Dumb, Stubborn, and bound to end up penniless…….

aklackner · Post by **aklackner** » Wed Apr 17, 2019 10:31 am

Well the body shop says paint starts tomorrow afternoon or Friday morning at the latest.
Plastics were in the booth yesterday.

aklackner · Post by **aklackner** » Thu Apr 18, 2019 5:04 pm

Took some time off work so I could stop by the shop if paint started today. So far no word but I may pop by in a bit anyway.

While waiting to hear from the shop that they were ready to start I stripped the tint from the door and rear glass.

Door glass was pretty easy with a steam cleaner, just heat it up good peel a corner and steam along as you pull up. Both came off as one big sheet.

The rear turns out had 2 layers of tint, one right on top of the other. The one closest to the glass was pretty fragile and took some effort to get all the pieces off. In the end the defroster is intact and with the steamer it still made much quicker work than trying to scrape it.

The rear also had the upper (dot) banner painted which is pretty common when the rear is tinted, it had started flaking and was one of the reasons I was pulling the tint in the first place. Fortunately a sharp razor scraped the paint off without damaging the dot banner so that’s all cleaned off now too.

I already have new oem quarter glass for both side and I’m going to have a new Pilkington windshield put in so glass is basically set. I may take the rear, quarter, and door glass over to a tint shop and have a light ceramic UV block tint put on before I have it all installed.

aklackner · Post by **aklackner** » Thu Apr 18, 2019 6:34 pm

Well stopped by the body shop, doors and bumpers are all painted, body is getting another coat of sealant. Paint will be tomorrow.

Plastics and doors look good. I did see a couple flecks of dust and very minor stuff on the surface but it’s pretty impressive since nothing has been polished yet. The pearl is phenomenal!

Tried to put a video up showing the pearl but conversions seem to wash out the color. Anyway this was about the best I could get quickly.
https://vimeo.com/331336056

noahf · Post by **noahf** » Thu Apr 18, 2019 7:00 pm

can definitely see the pearl and it looks very clear in the video. looks like its going to turn out awesome!

aklackner · Post by **aklackner** » Fri Apr 19, 2019 3:11 pm

https://vimeo.com/331478384

DC231 · Post by **DC231** » Fri Apr 19, 2019 3:59 pm

aklackner wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 3:11 pm https://vimeo.com/331478384

looking smooth

Post by **coolhandluke** » Mon Apr 22, 2019 11:49 am

I am jealous. The paint looks incredible!

Semi-OT, I would pull the under dash bar now. If one prefers OEM, maybe sand blast + seal. If none-OEM, powder coat. Just a thought. The brown stands out against how clean the interior and fresh paint looks.

aklackner · Post by **aklackner** » Mon Apr 22, 2019 2:41 pm

Yeah, it's on the list to address after the car comes home, before assembly starts.
I don't know how much I really care about what it looks like under the dash so might just hit it with a bit of sandpaper, a round of MetalBlast, then test to see how a couple coats from a rattle can will stick.

noahf · Post by **noahf** » Mon Apr 22, 2019 3:58 pm

looks so good. when is final bake + polish? when is the car coming home?

aklackner · Post by **aklackner** » Mon Apr 22, 2019 5:47 pm

I think they're realizing they've had the car for almost 3 mos., have over 100hrs into it, and see the finish line. Now want to get paid and move on as soon as possible.

We're sort of at that re-negotiating the details stage it seems you inevitably end up at with body shops and contractors. Where every conversation is steered toward what a great deal you're getting and how they could never do this work for that price again. While you try to hold them to what was promised. LOL Fortunately they're still committing to the estimate (full $8500 of course) so we're not having any back and forth about the price.

They are trying get me to pick up everything, as early as the end of the week, then bring the car back for polishing after it's together. I'm not really on board with that for some relatively obvious reasons.

If temps come close to the forecast (90 deg) this week and if I can get them to polish everything off the car before then I'll probably bring it home early next week. Not really the 2 week cure and double bake I was promised but it does look beautiful and I can tell they're proud of it too so I'm willing to move it along.

Type R Club of America