts. I held the door, and moved it as requested while C did the threading. Boo, meanwhile, moved car-port supports and such out of the way.

Driver Door

The driver door was probably the hardest. Consider that the person doing the bolt threading needs to reach past the door from the inside, placing your head where the steering wheel is. Still, the process is the same: one person holds the door steady while the other threads the bolts. We took turns and after about 30 minutes we had the door on.

Front Bumper Adjust

bumper not yet adjusted

At this point, I cut C and Boo loose to get after their own Saturday afternoons while I fiddled with alignment of the various panels. I started with and got the hood square and evenly spaced on either side. I had to loosen the headlight bucket on the passenger side and push it outward, but otherwise the hood aligned relatively easily (read: 30 minutes). The doors latch, and they installed right where they were before, so I will probably leave them be until after the seals go in, like the rear hatch. Because of the nature of the latching mechanism for the doors, there really isn't very much forward/aft movement available, leaving just the height that you would really adjust. I am satisfied that the height is spot on, but once the weight of the glass is added, I may need to adjust them upward to compensate.

While standing back, admiring the front end, I noticed that the front bumper was much closer to the bottom of the passenger side headlight bucket than the driver side. It was a noticeable 10mm difference. I loosened the nuts holding the front bumper bar and tried to lower the passenger side or raise the driver side. It made very little difference (maybe 1-2mm). I had to loosen the front bumper brackets where they mount to the car and shim the driver side to make up the difference. They are exactly even now, but it took some doing.

Well, that's it for today. We have some housing things going on, so I'll probably go dark on the blog for a while. We had an unexpected opportunity to grab a small farmhouse on a large lot around the way. So, my time will be taken with home repair projects and then moving. Suffice to day, I will probably not be doing anything major on a car until winter.

Thanks, as always, for following along-

Orange Peel

Brief post today. For the tl;dr folks, after I let the paint on Zed (1979 280ZX) cure, I looked at it more closely. I definitely did not have enough pressure at the gun, leading to the paint not atomizing well... resulting in some nice orange peel.. pretty much on everything. Today's post touches on that, and then finishes with the bumpers getting installed.

Before I start, today is Boo's birthday. Boo, you are amazing. I am so grateful we found each other, I simply can't express. Your support for my car projects, and tolerance for the corresponding messes has helped make these posts happen. Your embrace of a "Let's See" attitude has opened doors I would not have thought possible. You inspire me. Congratulations on another trip around the sun; I am looking forward to the next annual trip together again.

Sand Sand Sand

rear bumper installed

Why say it 3 times? Well, I spent 3 days sanding all the orange peel off Zed's exterior. After trying a few different grit combinations to get the orange peel off, I found wet sanding with 120 grit and following with 320 (also wet) removed the orange peel most effectively. This was not fast, however. I put in 3 6-hour days to get the orange peel gone. Fortunately, I had put 3 coats of base on, so I didn't burn through to primer very much. I still have almost an entire gallon of base, so when I have another full day available (maybe next weekend), I can shoot 2 new coats of base and then the clear.

Even after a wet sand, there is a residue. I washed everything with a mild no-residue-leaving car wash and the garden hose. With our warm dry weather, the puddles dried up quickly. I will still need to do my usual de-grease, tack-cloth routine, but I am starting out from a much better place than had I not washed it. 

Bumper Installs

front p-side

With the car sanded and clean, I decided to install the bumpers. If I learned anything from the side skirt installs it is that they will not go on effortlessly. Had I shot the pain perfectly, I would still probably have something to fix with regards to the bumpers after installing them. Unlike the side skirts, though, they were not nearly as non-compliant.

My method was similar. I started with a nice coating of contact cement on both the inside of the bumper and the steel bar it was attaching to. Ditto for the side panels. Once the cement was set up, I applied some of the clear epoxy on top of the cement along the top and face of the bumper bar. I then set the bumper in place. For the rear bumper, I re-used the M4 bolts to hold it in the right spot as the cement and epoxy set. I held the front bumper in place with a pair of long clamps just in front of the front wheels. To make sure the front held well, I spread a thin layer along the top seam, like I had with the side skirts. I know I know... this stuff is "sandable" (read: not really sandable), and I'll be scraping boogers before I can shoot the paint. I am willing to accept that, if the bumper holds firm. In the picture below, of the driver side, you can see the seam marked with a shiny line. That will need to be minimized for paint.

front d-side

The next morning, I tested the hold. I could lift the rear end of the car by holding onto the bottom of the rear bumper. That's a win. For the front, I removed the clamps, and pulled the bottom edges (near the tires) away from the car. The fender flexed a little bit, but the bumper did not budge. I will be scraping boogers, but it will hold.

Well, that's basically it for today. It has been a very labor-intense week for such a short post. That's how it goes some times, though: work for almost 40 hours and have little to show for it. If the weather holds ,and I can carve out the time, I hope to be shooting this weekend.

Thanks, as always, for following along-

Painting Zed

It has been a very busy couple of weeks. I had taken a block of days off work for a camping trip in Hapy, but with Boo's arm, that was not going to happen, So, instead of a road trip and corresponding post, today I will cover what I DID do those days: take several major steps forward on getting paint on Zed, the 1979 Datsun 280ZX. Apologies for the late post. I finished painting yesterday, and I am back to work today. So, while this is a day and a half late, there's a lot to cover.

Priming Body Kit 

end state

Recall the last post about Zed, I was fitting and wrestling with the fiberglass body kit. I got the gaps set, and panels attached with bolts. I described the effort on the rear bumper and the side skirts, but did not detail the front bumper. While it did not seat as well as the rear, it was not as much trouble as the side skirts either. Similar to how I filled the gaps on the skirts and rear bumper, I matched the height to the side skirts and then set the spread on the front bumper. Similar to the others, I shot cooking oil into the gap, cleaned the fiberglass, applied Bondo, removed the bumper and sanded the Bondo smooth. After sanding, I repeated the process a couple of times to get the front bumper to sit as well as the rear. Once the seams were as good enough, I set the panels on that old blue tarp with the replacement driver fender, and shot them with the black urethane primer I used on the rest of the body. That was day one of my vacation.

Sanding Party

Ah yes. The fun of sanding. The more you prime, the more you get to sand. I had the 5 panels, and they sanded down smooth with 320 grit, eventually. I discovered, however, that if I started with 120 grit and did just a quick pass on the panel before shifting to the 320 the finish was as good or better, but it took far less time and material.

final priming shoot

Of course, I re-sanded the rest of the body too. Why? Well, I got a little overspray from the priming onto the passenger side of the main shell. Since the doors, hood and tail gate were still on, the tiny dried paint bits made a difference. There was a slight sandpaper edge on the whole car. It only took an hour or so, to sand it back smooth but it all adds up. Next time, I'll cover things with an extra tarp.

Next, I prepared for paint by removing the hood, doors and rear tail gate. I arrayed them on the blue tarp with their less-likely-to-be-seen sides up. My plan was to paint these areas first and then paint the flip sides when I shot the rest of the car. This plan was a good one in that I got to learn the feel for my new paint gun (Atom x27). As before, I disassembled and cleaned that gun with lacquer thinner and then re-assembled with a "larger" 1.4mm tip. I quote larger because 1.4 aint so big. This was where my day 2 ended.

First Spray with Color

hood underside shot

I am continuing to use Eastwood paint material, and chose a base-coat / clear coat urethane combination. For color, I am shooting "9mm" grey. The paint has very small metallic flake on a medium grey base that appears to have a touch of olive green in it. The olive green sub-color is not apparent in online images, but it does appear after it has been applied.

This first day of shooting was focused on body parts that mostly won't be seen: the insides of the fenders, the side skirts, the bumpers, the insides of the doors, the underside of the hood, the inside of the rear deck lid, the radiator supports, around the engine bay, the hidden parts of the headlight buckets and the door jams. The first coat laid down extremely well in the over 33C (92*F) heat. When I shot the second coat, however, I could not see the material hit the panels very well. Between wrestling with my glasses, which were fogging up from my sweat, to sweat droplets on my glasses, all aggravated by my lack of direct light on the panel.... lead to a dry-spray effect on most of the panels. The under side of the rear deck lid and radiator support were mostly spared, but the others had varying effects. So, the next morning, I chose to sand the bumpers, door jams, and door-insides planning to re-shoot them when I did the rest of the car.

In the background of the rest of the pictures, you will see that Boo and I added side walls to the Harbor Freight car ports. I ordered 2 8' x 20' walls from TentAndTable. They attach with clips, and, because they are 20 feet long, they can be used in different configurations around the 20' x 20' covered space we have. After the end of my final day of shooting paint, we shortened them to 10' long on the sides to allow air flow (after the surfaces flash-dried) to let the fumes out. These walls did a great job of keeping the light and temperature consistent while also preventing dust and bugs from drifting in.

Side Skirt Install Fun

pop rivetted

Before I could do the rest of the painting, I wanted the side skirts installed. Of course, that meant that the fenders were re-installed first. I mounted the headlight buckets to the fenders, and installed the fenders with M6 bolts. The side skirts had been held in place during the Bondo cycles with M4 bolts through the panels into the side of the car. I did not want to repeat that for the finished work.

I had hoped that the epoxy would hold well enough that I could remove the bolts and the panels would hold in-place just from the strength of the epoxy. I was not so lucky. Both the contact cement I used for carpeting the speaker box and the clear goop stuff that delivered with the panels failed. So, I cleared the goop and tried again with the goop and then, once the goop had set up, I replaced the bolts with pop-rivets. Of course, once the side skirts were on, the fenders are now effectively fixed-in-place. I applied small spots of Bondo a-top the pop rivets and sanded them smooth. Last, I cleaned up the goop along the top edges. The goop label said it was sand-able and paint-able. If by "sand-able" they mean that you can apply sandpaper to it, then, yeah, it's sand-able. It does not powder down, though; it sanded off in big boogers instead. Cleaning the goop took an hour just by itself. Grr.. But, the side skirts are in. With a gloved hand, I wiped primer on the spots I had put Bondo or otherwise sanded down to fiberglass. The next morning, I cuffed the primer down and after one more dance around the car with 320 grit, we're ready to shoot. I did not take a picture of the finished skirting, but the pop-rivet and booger repair is unnoticeable in the final finish. They look completely straight and flat.

Paint Prep 

no boogers, no rivets

Before I could shoot, I had to set up the space and then prepare the panels. For set up, I started by flipping over the hood and rear deck lid. I considered how the paint might flop on the panels, and considered that the hood is effectively flat, relative to the ground, and the rear deck lid is fairly close to flat. The doors, however, hang vertically. I don't have a means of holding a 20# door in the air vertically, but I do have saw horses. I hung the doors on one side of a saw horse, attaching it to the horse with bailing wire. This way, the door is as close to vertical as I can manage, allowing the paint to arrive on the panel in the correct orientation, and for the paint to cure that way as well. I don't know if it matters with this paint, but I figured it didn't hurt to take the extra step.

On shoot day, I have found that I follow a very similar path. If I know that I have touched the car with anything other than a gloved hand, I clean with de-greaser. Either way, I sweep the painting area clean and then vacuum every panel. Last, I pass over every square inch with a tack-cloth to get every speck of dust that might have attached itself to the panels.

arrayed for the shoot

Once the car and panels were wiped down, I set up the paint gun with an inline desiccant from Harbor Freight followed by a pressure controller. I added an air-system quick-release to the inlet side of the desiccant so I could move without the hose attached. With the gun set, and the panels placed, I was ready to mix paint.

By the time I got to this point, we were entering the heat of the day (2:PM), after the end of a heat wave peaking at 39C (102*F). On this day, at this time, it was 27C (80*F) so I set up with medium speed catalyst rather than the fast-dry I used a few days earlier.

 

Main Shooting

When I researched the root causes of dry-spray, I believed the problem was that I was not sending enough material out the gun. In retrospect, I think I was unable to see well enough, and moved too fast, or did not overlap my fan well enough. Regardless, when I set out to shoot this time, I opened up the mixture so more material would pass out of the gun. This, unfortunately, caused orange peel that I was unable to sufficiently account for during the second coat. Unlike the painting session 2 days earlier, this time, I was running the GunBudd, shining light directly on the work. I decided to turn up the pressure and apply a third coat. This time, the orange peel was reduced significantly, but it was not eliminated. Since this is metallic paint (albeit tiny flecks), the recommendation is to not sand, lest the flakes are disturbed. C and Boo said that they really liked the texture, that it looks bold and "badass". I'm not so sure.

unfortunate orange peel

Frustrated at my mishap, I decided to just get after the clear coat anyway. At this point, however, I discovered that I had just used the catalyst designated for the clear coat, consuming almost all of it. I determined that the catalyst I used was fine for paint, but the paint catalyst was NOT fine for clear. So, I could not shoot clear coat until I had more catalyst. Getting catalyst from Eastwood will definitely push me outside the 24 hour re-spray-without-sanding window so I will have to at least sand a little bit for the clear to adhere. Since I have to sand a "key", I think my mistakenly using the clear-coat catalyst creates a new opportunity: I can sand down the remaining orange peel and then shoot another layer of base before switching over to clear coat. The extra coat of base should address any flake flakiness. Of course, I have to wait for FedEx, but I can start sanding while I await the catalyst's arrival. Yeay.

At this point, we have color on every panel. There is orange peel, but I think there is enough paint build to allow me to lightly remove enough of the peel without burning through. Then, I can shoot another coat of base and top it with 3 coats of clear.

Thanks, as always, for following along. I'll post on the finished job once it's done-

 

Zed Body Kit Start

Last Summer, amid the economic restart following the CoViD-19 shutdowns, I ordered and received a fiberglass bodykit for a Datsun 280ZX. It arrived too late to be wrapped into the body work, and I ran out of warm weather anyway. Today, I restart the body work on Zed (1979 Datsun 280ZX), with hopes for having Zed painted before I run out of summer this year. Even though there is considerable Summer left, my time is less available this year than in years past. Boo has injured her arm/shoulder, preventing her from moving it per Dr orders, so I am doing a lot more not-car stuff these days (read: lawn care, housework, etc) which all take precious minutes. 

Back to Start

bumper gap set

While Zed was parked under a canopy / car port all winter, that is not the same as sitting in a climate-controlled garage. Or even an unheated garage. Rain does not fall straight down, and wind blows organic material around. So, when I was ready to focus on Zed, I had a few steps to just get him back to where I had left him last Summer. I had been using his interior as a staging area for parts and boxes while working on the sound/noise contain effort in Hapy (1972 VW camperbus). So, logically, the first thing to do was to vacate the interior and shop-vac it out.

Next, the body panels needed a cleaning. Rather than use a hose, I hand washed him with a bucket and scrubber sponge. Still, I was unable to free some of the green haze that had appeared. He would need a sanding in order for the next layer of paint to adhere anyway, so I left what remained to be addressed by the sanding. I pulled out the body kit that had been stashed inside and cleaned it too.

Front Fenders

d-side bumper

I had spent some time wrangling the front bumper last Summer. I could only get so far because I had not completely solved for the fenders yet. Now that the driver fender was ready, I could move forward. I started by simply mounting the fenders with M6 stainless bolts. When I fastened the bottoms, the fenders ballooned out into their proper shape. I had not realized how flat they had been sitting until then.

Rear Bumper

The rear bumper was the closest to being complete, and after spending so much time on just getting things back to the way I thought they were, I wanted a win. I started fiddling with it and I discovered that I had not really prepared the steel rear bumper hidden within: it had rust spots on it and it was still dirty from when I bought it. More cleaning with a bucket and a scrubber and then sanding, rust treatment and a shot of Rustoleum got it ready enough for use. No, I don't really like the idea of Rustoleum on this project anymore than I think you do, but this will protect the bumper well enough, and once I sand a key into it for the epoxy to grip into, the paint choice really won't matter much anymore. After the paint cured (or 48 hours later...), I re-attached the bumper, making sure the height was completely flat, with the same distance between the tail body panel and the top of the bumper. It is into things like this that so much time is lost. Bolting on a bumper takes, like 10 minutes. Getting it exactly height-right, took more like 30.

p-side bumper

Once the steel bumper was set, I returned the fiberglass bumper to position to get it exactly where I wanted it. After some time spent fiddling with it, I was able to set the bumper such that the gap is the same across the rear, from corner to corner, and the seams along the rear quarter panel were consistent as well. I drilled a hole inside each wheel well near the top of the bumper and set it for good with a pair of M4 bolts. With the height set, I set the spread (tilt in or tilt out of the bottom of the bumper) of the lower edge. I controlled this with a second set of holes lower in the panels. Again, I set 2 M4 bolts through the bumper into the rear wheel well. I may eliminate some of these bolts later, after the epoxy sets.

Side Skirts

setting the spread

With the rear bumper looking good, I shifted forward to the little skirtings that run under the doors. I was not 100% convinced these were necessary when I bought the kit, but now that I have them roughed in, I like them. These kits are one-size-fits-none. While that was not really true with the rear bumper, it was definitely true with these side skirts. The length is quite good, and the fit into the wheel wells was almost perfect. I say almost, because I had to cut a small chunk out of the top of the passenger side skirt for it to fit. The issue with these skirts is with the little lip that runs the length of the door jam. These are designed to sit on the outermost edge of the door threshold, but the design has 2 problems. First, the lip is fairly thick so the door does not easily close on top of it, if the door is set at the right height. Second, and perhaps more important, the lip is not at the correct angle from the outer edge of the skirting. So, if you set it in place on that outermost edge, either it is in the right spot, but completely blocks the door -or- the whole skirting curls under the car too much, not aligning with the fender lines and looking horrible. I resolved by cutting off the lip with a hacksaw. Yes, that is a rather destructive move. I considered all the plastic panels on the ToyoTruck and the panels that run under the doors do not have a lip hanging on the door sill. These will now be a same.

fun with Bondo

With the lip removed, I was better able to control the angles. Similar to how I managed the rear bumper, I first set the height by getting the under-the-door edge just a smidge below the door opening. I set the height temporarily with clamps and then bored holes, used more M4 bolts to hold the tops in place.  I added a bolt on each side, near the leading edge of the door, to hold the section of the skirting which will attach to the front fender in place. I will use this bolt for setting the epoxy, but will remove it, or cut the head off, after the epoxy sets. Next, I set the spread so the rear outer edges aligned with the rear bumper lower leading edges. Because of how the skirts were constructed, this left a small gap at the top rear of the skirt. If I pressed the top against the side of the car, the bottom of the skirt would stick out too far. The picture below shows how it lined up. Because of the curve of the body, it is not immediately visually clear that the bottoms align, but they do. 

Body Fill the Gaps

d-side skirt rear

Around the internet, Bondo is a four-letter word. No one admits to using it, but practically everyone does in some capacity. If I were a master fiberglass guy and had all the time in the world, I might have built-up the trailing edges of the side skirts with fiberglass. That would have been the "right" way to do it. I don't have that skill, nor the materials, and, like I indicated at the top, I really don't have that time. So, I chose Bondo, and went full-on ShadeTree with it.

I have the panels attached exactly where I want them, held on with bolts. I don't want to remove them apply some material grind some down, re-attach, wash-rinse-repeat, in hopes of getting it right. That could take all Summer and still might not look that great. I want to apply filler to the fiberglass but not create a Bondo-bond with the side of the car. To resolve, I grabbed some non-stick spray from my kitchen and shot the steel body panels where I needed to fill a gap. I then cleaned the fiberglass with oil/grease cleanser, leaving the non-stick on the steel and I filled the gaps with Bondo. Is this how a pro would do it? I sincerely doubt it. Did it work? It worked well enough to define the lines. Once teh Bondo set up, I freed the panels, leaving them loosely attached. There was not any Bondo stick to the steel. I sanded things smooth and did another pass to get the seams really clean. Last summer, I tried to resolve the don't-stick by taping plastic to the steel, but no matter how well I set the plastic, there were minute folds which appeared in the dried Bondo. The non-stick spray left a predictably smooth line.

Sanding

body sanding fun

I re-attached the rear bumper and the side skirts after sanding the Bondo smooth. Then, I set into sanding the entire car with 320-grit. As I mentioned above, simply cleaning the body was not enough. Besides, I chose to not sand the primer last year, believing it would better protect the paint over the winter. It needed to be sanded before the next coat, be it more primer or color. I will be priming the fiberglass body panels anyway, so I may shoot primer on the rest. I'll decide that later.

I am about 2/3 done with the sanding of the whole body (fiberglass and steel), working from the rear forward. Once the sanding is complete, I will be setting the height of the front bumper ends, and perfecting the front bumper seams like I did with the rear bumper and side skirts. After all that, the fiberglass will be removed one last time for priming.

That's it for today. Thanks, as always, for following along-

Zed's Slow Crawl into Fall

It's time for another update on the slow-moving restoration effort on the 1979 Datsun 280ZX lovingly called "Zed". Completely unrelated to Zed, Nemo, the 1997 Audi A4 was sold to a family friend. While he is no longer a permanent resident of our driveway, I expect there will be some ShadeTree adventures as he is improved upon.

Where Were We

p-side front fender gap

We entered the Summer with the goal of having Zed painted before the weather changed from warm-dry to cold-wet. Some years, that change happens as late as Halloween. Other years, like 2019, we lose the end of August to things like wildfires or an early rainstorm. With such a wide range for when the end date might hit, I worked a bunch in the early Summer to set myself up for paint. This year, we have had multiple "false-fall" weather periods, and this week looks like solid rain, leading me to believe that the goal will not be reached.

Recall, we hit a snag with CoViD-19 related manufacturing delays on the body kit. I ordered the kit in May, and it delivered in August. During the delay, I perfected the body as best I could, got the final primer shot and clowned on other cars while I waited. Once the kit arrived, I let it sit in the sun on my deck for a couple of weeks to complete the off-gassing while I took a few camping trips. Of course, sitting outside like that allowed the various pieces to get dirty and have nature fall on then, so they are not as pristine-looking as they were on delivery day. Regardless, they need to be sanded, and primed at minimum before painting, so this just added a cleaning step before the sanding.

Front Bumper

d-side front fender gap

To prepare for the front fiberglass bumper install, I first needed to expose the steel bar wrapped inside the chrome and rubber bumper originally installed on Zed. I had removed the bumper, brackets and all, earlier for access to the radiator supports for primer shooting. The bracket-to-body bolts are 17mm, and there are 4 per side. The bracket-to-bumper nuts are 14mm, and, again, there are 4 per side. I addressed the surface rust on the brackets, shot them with the same finish primer and set them aside.

The original / stock bumper cover is held on with a myriad of bolts and screws. The (10mm?) bolts removed easily. The screws were so rusted on, I had to cut them off with a grinder. Once the steel bar was exposed, I could start test fitting the bumper. I spent a while just fiddling with it: setting it on, tilting it at various angles, etc until I could see how I wanted it. I temporarily mounted the front bumper brackets and the steel bar next, and sat the bumper cover on top. The original location of the bar was 1.5" too far forward.

To recess the front bumper, the gas in the mounts needs to be released, and then the bracket pushed backwards into itself. To release the gas, the steel bar needs to be removed and then a Phillips bolt head is exposed. Remove the bolt, and the gas is released. Then, push the end in. I measured the 1.5" and marked it so I knew when I had it in the right spot. At first, the brackets did not want to compress, even with the gas gone. I encouraged them with a rubber mallet and pushed until the bracket compressed to my mark.

Once compressed, I re-attached the steel bar, and then set the new bumper cover on the bar. This time, it set exactly right, though the ends initially appeared much wider than the fenders want to sit (witness the top two pictures). After about an hour of fiddling with it I found that when the ends of the fender rotated upwards (and the fiberglass shifted left-right a little bit, the steel bar readjusted, etc), they were much closer. Still, actual mounting to the fenders will wait until I have the fenders secured firmly. The fender bolts, like most of the others, have disappeared. The internet thinks these bolts should be M6x1, but I could not even start threading that size. They are also not M5x.8 as those fall right through. I tried generic slotted #12-24 machine bolts next since they are effectively "M5.5", though they also fell straight through. I will return to the M6 bolts and see if I just gunked up the threads with primer. Anyway, with the bumper in place, I can see that I will need to open up the turn signal indicator holes a little bit to allow for the lenses and bulbs to be maintained without removing the bumper. Also, I expect there will be some shaping needed where the hood opens since the bumper is 1.5" deeper.

Rear Bumper

The original rear bumper was the only real rust on this car, which is why we tossed it. I sourced a replacement bar and rear mounts from our friend in Hillsboro. After addressing the surface rust on the brackets similar to the front brackets, I acquired nuts to mount the brackets to the rear (M10x1.25) and attached them. I needed a washer between each of the outer holes on the mounts and the body to angle the mounts inward enough to fit the rear bumper. Onto the brackets, I set the steel bar and test fit the rear bumper. Again, the bracket pushed the bumper out too far to fit. So, I repeated the gas-out process, pushing the rear bumper in an inch. Unlike the front, the rear bumper does not provide an easy means of getting your fingers on the mounting nuts and studs. But, with some perseverance, I got one nut on each side so I could see how it set. As good as the front looked, the rear looked even better. The kit snugged into the body contours, as you can see in the picture below.

Setting the Gaps

p-side rear alignment

When C bought this car, it had been messed up by the prior owner in 2 ways. First, he stripped the interior in the interest of saving a few pounds because he wanted a drift car. Second, he drifted the car into something or someone, damaging the driver door and front fender. We replaced the front door with a donor from WA, but tried to straighten the fender. Off the car after many days of working on it, the fender looked great. Once I re-mounted the doors, hood and rear tailgate, however, the gap between the leading edge of the driver door and the trailing edge of the fender could not be resolved. The edge along the front valence (in front of the windscreen) and above the door also did not line up well. The fold in the driver-side fender had erased the trailing edge and attempts to re-establish it by my amateur hands did not get it there. The image below shows how far off the fender-to-door gap is; the misaligned edge above the door is slightly visible. The passenger side, however, gapped perfectly, with about 1/4" along all of the seams of both the door and the fender so I have a target for the driver side. I spent a couple of hours shifting the door around and improved the gap at the top, but the long edge between the fender and the door could not be resolved. I did not reproduce that edge on the fender quite right.

The efforts to straighten the driver fender has been instructive, but, I will be replacing it. Unfortunately, these panels have not been produced in years, so I needed to find one from a donor car and the one I found is not dent-free. Fortunately, the edges are perfect and it aligns properly with the hood, bumper and driver door. So, once the dents above the wheel well are coerced back into place, the panels will be right. I will then set the driver-side gaps so we have a solid base for the kit. Then, I'll finalize the placement of the bumpers.

Bumper Plan

Both the front and the rear bumper will require a little bit of fit and finish. The rear aligns very well, with only some small smoothing needed to achieve the line I am looking for. The front may require more, even after the fender fit has improved, the gaps are larger. I will see how much this gap closes once I send a couple of screws through. I expect I will need to add material to the inner edges of the bumper along the fenders to make it look right. Once I have the front and rear looking as I would like, I will shift to the two side panels that run under the doors between the wheel wells and then priming the kit.

I do not intend to seal the seams between the fender/quarter panels and the front/rear bumpers. Instead, I intend to have a clean, visible, seam line. This way if there is some kind of damage to the fiberglass from parking curbs or a small accident, the repair will not have to extend past that seal line. This also gives me the opportunity to try mixing flex additive into the fiberglass bumper paint. The "flex additive" increases the paint's willingness to bend without cracking. If I sealed the seam and painted the body as a whole, that flexing additive would need to be part of the paint on the seal or further up fender/quarter panel paint. Otherwise, there could be cracking at the seam, forcing the repair into the steel. This way, the bumper can be removed, repaired/replaced, painted and installed.

What's Next

The ultimate question remains: will the car get through paint before the weather changes? No, but I would rather have it look right than be hurriedly finished. First, I need to get the driver fender replacement undented and prepped. Then, I will get the body kit fitting completed with mounting holes drilled, etc. This would allow me to finish the kit separately (clean, sand, Bondo, sand, clean, possibly high-build primer, sand, clean, finish primer, sand, clean, paint) and then mount it when it's ready. I don't expect a weather miracle that would allow me to get all the way to the end of that task list, though. I expect the weather will turn for good before I'm through primer. Actual paint on the body and the kit will have to wait until next year.

Thanks, as always, for following along-