Project Facelift

[Jand3rson]

Finally, some progress is made on the rear apron swap!

It's nothing major, but we finally got around to getting the apron roughly mounted up to the car, so we can see the areas that need work, trimming, massaging, etc. We also got some templates made to make end caps for the wheel-well overlap that adding the new rear apron creates. Right now, the apron is rigidly mounted to the car with about 8-9 screws, just holding it up so we could get the best idea of how it's going to sit and where it's going to end up permanently. It's pretty damn solid right now, and we measured the distance between the bottom of the body and the top of the apron, getting everything to just around 1/8", which is pretty close, especially considering you'll never see any height flucutations that small once the bumper is mounted. In a few days we're going to pull it back off, take care of any problem areas or gaps, and I'll strip down the area where it's going to be welded, and we can get to it! Enjoy the pics!

Driver's side of the apron mounted with screws. The only real gaps are at the top corners of the apron where it rounds the corner of the body, but they'll be easy to fold in and weld up. You can also clearly see the difference in the 2 wheel wells, where the endcaps will go:



Driver's side corner and across the backside. Yes, the DTM tips are ugly, they'll be gone soon. :D



Passenger side:



It's not even painted and it already looks better! You can see the gap a little more clearly at the top corner in this shot:



Another rear corner shot, little bit more clear:

[Jand3rson]

Josh, any updates on the rear valance? How did it go if you got it welded in?

We're not welding it just yet, we're just getting it placed where I want it so I can prep the area to be welded.

[Jean]

$100-120 is about the most you should pay for a straight rust-free piece. If it's your car's color, maybe a bit more. They can also be had new from the dealer for around $200.

Nice, picking one up tomorrow in black for $10, it's straight but w/o fogs. I don't want fogs anyway so :)

[backtrail69]

We just cut off a rear valance off Nandos parts ix today, I have some rust repair to do to it and Finish making it a skin. Was free, so you can't complain.. :D

[Mike325]

Josh, any updates on the rear valance? How did it go if you got it welded in?

[Jand3rson]

What's a going price for a front valance ?

$100-120 is about the most you should pay for a straight rust-free piece. If it's your car's color, maybe a bit more. They can also be had new from the dealer for around $200.

[Jean]

What's a going price for a front valance ?

[Jand3rson]

any recent updates... cant wait to see the final finished project. man i need to do something along those lines to my cars. maybe the M

Andrew and I are probably going to get the rear apron ready to be welded up today. We have to get it to where we want it on the car, so I can sand away the paint and rubberized shit on the rear end where the welds will be.

[YAN-3]

any recent updates... cant wait to see the final finished project. man i need to do something along those lines to my cars. maybe the M

[Fanzotti]

Don't sweat it!

Eurospeed

Don't sweat the burns. To tell you the truth I dont think the problem is in your wet sanding and it may not be that you didn't shoot enough on. Like you said it's a learning expierience, I had about a thousand learning expieriences before I was able to get my car painted properly. I can't tell you how many times I had to re-do shit before I learned along the way from a handful of pro's how to do it the right way. Once I got one step right I messed up the next one. More than likely the problem came about due to the way that you sanded your fillers or primer and even the primer you used. even though the primer seemed smooth and flat there were probably pitts and low/high spots in it. It's important to guide coat the (high build) primer and get the imperfections out at this stage. Other factors such as how the paint was thinned and air pressure can cause excessive sandy orange peel which if too out of control can't be fixed. You'd have to put a ton of base coats (like 15?) on to save you from sanding through the color with a pitted primer. No matter how well you can wet/color sand you wont be able to overcome this. what you need to do to avoid this is properly sand/contour your filler then block sand your High build primer with a guide coat, only when this is perfected are you ready to use sealer primer then base coat then if you desire clear. Also when sanding avoid the edges or tape them, sharp edges will buff out when you polish. I'm working on a how I painted my car write up that will hopefully help fellow R3V'ers attain beautiful paint. Good luck and keep trying! I'll PM you the link when I post it

[nando]

zip ties break before bolts and wont rip the lip if/when it decides it wants to come off.

bah! zip ties work great.. if you bolt it on and hit something, you're still going to break it off, only now you're going to really tear it up and possibly bend your valance. I had zip ties holding mine on for 2 years, I bottomed the lip out many times and nailed lots of cones and it never came off.

also, a splitter isn't going to do shit to protect your lip. it will actually make it more likely that you hit it when you go into driveways/ramps because it will stick out further than without one.

also, greg's lip really wasn't that bad. I know dan destroyed his after 2 days, but I had mine for 2 years without trouble, until I got a little carried away pulling into a field and ended up running it over.. and while it cracked, it never completely broke.

[Fanzotti]

He got it locally at an automotive paint supply store. THey mixed it for him from the factory paint code.

It matches pretty well, but then again, we haven't mounted it yet and the only time we've seen it is in a garage that wasn't very well lit. It is black however, so it should match pretty well.

086 schwarz black doesn't need to be mixed to a factory paint code FYI. It's a standard gloss black and can be bought off the shelf. If your auto body supply is charging you for mixing 086 to a factory code there ripping you off.

[Jand3rson]

zip ties break before bolts and wont rip the lip if/when it decides it wants to come off.

That's what I'm talking about. I VERY rarely scraped with my iS airdam, but I think this lip is going to end up being lower than my airdam was, so I'm not sure. I'm also going to have a splitter on it, mainly to protect the lip itself.

[PiercedE30]

zip ties break before bolts and wont rip the lip if/when it decides it wants to come off.

[Jand3rson]

Good man.