Simmering with Rage

We've been working in the early morning and the late evening to avoid the worst of the heat, but I don't think this is slowing us down much. We're to the point where we are applying Rage, then waiting for it to cure before sanding it a bit and applying more. We'll mix 4-5 batches of Rage each time we work on the body, and we figure we're probably sanding almost half of that back off the next time.

Where the fender meets the door, we have a high spot on the door on the top of the fender, and a low spot on the door where it meets the side of the fender. We had to re-install the window frames as they affect where the door sits when it is closed.

Following some advice we found online, we're taping the high spot so we don't add Rage to that part while we build up the low spot. This takes several applications, as a single layer must be thin.



At the front of the doors, both the fender and the door taper inward. Once we bring up the low spots as shown below, we will fill across the door opening to give a nice smooth feel from the door to the fender. Following still more advice we found online, we used an adhesive weatherstrip between the door and fender to keep from filling that gap with Rage. We're not looking to permanently shut the doors!


The bottoms of the hood were pretty rough, so we put a thin coat to give a nice surface for the paint later. On the driver's door, you can see we are one coat further along than was pictured for the passenger door. It is a challenge to skim the Rage to level the door and fender. You have to work quickly to give a smooth finish, but you want to be thorough as well to minimize the number of coats it takes to do the job.


Another week or two of this, and we'll be ready to shoot SlickSand. This is a sprayable surfacer that looks like a primer coats but is actually designed to help us remove any remaining surface imperfections and to give a nice smooth look for the paint. We will need to build a couple of stands for each half of the body, as we will remove the body before spraying it.

Someone send some cooler weather our way, we could sure use it!

Spoiler Alert!

Lots of news this week. First, we finally got enough of a bend into the top exhaust pipe on the driver's side for the pipes to slide onto the exhaust headers. We celebrated, then quickly put the exhaust back into the box. We won't install these until the paint is done.


We've been building up the fender in front of the driver's door to make up for an ill-fitting door skin. This is a common problem with the kits, supposedly addressed with a recent revision to the molding process.


We spent some time on the rear of the car, trimming, fitting, then attaching the rear spoiler. We used a High Strength Resin Filler (HSRF) from 3M to attach the spoiler. Since the HSRF doesn't stick to gel coat, we had to sand all of the gel coat off of the mounting area. The bond is permanent and is VERY strong.


We will be fairing in the edge of the spoiler to the body in all directions to help it blend into the body lines. This is one of the more "artistic" steps we'll have to take with the body work, so wish us luck!

We are fairing in the back of the car, covering up an ugly joint with something a little more pleasing. This will take a couple of rounds of filling and sanding to get it just right.


The lighter color Rage product shows off the low spots in the body. Once filled and sanded, the contour feels just perfect. You can tell that the area around the fuel filler opening was very uneven.


Once we get the spoiler and the back of the care faired in, we will need to re-attach the doors so that we can contour the fender-to-door and door-to-window frame lines. We're also adding some Rage to the inside of the wheel wells. Once we do that, we can sand the edge round. This replaces the thin edge of fiberglass with something more eye-pleasing when you look into the wheel arches.

Stay tuned as we complete these tasks over the next several weeks. We're hoping for a break in the hot weather, as it has been at least 95 degrees for a high for weeks.

More Sanding

We're almost finished with initial sanding of the shiny black gel coat on the body. We have to sand all of it so that the fillers will stick to it.


The first filler we're using is called Rage Gold. You mix some of it with a hardener, then work quickly to spread it before it starts to harden. Between the 100 degree temperatures and trying to get the mix ratio right, we ended up putting a little more of the Rage on than we really needed.

We're getting the hang of mixing and applying it now, but we still have a few areas that will need a significant amount of sanding to get rid of the extra Rage.

We use large sanding blocks to make sure we don't create low spots. In fact, the whole point of Rage is to build up the low spots that came on the car. We're pleased with the results so far.

Started Sanding this week!

We learned this week that dust masks and goggles in 90+ degree heat isn't much fun, but we are pleased with the progress we made.

We purchased a set of "Durablock" sanding blocks. These use adhesive-backed sandpaper that comes in a roll, and because of the cost (you have to buy a whole roll) you feel like it's a race to finish sanding before you run out of sand paper. Fortunately, we've found that a few smacks on a saw horse with the sandpaper will knock out most of the buildup allowing our sandpaer to keep on going.

Here's the progress from a good cleaning to our current state over the course of three days.



A few more details:
The seams where the various body panels meet stick out above the body panels themselves. This is a result of the slight gap in between each piece of the mold for the body. These seams need to be ground flush with the body, then filled later to make them perfectly level.


You'll have to click on this next picture to see enough detail. We are using a criss-cross pattern in sanding to ensure we get a good surface for the sprayable body filler called SlickSand.


What you see below are pinholes in the fiberglass. The shiny black material on the body is called gelcoat. This is applied to the fiberglass to keep the pinholes from appearing at the surface and sucking in whatever you're trying to apply to the surface. We have to be on the lookout for these, and we have to use a special filler called Metal Glaze to fill them in. Every time we sand we'll have to look for and fill any of these that pop up.

Our first bit of sanding!

First things first. Our battle with the driver's side exhaust pipes is not quite over. With all of the force we could muster, we were unable to make the final bend needed to line the exhaust pipes up with the headers pipes. The white pipe in the picture that's closer to the camer needs to bend just a little toward the bottom of the picture. Then we can rotate the pipes a little and slip them over the header pipes. It looks like I'll be taking this to a muffler shop (again).


We removed the last of the items attached to the hood, and marked and sanded both the hood scoop and the air inlet in the front bumper. They both look great now. We also cut the two openings near the latches to make them more uniform.

We've removed all of the windows, and drilled for wipers and side view mirrors. Next week, we'll get it back up on jackstands so we can re-attach the hood, tape up the chassis to try to keep the dust down inside the car, then we're ready to start sanding.

Body work will require several different products. We need to us a green High Strength Resin Filler to fix any problem areas. You saw us use this to reattach the bottoms of the hood. We will then use a product called Rage Gold to contour the body where it needs it. This includes areas where the doors meet the fenders, and any real low spots in the body. Next we will spray the car with a sprayable filler called SlickSand. This will be carefully sanded to get a nice level surface, otherwise you'll see high and low spots in the paint. We'll save the ingredient list for painting for another day.

Exhaust(ing) Work

We worked this weekend to shorten the exhaust header pipes. We realized a few weeks ago that we would have to cut the header pipes to get the side pipes to sit where they are supposed to. We cut 1-3/4" of the pipes with a hacksaw blade meant for hardened steel. What a workout! The result for the passenger side was very nice.

The driver's side is fighting us as one of the two header pipes is not quite pointed the way we need it. Of course, no one sells a 1-7/8" diameter dowel so we're going to have to mill down a 2" diameter dowel to fit in the header pipe. Once we've done that, we'll pull the top pipe on the driver's side out and down a little.

In the next few weeks you will see some dramatic changes. We removed the hood this afternoon in preparation for adding some supports for the splash guards, for adding some filler to the bottom of the hood where you can see light through the fiberglass, and for covering the underside of the hood in truck bed liner. Then we'll re-install the hood, remove all of the other exterior components (lights, windows, etc) and break out the sandpaper and filler.

At a very high level, we'll be doing the body work next, followed by removal of the body for paint. While the body is off, we'll be finishing the installation of some items on the chassis that are easier to get to without the body. Then we'll put it all back together. I hope to have this all done by September, but if the summer is very warm I might push that back about 60 days.

Long Couple of Weeks

It's been an eventful 2 weeks, with very little progress on the Coupe as a result. Between severe weather, painting a couple rooms of the house, and other items we have spent very little time in the garage.

We did fit the rear hatch. I didn't take a picture, but we have trimmed it for a preliminary fit and have attached it to the metal frame. We will pull it out again for a final fit once the car is painted.

We also discovered the car had settled to an inch lower than the already-low 4 inches of ground clearance in front (4.5" in back). We put the car back on jackstance and made the adjustments, but this will throw off the alignment we recently did. D'oh!

While the car was on jack stands we tried fitting the side pipes. We discovered that the exhaust headers need to be trimmed about 1/5 inches on both sides of the car. We don't have room to trim them easily with the body in place, so we'll tackle that when we have the body off.

We've documented a punch list of items to work on before we start on the body work. We need to attach the mirrors. We also need to drill holes in the cowl for the windshield wiper mounts. We'll probably tackle a few other items as well, then cover everything under the body with plastic and get out the sandpaper. We should be starting on the body work by early June!