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It was going to happen sooner or later. Glass is a consumable for those who rally their hoopties. Kool Katz to the rescue!

Ouch. Awful luck.

Ah geez. If it makes you feel any better you probably will never do that again...

PLUS nothing beats having a nice new non-sandblasted front window. Money well spent.

Hopefully I can console you by overwhelming you with information about installing glass. Here's a post I put on focker's thread:

...until next winter when I decide to redo the interior and need to pull the dash to wrap it in leather...ha!

Thanks for the tips. Luckily I have a Citroen friend who has done this a dozen or more times and is willing to assist.

Good news is I didn't fork up the rear glass...

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When Well Enough Can't Be Left Alone; Backdate, EFI/ITB, AC, and more!
 

So, I pulled the shattered glass and removed the rear glass without breaking it.

I was happy to find not a single iota of rust anywhere around the window frames, so that’s a good thing.

There was a lot of what looked like rubber adhesive from the factory in the tracks which made removal of the seals tricky.

In anticipation on eventually recovering the dash with leather I removed those nightmare screws that can only be accessed with the glass removed. I think I’m just going to delete them (weight savings, right) as my dash sits very nicely and with them gone I’ll be able to remove it next winter without removing the glass. Someone’s trying to think ahead.

New glass and a whole lot of seals and whatnot inbound so I’ll be ready when I’m done painting.

Cleanup and masking this weekend and Still aiming to paint this mofo next weekend [emoji869]

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We all need more masked up, ready for paint, pics in our threads :D

Bummer on the glass shattering! The glass and seals are easy enough to deal with. I've done the windows several times at this point. If you have both some helpers to push on the windshield and some suction cups to pull from the inside, you'll get it done.

Hahaha, so true.

I found a local glass guy that sourced glass from Mygrant glass. I remember them being ~$150-$200 depending on what style windshield you wanted and that was delivered.

Heck yea! Excited to hear/see how it turns out.

Day 28

Gentlemen, it was brought to my attention (by my 26-year-old assistant who’s into crystals and the like) that this week Mercury was in retrograde and Friday was the 13th. As such, it’s pretty clear that my windshield stood no chance and was merely a small sacrifice to ward off more serious ills.

But I digress.

I’ve gotten over breaking the glass… who cares. I’ve done some terrible things to this car already (we have what, 12 pages of it!) so what’s a little broken glass. New glass, seals, and lots of other stuff is on order from our host and hopefully it’ll arrive promptly.

After Glassgate and a wee bit of destruction I felt like producing something. So, I did.

One thing that’s always kind of bothered me were the carbon fiber rain hats with the RHD embossed logo; they just don’t fit this car. Yes, RHD ITBs aren’t carbs or Jevney ITBs but there’s no reason they have to look SO out of place.

So, I decided to do something about it.

I replaced the aluminum filter holding plate with a piece of lexan, cut out a window (and the RHD logo) from the rain hats, painted them satin black, and tossed in a piece of brass mesh. Much better methinks.

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Mise en place, or operatory ready.

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Successful surgery!

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The intakes aren't red- that's just tape protecting them from my mess..

I took a shot a cutting and buffing the engine lid just to see what that was all about. I cut the paint with 3000 and then buffed it with Meguiar’s ultimate. I’m pretty sure I didn’t do it perfectly because now I have glass-like paint with fine scratches. The paint is really smooth and shiny and the waviness and dust specs are gone, but the scratches bother me. I’ll have to audit my process before doing any more. I’m pretty sure the fault lies with the crappy generic Chinese polishing pads I bought because I only wanted to spend $20 not $40 on pads, like an idiot. If anyone has thoughts on a better process/products, I’d much appreciate them.

I also finished one piece of the car! After “polishing” the engine lid I installed the brass mesh and polished aluminum bars. This piece is done and while it’s nothing major it feels really good to have at least one piece of the car complete. We’re getting close, very close.

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One down, lots to go!

Oh, I also masked and taped the living hell out of the car in anticipation of painting next weekend. Suffice it to say this took way longer that I expected but luckily it wasn’t all that hard. While I’m not happy I broke my glass, removing it was in fact the right call, I’m glad you boys wouldn’t let me coast….

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All dressed up for the big dance


And surprisingly all of that took 4 hours.

Now I must rest and meditate, for next week we paint.

Oh, this happened about 10 mins ago:

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Julian,
nice job with the rainhats. Very cool!

al

Great progress!!

Not sure what "ultimate" is - it might be too aggressive. Is it a compound (like 105) or a polish (like 205)?

Either way, when you cut the paint with 3000 you might be best to let it cure for a few days before polishing it as you've taken off the hard outer layer (I know it's catalysed paint but it still hardens faster on the surface I find). All depends on the paint. Don't drive yourself too crazy with it - take your decklid outside and look at it away from the fluorescents, you might be more pleased with it!!!

Day 29

I painted a car this weekend. Holy $h!t, I painted a car!

Honestly, the hardest part was the setup- creating a spray room and getting everything clean took a lot of time and effort but so it goes.

Even though I successfully pained the lids and realized that I’ve shot hundreds of gallons through my gun, I was still really nervous to the point of my heart rate elevating when I started.

It’s a lot to manage; a full car. I can understand why people break them down into pieces. I considered removing the front fenders and doors but honestly, I feel like if I did that, something would come up, go wrong or I’d decide to add louvers or turret guns and it would push the project back another month. If you hadn’t gathered, I like to do stuff and when presented the opportunity to do so, I usually take it, even if it’s ill advised. This time, I guess I left well enough alone.

But back to the point…

I. Painted. A. Car.

I’ll have to cut and buff (I’ve ordered the 3M perfect-it system of compound and polish) but I’m very satisfied with the results. Very.

Did I mention that I PAINTED A CAR!

Dudes, I haven’t rebuilt an engine yet so I can’t compare that feeling, but this one is amazing. That, or my ventilation wasn’t so good and I’m high as hell. Either way, feels pretty alright.

I setup my kill room on Friday and that took longer than I thought. I have 13’ ceilings and climbing up and down the ladder to get all the plastic in place was a pain but necessary as I couldn’t have paint all over my work studio full of equipment and paintings. If I were to do this again, I would consider renting time in a spray booth.

I woke up Saturday morning rearing to go… and then the skies opened up. With the humidity sky high and the wind whipping around I decided to wait until fairer weather on Sunday.

Sunday came after the longest Saturday I’ve ever experienced and I got to work, gave the car another wipe down and proceeded to spray.

I used an Anest Iwata LPH400 gun with a 1.3 tip and the Devilbiss Dekupps system at 29psi with an Eastwood 30/60 silent scroll compressor. The gun and the compressor worked wonders and laid down a totally acceptable factory paint finish. I think I laid down 5-6 coats; plenty for wet sanding. I avoided orange peel but there is some waviness in the paint; nothing that wasn’t in the engine lid and that I was able to remove with a wet sand. The dust on the other hand…. Lots of little dust nibs that will need to be sanded. But again, I anticipated all of this; without a proper spray booth it was inevitable.

I will have to make a decision on whether to assemble the car and get to driving it with all of its imperfect paint and cut and buff it next winter, or go ahead and cut and buff the paint now while it's not put together, perhaps a bit easier and have the paint perfect when I start driving it...?

The only real bummer was that I dripped sweat onto the car in several places and that made a mess. Again, a cut and buff will get it out and if not, I can airbrush some more paint in those areas.

But I digress.

I painted a car.


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FORK YEAH, Julian!!

Having completed a 'top-end' and more recently, a full rebuild, I can confirm I felt significantly more satisfaction the first time I saw my car together in one color.

Job well done!

I forget, are you bringing this to Ruchlos II?

Congratulations! Can't wait to see the pictures on a bigger screen!

Haha, maybe wait until I cut and buff it then [emoji12]

It’s a perfectly fine job- one that right now is a 7.5, but I can get it to a 9, I’m sure of that.

No Ruchlos for me this year- were finally getting back to traveling and making up for missed trips but I’m really hoping to be a check22. Only catch is that I leave for Belgium the next day so it will take some bartering with the family.

Heck yea! Congrats Julian.

If you can let it sit in the sun for a couple days to help the paint cure you'll be better off wetsanding and buffing prior to putting the seals, door handles, and glass back in.

Fantastic!

Funny how the stress of starting to shoot paint is the highest. And, to me, that is almost the easiest part compared to all the work that goes into the paintjob before paint. Sanding, blocking, more sanding, more blocking, taping, etc. It really adds up and those details determine the quality of the final paint. You have done well.

Now go bolt on some parts and start driving it. :)

I love the look of this. Does it bypass the filter and kind of diminish the rain hat functionality?

Sent from my Nokia 7.1 using Tapatalk

Not at all!

I simply replaced the piece of aluminum with a transparent sheet of Lexan and then cut out a window in the carbon fiber rain hats. The throttlebody’s and the filter are still protected from the elements by the Lexan