The Project Dixie thread!

Ian

Club Member
Nice job there. I've seen any make a proper mess of their brake lines, that looks neat.
 

richiep

Club Member
Nice job there. I've seen any make a proper mess of their brake lines, that looks neat.
I kept all the originals as reference, so these are close to factory. Things will be a bit different up front though as I’m tucking and hiding hard lines and wiring. The proportioning valve has been moved to the side of the RH frame rail behind the tension rod “pocket” and the line to the near side will run along the crossmember instead of around the bulkhead.
 
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richiep

Club Member
Thread bump because I did a thing (in addition to those bits and bobs mentioned in the general weekly thread).

As I’m going to be fitting an S14 gearbox to the project, there are a number things that need machining, fabrication, etc., to make that happen. One being something I did the first part of years ago, but left the difficult bit until this evening - modifying the gearbox crossmember. For the uninitiated, the gearbox mount point on the S13/14/14a 71C box is 35mm further back than the 71B Z boxes. Meaning that the corssmember needs adjustment accordingly. My car, as an early 72, has the two piece crossmember (same as my 71 Fairlady Z). There are various ways people have done this, but I went with the “proper” way as taught to me by the great Pmac when I put an S14a box in the Fairlady Z!

Basically, the cradle part (which I did years ago) requires a second hole for nut access making and the back upright section clearancing for the rubber mount when it is further back.
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Easy enough (especially as is done this part before). The fiddly bit is the bar with the scroll ends. The Pmac method is to cut it into three, offset the centre by 35mm, and weld up with reinforcement. Pete used to have a jig for this; I had to do a lot of measuring and firm clamping:
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Done!
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Modded versus original:
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Just need to do a bit of weld tidying and edge finishing before painting or powder coating. But another small to-do ticked off the list. Need to start doing the actual gearbox mods…
 

richiep

Club Member
Did another thing:
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Unfortunately I ran out of base coat before getting a full coat on everything, so the original plan to do full base and clear today ran into a brick wall. I’ll have to scuff before further coats when I get the base delivered I assume. Likely this will be sitting for a week now. 😠 There’s a few little runs and flaws that need sorting though, so I’ll deal with those in the meantime. It’s rather difficult painting inside a shell tbh - very difficult to get in all the nooks and crannies, around brackets, edges, etc. On the plus side, 99% of this is not visible when the interior is all in!
 

richiep

Club Member
Lovely work Mr Richie, maybe it’s the screen on my phone, but I’m getting LandRover vibes with the colour. 😋
Don't know about Land Rover vibes (!), but 907 green definitely has its own thing going on that makes it different from run-of-the-mill BRG. Will be interesting to see how it looks when cleared.

I will possibly shoot a few final touch-ups tonight and also the tool box lids that I forgot to do yesterday. I'm having a bit of a wobble about spraying the clear with the HVLP turbine system I used for the base. I find the "true HVLP" turbine guns a bit more fiddly to dial in compared to compressed air guns, and it would be the first time I've tried spraying clear with it since a total cock-up I made on the wheels for the Celica. Also, with turbine systems, the air delivered is warmer than from a compressor; this eliminates moisture, but increases the risk of dry spray from the gun and towards the latter stages of the job I was starting to get build-up around the air cap and rougher atomization. This can be offset with slower thinners/activators, etc., but I've only got fast ones in at the mo. I'm thinking I might do the clear with a compressor gun; my filtration seems to do a decent job of water and oil removal and I really like my Iwata AZ3 gun that I did most of the primer work with. It's just super easy to get a nice finish. I'd need to buy another whole gun though as a 1.3mm air cap/nozzle/needle setup is not much less than a new gun.

Decisions decisions....

Depending on how the clear stage goes in the cab will influence whether I decide to extend my DIY painting to include the engine bay....
 
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Ian

Club Member
I've mostly sprayed clears with HVLP guns as well as RP, experiment with the setup and it should work great,
 

Rob Gaskin

Treasurer
Staff member
Site Administrator
It's all come a long way since I sprayed my Hillman Imp (inside and out) with cellulose in our single garage! I was 17.

Good luck.
 

richiep

Club Member
I've mostly sprayed clears with HVLP guns as well as RP, experiment with the setup and it should work great,
I might mix some clear for practice purposes and see how I go. I'll get some medium thinners and activator too, as it may be better with the warm turbine air and the current warm weather (garage has been hot!). Ultimately, I'm using a 1500 quid HVLP turbine and a dedicated 350 quid gun, so I should be able to get a good finish - if I get the product, settings and technique right!

The turbine also has the benefit of being dual purpose; a four-stage turbine for the spray gun and a separate one providing filtered breathing air to my mask, which is a must with the 2K paint. Works very well, as I have the turbine unit in the shed behind the garage and my extraction fan in the garage pulling air and overspray/fumes in the opposite direction. The system is also much quieter than the compressor - sounds like a vacuum cleaner! So I'm only gassing the neighbours and local wildlife, not noise-polluting them too...
 

richiep

Club Member
IMG_6674.jpegMajor afternoon today - milestone achieved:
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It’s not perfect - some dust, etc., but it doesn’t need to be given the car will have a full interior, with 99% of this covered most of the time. Still, it has come out well enough with no paint reactions or runs. Biggest problem was my HVLP spray system was being problematic; the gun kept leaking, causing a few drips, and the turbine unit gets very hot running for the length of time required to do the above with both halves (air and paint) running. It melted through the air line for the respirator twice, leading to some unwanted interruptions, and a burnt finger! I’m leaning towards relegating the turbine to just respirator duty and using a compressor gun for future painting. In fact, a new 1.3mm Iwata is due to be delivered today, but hasn’t shown up in time to play a role. I’m not sure what I will do with it, but may hang on to it and divest myself of a couple of the true HVLP turbine guns. The expensive QTech/Fuji one has blotted its copybook with how messy and leaky it has been!
 

richiep

Club Member
More than good enough or an interior. Nice work.
Especially given how much of it will have vinyl glued to it and trim panels, carpets and everything else covering it. And those areas with the most dust nibs are invisible when complete.

The engine bay is 90% likely to happen now. Although that will entail a lot more work to mitigate the dust issue (I.e. plenty of wet sanding of a good thickness of clear coat!).
 
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