Project Facelift

[Garageaholic]

Almost done and what did it take you..... 8, 9 months? lol

Great work, This thread should be a pedigree for all looking to do this swap.

[Jand3rson]

Almost done and what did it take you..... 8, 9 months? lol

Great work, This thread should be a pedigree for all looking to do this swap.

6 months, and that was because I was doing it all in my spare time, didn't really have the time to devote straight to it. And this thread will be copied, and edited to show only pics and info here pretty soon.

In a few weeks when it warms up, I am going to paint the upper section of the rear valence. The bottom will remain satin, as they were stock.

[Sean]

Josh, is that a real rieger lip? Not the shitty copy?

Mine took a shit over christmas, and it's back together thanks for fiberglass, but it looks like utter crap, and there's no way it's getting painted anything remotely beyond satan because you can see where my mound of fiberglass was. LOL Better than nothing though.

Looks amazing man, you did an excellent job. I still ahve painters tape over my rear holes for the shrouds for the rear bumpers. I need to fill them or soemthing. LOL

[AndrewBird]

Josh, is that a real rieger lip? Not the shitty copy?

See post #339.

[Jand3rson]

This will be almost the last update, as this is pretty much the last peice. Sanded and primered the front lip today. I'm still trying to decide if I want to go satin black on it, to blend with the rockers and the lower part of the rear valence, or if I want to go gloss black to match the rest of the car. I think I might go satin black first, and if I don't like it, have it painted gloss.

First medium coat of SEM High Build Primer, still wet:







Third coat of primer, heavier than the frist 2 and pretty much dry:

[CleanAzzE30z]

gloss black.....please. DOnt fuck it up when youve come this far.

Mariano

[Jand3rson]

You're right, I am going gloss. I love this lip because it gives the front end an almost M3-look and it would have to be gloss to really pull that off.

[CleanAzzE30z]

get off the nutz!!! ;)


Mariano

[Mike325]

Looks tits. Great work.

[nando]

looks good.. watch out for possums though. the one I hit cost me $165 :p

[Jand3rson]

looks good.. watch out for possums though. the one I hit cost me $165 :p

No possums in these parts. Only thing I got to watch for is deer.

And then the front lip will be the least of my worries.

[Jand3rson]

Good lord, today was a frustrating day, and I learned a good lesson about paint. The front lip was all nice and primered, and yesterday I put about 4 coats of gloss black Rusoleum High Performance Enamel on, making sure to get a nice, even finish. It went on pretty good, but I had some big runs that went around the bottom edge to the underside of the lip, but I didn't worry about them, because you'd never see the bottom.

So today, I noticed that the finish of the paint wasn't quite as dark as the rest of my car, and knowing this would make me nuts, I went and got some Duplicolor automotive gloss black that matched much better. Not even really thinking about the 2 different kinds of paint, I proceeded to put a coat on the lip over the Rustoleum. Bad idea. The paint almost immediately started to wrinkle up and texture, due to some kind of chemical reaction between the 2 paints. So I stripped it all off and got the lip sanded back down to primer/bare material. When I went to spray it again with primer, it turned out that there were a few spots where I didn't get the old paint down far enough, and the primer started to do the same thing. ARGH!

So again, I stripped the primer off the bad areas and took them down to bare material, and made sure this time that it was all gone. Tomorrow I'll re-primer the lip and go at the painting again, this time staying away from the Rustoleum.

Oh, and BTW, when you're stripping off paint, make sure you don't lay your arm down in an area where you've got paint stripper/paint slime. My arm is starting to turn pretty fucking red and it burns like a mother. :D

[backtrail69]

That SUCKS. I have had that happen before with two different spray paints. Shoulda went with SEM. :razz: What happened was that the layer under was reactivated with the 2nd layer of paint. This is a very common thing when you are dealing with a single part paint with the activator already in it. I have had MUCH better luck with 2 part paints/clears. They are much more resistant to this. Hope everything gets fixed soon.

[Sean]

I know I'm reviving an old thread, but I screwed around with my bumpers all day yesterday - wanting to get the bumpers mounted as high as possible to eliminate all the gap.

First - for the front, how much gap is supposed to be there? There's a noticeable amount on mine.

Second - how did you make those slits so you could mount eh rears up higher? Looks like you just used a drill bit?

-Sean

[Jand3rson]

The late model E30 MHW Kopi smoked have gone up to $39 a set.
Also the early E30 MHW Kopi smoked and clear.
The late model MHW Kopi clear is still $30 a set.

Could you please keep things like this in a separate thread? We have an entire section for classifieds.