vaughn4

I guess you could say that this will be the second stage of the build process on my car. Some of you may have seen the car on freshalloy. This winter will primarily be exterior modifications, such as new aero, body repair, and full paint. Im sure i wont be able to stay away from redoing or modifying other aspects of the car.

Just for a small recap i will touch on the first stage. This consisted of taking the car from stock and doing all the suspension, brakes, motor swap, exhaust, and all that it entailed.

Started September 08 with this:




and finished around March 09 with this..








Before I get 243 question about what mounts, headers, etc i used.. Please go through this thread to check out the entire build process. I really think you will enjoy it.
http://forums.freshalloy.com/showthr...ghlight=freddy

Now, from here we can begin with current plans and happenings. As of now i have began with the body work. The car was supposed to have been "super clean" when i bought it.. Well, upon inspection, it has been hit hard in the lt rear quarter at some point. Someone somewhere did a haggard job of putting a new quarter and lt door skin on. Bad enough that when you align the trunk lid with the good rt quarter, the trunk hangs over the lt quarter! The more major job will include cutting the lt quarter loose and pulling everything back square. I have already began repairing a rust spot in the rt quarter.

How the car sits now.


Welded up the holes where the factory wing was installed.


Current rust repair.


Rust actually ate through the quarter, rocker, and finally into the inner structure. I had to start in and work my way out, making replacement panels.


Treated and shot with weld-through primer




Made the replacement for the rocker panel






and a replacement for the quarter panel section


all welded up. not pretty, i know. it will be nice once i get it all ground down and a skim coat over it.


I wanted to tackle a little project I have been thinking about. I wanted a real functional tow hook but didnt want something sticking out of the bumper or the hood. This style of tow hook seems to be pretty common from the factory on most BMW, Mercedes, Mazda, and even ford. This will also be temporary as i will be redoing the radiator support this coming winter. All tube with a more supportive tow hook design, still utilizing the bumper cut out.

I started out with my new bumper, which was a little scary, and drilled a pilot hole. Dont worry, I had the cover off about 10 times making sure i was on the correct spot of the rebar.


I needed a factory style hook, so I actually picked this one up at the local True Value. It is rated at 2800lb shear. With actual rolling weight, I think it might work. I guess I will have to test it to make sure. Cost of hook... $9.00


Drilled the factory rebar where I needed to mount the nut.


Made a reinforcement plate out of 1/8" steel.


Welded 2 nuts together then welded them on the front and back side of the reinforcement plate. Then welded the plate to the rebar. I did make 4 plug welded to help keep the plate from pulling out in the middle. note: im not a good welder..


Test.. you can see my nuts in there.


I just happened to scavenge this from an old Mazda 3 bumper.


Heled it up and scribed some lines where I needed to cut.






Plastic welded it all together.



Put in back on for one last try.


Here it is in primer.


I got my caliper relocation brackets. These brackets allow me to upgrade my Z32 front rotors to a z33 track edition rotor. The diameter jumps from 11" to 12.75" I got a set of Nissan rotors and kept my hawk hps pads. I cant wait to see what improvement these will make. In the future I would like to upgrade to a more aggressive pad and incorporate cooling ducts into the new bumper.

Old z32 rotors.. took some serious beatings.














The people's champ.


Saturday i spent some time filling in the top vents in my Origin hood. The hood is functional as it had these upper vents as well as some in the rear of the hood as well. I like the style of the hood but the louvered vents in the top were just way too cheap looking for me. I kicked around the idea of grafting in a hood vent from a BMW 740iL but when it really came down to it I decided to smooth it out. Since the hood has a cowl to it, I feel that smoothing it out will make the hood look longer.

Started by taking out the louvers and beveling the opening where i would be fiber glassing.


Instead of just filling the entire opening with fiberglass mat I decided to make a patch panel. I made a template out of cardboard and transferred it to a large piece of fiberglass. In my case... an old camper top. I run a bodyshop and we just so happened to have two old damaged camper tops sitting out back. Saturday morning ran out there with a cordless sawzall and took a section out.




Didnt fit too bad.


I took fiberglass match and cut it into 1" x 6" sections. Lay tons of then and about a quart of resin to mold it all together. Once I had it all layed out I placed hammers on top of the section. The hood had a bow to it so the patch didnt wanted to raise up on the ends.




Let it sit overnight and removed the hammers...

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