Nice work Matt!

I'd agree with Goodfella's advice as well and go with a '99 spec front.

 

car's looking better.

Look on the bright side, damage could have been alot worse.

I often worry lately that after i get my fd all fixed up it will fall victim to some sort of mishap. What a nightmare!

 

Just a little update as the work continues, 18 months and counting. Noone said learning to do body/paintwork and finding the time to do it would be easy or quick!

Tweaking and test fitting the new bumper (thanks L C X 7!) and fender (thanks Fritz!):


I just cut my '93 support with a cutoff wheel (sorry cameraphone):


Almost finished sanding the new bumper for paint. About 10-15 hours of prep if you repair and nicks and sand meticulously. It'll pay off later in the finished product. The VR4 is still dirty from RallyX last weekend


I hope to start painting these parts this weekend and get them installed. Next I'll tackle the passenger door and rear quarter panel. Later the driver side, hood and headlight covers.

 

Thats why I now have a dedicated track car! Very nice work on the restore! I know that in the past that loss of traction has been the result of water/anti-freeze on the track. I'd imagine that was a likely culprit!

 

Couple more updates. I thought I had done a pretty good job with the primer and wetsanding, but I was wrong. For whatever reason I can't get it to spray fine enough so it always ends up textured. This should have been a red flag and I should have started over but it looked okay to me:

Fender and bumper primed and sanded:




The finished product isn't to my satisfaction but I'm not likely to spend another 30 hours disassembling, sanding, priming, sanding, painting, and reassembling any time soon. I still haven't buffed/polished the finished work yet so it could improve a bit as well. Also, the fitment of the plateless '99 replica isn't perfect. It's a little too wide so the body lines don't match as well as I would like. In retrospect I would have gone for an OEM bumper and saved myself some trouble.

Fender and bumper installed:

 

+1 I'd be all bent out of shape. Glad to hear that you're okay, and that the damage isn't too serious.

 

Been working on the passenger door and rear quarter panel:

 

ouch man! thats why iam glad willow springs dont have walls that close...real good run off! good luck to a speedy recovery!

 

Thats some pretty good body work for someone with "No previous experience"

Props on the job man, it looks pretty bitchin. And how that paint looks now? I dont know if you cleared it yet...but find someone around to cut and buff it for you (do you really want to burn through when youre polishing it and go right back down to what you had before?) They probably wouldnt charge much, and they could make it look ****.

 

Thanks! It didn't come out as well as I would have liked because I don't have a clean enough environment (dirty old garage) or a big enough compressor, or temp/humidity control or anything. My biggest problem which I still haven't learned to control is getting the primer to come out evenly without clumping together. So it's always orange peely no matter what I do

The color coat I put down isn't really thick enough for any significant polishing (I tried a little bit on one spot). Can you tell me what the difference is from just using a random orbital buffer at home versus the "cut and buff" you're talking about? I'd love to eliminate some of the orange peel but I don't know of any way short of wet sanding the whole thing back down to the primer again.

Thanks!

edit: Oh I see what you mean, no I haven't sprayed any clear yet. Can you eliminate the orange peel look with clear + wet sanding? I'm not sure I want to do that since the original paint on the rest of the car doesn't have clear either.

 

I bought a RE type 1 wing awhile ago and prepped it. My roommate at the time did body and paint. My car is montego blue. I went and bought the good stuff about 60 bucks a quart, maybe more. Something body guys add to paint is what they call a reducer. As I understand It thins the paint and helps avoid the clumping you're talking about. It also increases the shelf life of the paint.

After it was painted with a few passes, I wet-sanded it. Blocking is important. I had one of those sponge sanding blocks you can get at Home Depot and wrapped the grit I wanted to use around it. I used 1500 then went to 2000. I went through in a few spots but was able to take the paint and actually airbrush over the rub through.

The real trick is the high speed buffer and the right cutting agent as well as the foam sponge wheel. Talk to any automotive paint supply store and ask them what you need. 3M makes all the compounds. A fiberglass supply store also sells the necessary papers, wheels, and compounds.

Be careful with the wheel, it will burn through immediately if you concentrate on one spot to long, just glide over the entire area.

A little trick I was told, for those of you reading or searching about painting with metallic paint, is to criss-cross the spraying over the part instead of a back and forth motion. The criss crossing allows the metallic particles to land in a more random pattern.

 

Had a track insident very similar to yours. Also with street tires and stock suspension. The reason on my case was gass/oil on the track. Got dmg to front end and was just 1 more reason to put 99 front

hope you get yours runing fast again.

 

nice work!!!

 

Props man! You're body work is stellar for doing this for the first time!