Rebody Z3 Tribute GT project

[Foglem]

I think/hope I made all the big patches I need to. Down to just sanding the whole body to make sure it's clean and straight. Feels like I turned a corner!
Built up the rear fenders on both sides so the trunk(boot) appears to line up better.

Then filled out the passenger side door gap.

Then a bunch of little cuts and dips here and there all filled in!

I've got a trunk lock solution on the way (next update) and need to find a hinge solution for lifting the license plate. Otherwise it's now finishing work I guess!

 

[Foglem]

My shoulders are getting a workout! I am currently blocking the whole car to 180grit and finding/correcting high and low spots. The trick is to pretend you're a zombie and just sand until you can't lift your arms anymore.

Something I would like to suggest to anybody who is blocking their car without a DA. Use sanding blocks with a shopvac connection. I'm serious. Look at the difference between sanding with a regular block versus without.

Once I'm done with 180, I will work my way up to 320 or maybe 400. I'm debating weather or not I should hop to 220 next or just jump to 320. I guess I'll know when I get there.

What else is new? Exciting stuff actually! Check out all these chemicals!

A friend once again has stepped in to help me through this process. He's got some old body panels that have no use anymore, so they are prefect for practicing painting. We spent the entire day trying stuff out and learning some techniques. Having never sprayed before I can say it is super fun and totally worth the time. It is so much work, but the payoff is amazing.

Here is an exciting bit...the color I chose! Isle of Man Green.

It's a good thing this is just a photo because I made a lot of embarrassing noises of excitement. Just look at that.

We made notes as we went through and changed settings etc. I'm telling you this was fun. Don't forget your PPE people.

Look at this. I am so excited to see this on the car. I was getting impatient and wanting to take some shortcuts but after seeing this I'm going to do it as good as I can...which probably isn't very good, but I'm going to earn every letter in 'acceptable'.

We did run into some snags. Clear coat is a bit tricky to lay down right. Granted, some of this is because we did ZERO prep work between primer, base and clear so the surface wasn't smooth and we definitely got some fisheyes from contaminants. I did some research and I think next time will go a lot better. I will go through the entire painting process on another panel. Taking my time to sand or wet sand between stages and clean clean clean. I believe there are a few more settings and techniques I'd like to try next time as well.

Thanks! Now scroll back up and look at that color again. Wow!

 

[Foglem]

I am excited for how this is going. Taped off the car and blocked the whole thing out to 320 grit.

First I had to mask everything off. I didn't have to go crazy because this is just for keeping sand down and help me know where I need to sand and where I can ignore. I'm not doing a proper frame color change. That's too much work and I will be perfectly happy with this idea.

Gotta cover all user visible areas. The trunk has some body color in it. I'll most likely cover a lot of this with carpet, but at least the top section here will be body color.

This was interesting. I had to figure out how to tape this off. I wanted every section behind panel gaps to be the color changes as well, but in this case it's a slippery slope to end up painting the whole engine bay. I opted to just do a section. It won't be 'pretty' under the hood, but that's a place only I'm going to be.

Then finding little glued on gaskets that will be re-applied later.

Next up, finally finish blocking out the car to 320grit. Found quite a few spots that needed some work. Cleaned the car a bit and started going over it with a light to find spots I may have missed. It was so dusty I found a fair amount of areas that needed work! It's all in the details!

I'll finish with finding the correct spots and then move it out of the garage so I can convert it to a paint booth! Then clean and re-mask the car off.

It's nice to see the car somewhat clean again. I'm getting so excited to even lay down primer it's ridiculous. I am excited to see this thing with matching doors haha.

Thanks!

 

[Foglem]

Alright. Time to get the ball rolling faster here! The car has been blocked out to 320 grit after laying down some guide coat. Cleaned up the car and cleaned up the garage. Time to make murder room....I mean paint booth.

I did a fair amount of research here so this is the best I could come up with for my DIY paint booth. Cover everything in plastic. In the back you'll see a fan. I zip tied this to a sawhorse and tilted it up. On the back side is an air filter (not shown). This should bring in clean air and keep itmoving in the booth. It's pointed up to create positive pressure down on the car hopefully keeping dust down.

My garage isn't long enough. I'll have to build the booth out into the driveway to give myself room to spray. I found some PVC pipe and constructed a basic frame. I will use this as a base to anchor the plastic to. I added air filters just to keep bugs from flying into the tent, but this will be the exit for the air coming from the fan. This is a terrible picture. I'll do better.

OK next up was to get the jacks back into the garage, those will be covered in plastic as well. Then add in a table to work on...also covered in plastic.

Everything is fully masked off now. I'm going to have to wait for a good day to build out the rest of the booth then prime the car. I'm so excited.
I did try out a wax and grease remover & cleaner. I'll probably clean the car at least once more before I attempt to paint. It sure made it look nice though.

Alright, next time will be the paint booth in final form! Then primer! WOOT...then more sanding....woot.

 

[Foglem]

The weather was amazing today so I decided to go for primer! Which means finishing the paint booth. Here it is...bask in the reflected glory of it...especially the two trash cans I'm using as weights to keep it from collapsing.

I did this so I could have some extra space when spraying the back of the car.

Look, the important thing was that progress was made. I got 3 coats of primer inside the trunk, door jams and by the front hinges. I had to stop after the first coat on the full body though. Lots of not great things happened. I'll list them out:

-On the first spray I cross threaded the paint cup ont the gun so a lot of it leaked out onto the floor and (gasp) even the car. I was able to clean this up. I think it got me a bit nevous.
-Went too heavy in some spots and got some runs. Can't say I'm surprised. Keeping a steady speed and distance from a curvy panel is hard.

-I didn't pay attention to the air pressure until it dropped too low and caused the paint gun to spatter on the front of the car.
-This was the big one. There was a pocket of dust inside the hood scoop. When I sprayed paint in there dust exploded out onto the car. What a bummer.

This prompted me to give after the first coat. No point in going any further after this.

I'll have to clean the car up again and sand it all down. I was going to do it anyway so now I know why

I should say, that this is sort of a bummer, however, I'm really happy to see the car in a uniform color. I knew I'd mess up somehow and the primer coat is the best time to screw up (Thanks to a good friend of mine for this comment.). I'll get back to it and lay down 2 more coats of primer once I've sanded the car back down to 320grit again.

Lets have some victory shots to finally see this thing without blemishes everywhere and red doors.

It's nice to see!

I'm jazzed about the front end!

Thanks!

 

[Foglem]

I'm getting close to the finish I can almost see it.

I finally got all 3 coats of primer on, then sanded it to 320grit.I had a few burn through so I spot shot them with more primer. When I was done it was time to clean then wet sand down (up?) to 600grit. This was fairly satisfying. It's so smooth now.

As you can see I cleaned it once more and re-masked everything off.

It's ready for paint. TDS sheets say I can put 3 coats of base color down with 15 minute flash times, then wait an hour and I can go right to 3 coats of clear at roughly the same intervals. That is assuming I don't screw up the base color somehow .

The trick now is waiting for the weather to cooperate. Today had 102degF with heat index followed by a heavy storm. None of those are great for painting so I'm stuck waiting.

Exciting things to come for next update!

 

[Foglem]

Two steps forward and one step back.

I cleaned and used a tac rag on the car. Then put down some color! How wonderful! Let's take a moment for this:

Pretty exciting. So exciting that I had yet another comedy of errors. The good news is that the paint is pretty forgiving to lay down once you get the gun settings right. After that you can try and do fun things like pouring paint into a cup that...isn't there..and make a huge mess. Or finding what I think are solvent pops.

This happened right away so I am guessing either my wax and grease remover wasn't fully wiped away here or perhaps I didn't clean this area enough with wax and grease remover. I'm not sure, but I guess either way I'm sanding this spot back down.

I also found a LOT of scratches that I did not see or feel before. What a shame. It's hard to see, but in person it is obvious.

I'm hoping I can just wet sand these areas and either continue on with color or should I re-prime? Anybody have suggestions?

It's a shame I have to back up a bit here, but I am a first timer so this is what it is. It's pretty fun to see the color on the car though!

Thanks!

 

[t-tony]

The “ Fish eyes” are down to silicones on the painted surface. Flat it off and start again. No easy fix, sorry.

Tony.

 

[Foglem]

Big day! Finally got the paint and clearcoat on! That's the last big project I have planned!

There were a few issures here and there but I will be able to handle that later on. Very excited to put it all together!

 

[Foglem]

Still a little bit to do but I really like this color!

I did find a lot of clear coat runs and almost entirely covered in orange peal. There are a few methods I'll look into to correct those. I'll start putting parts on the car soon!!

 

[Foglem]

I still have plenty to work on, but given the season is coming to a close I'm going to enjoy the he car for a while. It's on the road!

I'll post a few more pictures and videos when I get the chance. Feels good and sort of surreal that I've gotten it this far

Thanks!

 

[t-tony]

I love that colour. It's great. And the wheels are superb.

Tony.

 

[DaveP]

Nice motor ! Great colour. I rather approve of the ZGT roadster. Nice proportions and quite unique while harking back to AM influences.

I bet it is surreal. You should feel very proud. Onto the new MOT and V5 renaming if you haven't done so already

Congrats

Dave

 

[ruan]

Amazing colour and the finish looks great, did you leave the engine bay red ?

 

[Duncodin]

Nice motor ! Great colour. I rather approve of the ZGT roadster. Nice proportions and quite unique while harking back to AM influences.

I bet it is surreal. You should feel very proud. Onto the new MOT and V5 renaming if you haven't done so already

Congrats

Dave

Agreed. Looks great. It'll be next year or even later that I get my rebody to paint.

USA. No v5.

@Foglem. What do they do in the usa about vehicle registration documents after a rebody?

 

[DaveP]

Ooops sorry. Forgot where the OP was in the world.

 

[Pond]

I still have plenty to work on, but given the season is coming to a close I'm going to enjoy the he car for a while. It's on the road!

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I'll post a few more pictures and videos when I get the chance. Feels good and sort of surreal that I've gotten it this far

Thanks!

I will admit I wasn't keen on your ideas for the car to start with. I will also admit I thought the colour choice was bizarre. But.......

I have changed my mind. The mix of old and new works really well, especially with the bold green colour IMO.
I admire how you sprayed it yourself; despite it obviously being challenging. I would never attempt that.
I like the fact that it is not pretending to be something it isn't. It is just what it is and does a great job of it. Well done, Sir.

 

[Foglem]

Thank you for the kind comments. It feels great to hit this milestone. I still have many hours of fixing/tweaking things and definitely a lot of hours correcting my clear coat.

I found that the fancy new adjustable headlight brackets will unscrew themselves over time. I had a headlight bouncing around on the passenger side bucket. Thankfully that's not a big deal. I'll either add threadlocker or a jam nut to the bolts in the future. For first time out shake down issues that's not bad, not bad at all.

@Duncodin Registration is different by state. Being in Michigan I may have to change the title to a kit car title. In other states I may not have to do this. Being a "classic" car it also allows a lot of legal exceptions so I have relaxed laws there as well.

 

[Zephyr]

This is a unique car. Congratulations.
What is the procedure when you want to check the engine? Remove the front completely or it tilts somewa?

 

[Foglem]

@ruan The engine bay is still red. I don't plan on selling this car and I'll be the only one looking at it so I'm ok with that choice

@Zephyr The front clamshell uses the same hinges as the original Z3. I have removed the cable release mechanism. What I have now are hood pins (the black tear drop shaped things on either side of the front scoop) and then I retained the original latch mechanism. There are some pictures of it earlier in the thread.