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The brakes are Wilwoods with braided SS lines. I had a new line expressed mailed to me from the guy (TCE Performance) who I bought the brakes from, and changed it myself. I couldn’t trust them to do it, especially with a track event coming up. For me one of the most frightening things on a track day is brake failure of one sort or another. I do my own work on those.
Have been working on miscellaneous things. Been claybar, rubbing compound, and then waxing the panels that are still quite nice, to very nice effect. Been using a synthetic clay bar pad from Griots, and so far it's worked pretty well. Hard to get into corners and edges with it like a regular clay bar, but other than that, it is much quicker and does a great job, I follow that up with a good polish using Mcguires ultimate compound and then a finish with Griots wax.
While working on the passenger side rear quarter today, I decided to take out the tail lights to see what the condition of the lip under the tail light is - a known rust hiding place. Under the passenger tail light there were two bigger spots where the paint had begun bubbling up, and several smaller spots that has not broken the surface yet. So I got out the Dremel and ground/sanded all of the rust on that side away, Then gave it a light sanding and a couple coats of etching primer. Will let that set up for 24 hours or so, then it will get a sanding to 400 or so, a coat of regular primer, then have to wait for my order from automotive touchup to get here. This side was not at all as bad as I was expecting for a cart hat lived its first 6 years in MA.
Right tail rust. The whitish stuff is a hard water deposit from the sprinkler that used to hit my car where I parked in CA.
Sanded to bare metal.
Primed with etching primer. Odd olive green color for a primer. Ah well. Grey primer will go over the top of it.
Left tail light surround looks great! Just getting a good cleaning. BUT... the tail light itself has some grunge inside. It doesn't appear to be too fogged, but there is all sorts of crap inside of the light. Anyone know a good way to clean inside of the tail light housing?
Dirty tail light...
Other things on the horizon... I ordered the three upper roof weatherstrip pieces to replace my worn out ones - those pieces are more expensive than the beltline chrome/rubber trim pieces at the bottom of the windows - yikes. That will make a huge difference - look for an update on that process sometime next week. And the search for a headliner continues. No junk yards in Bismarck had one yesterday. I have also been looking for a junkyard donor for an Indie blue hood in good shape. So far, not so much luck. Anyhow, that's where I am right now. If anyone can chime in on tail light internal cleaning tips, that would be awesome!
Check under the weather stripping of the door sills for rust. Whatever clips they use to hold that weather stripping on with sometimes scrapes the paint and rust will start there too.
I think you will find that the etching primer you are using is a zinc-chromate based primer. Good stuff, and great on rust work. Just take care with it as it is pretty toxic.
Have been quite annoyed for some time about an obviously ball-hitch induced rather significant dent that some tool left in my hood. The sad thing is that this tool must have done it on purpose because I *always* park far away from other people's cars in whatever lot I need to park in. Anyhow, this dent has bothered me for a long time.
Well, today, I took off the scoop (broke the damn plastic tabs - will have to repair with epoxy somehow) so I could get access to the space behind the inner front hood support to see what I could do with this eyesore. I had at my disposal several slender pieces of wood, one with a 30 degree slice off of one end to be able to use as a lever of sorts, self adhesive zip tie blocks, and a bunch of zip ties. I put the first zip tie block on the right side of the dent, pushed it on well and put a zip tie through and closed it up. I put a piece of wood through the zip tie and yanked smartly. Must have been beginner's luck because about an inch of the big dent pulled out. The self-adhesive pads come off with a bit of a rub with your thumb.
Wow. A pretty good improvement.
So I kept going. No luck the second or third times, or the fourth. On the fifth go, this is what I was rewarded with!
Then it got harder. 10 pulls and no give. So I relieved some of the pressure from the back side by wedging a piece of wood in behind the dent so that there was significant upward pressure from the back. Not enough to make a crease, but significant pressure. Next pop, I got this!
Then it got stubborn for awhile. A couple more small pops came out, then I had to resort to using my scrap pieces of wood as a lever to get behind there and do a bit of upward prying with some small blocks positioned to keep the force where I wanted it and make sure the lip for the hood scoop wasn't bent or damaged. After another 15 minutes, this is what I had.
Not too bad! It's not perfect, but I think I may actually order some glue tabs to see if I can get it a bit more smoothed out! If you look, you can definitely see some creasing, but I can live with this until I find a perfect donor or do the body work. Now I just have a damned clear coat peel to deal with.
Hot melt glue also works to attach a small pad to the dented part that you can then pull on to pull the dent out. You can the release the hot melt glue with a hair dryer or heat gun to warm the steel panel. Someone posted that on NAM. There must be a YouTube vid about doing this.
Finally started working on the grills in a more serious way. Ordered a 25' roll of the rubber stuff for the edges on amazon, cheaper than custom car grills for the same stuff. The grill material is from custom car grills. I used to old grill take off pieces for the pattern - just laid the new grill material on top, formed it to the same curve, made sure it was even on bot sides, and then sharpied marks right on top. There was too much chrome in my previous design, so went with just the grill material and the black rubber surround.
Did the same thing with the mid grill. The rubber had to be split though as the inside corner at the top is much too sharp for the rubber material to bend around. There must be a way to do it, but I have not figured it out. Not too bad. It's going to look nice with a big, wide silver stripe right down the middle of the bonnet! Middle one is pretty easy to attach with zip ties because there are slots along the edges - still not satisfied with the mounting method for the bottom one yet.
Got quite a bit done today. While I was waiting for new upper roof moldings to be delivered, I took the rear bumper cover off, changed the shape of the heat shielding a bit and installed functional aluminum mesh from custom car grills. For now, I used stick-on zip tie pads and zip ties, but I trimmed off the original tabs, so this is a one-way mod. Trimmed the original insert mounting tabs even with the back of the opening, stuck the zip tie pads on after giving the inside of the bumper cover a good, thorough cleaning, and then zip tied the mesh to the stick on zip tie pads. Took maybe an hour. Then I cut the heat shielding, folded it over to make a new lip, then pushed it up out of the way. It is still protecting the underbody, it's just a bit higher up.If the velcro pads lose adhesion, I'll just cut some abs rod at the right angles, and epoxy in some threaded mounting blocks. Gonna see how well this holds up for now.
Then, Fedex finally showed up with my new upper molding gutters, and those went on. Let me just say though - having now seen from multiple places on the car under various bits of weatherstripping, if you want your glass replacement done correctly, take off as much of the trim as you can yourself before the glass replacement guy comes. Then reinstall the trim yourself as well. I had broken clips under both sides of the pillar trims, one of the pillar trims has a big honking chip out of the bottom, and both of the front upper rail pieces that wrap around the top of the pillar trims were broken. Okay, that out of the way, the gutters were super easy to put in. Pull the weatherstrip off the door opening, remove 5 screws along the upper window opening, take the outer pillar covers off, starting from the rear, pop 4 or 5 clips out by gently pulling the old gutter outward. When you get close to the front, if the front piece isn't broken, push gently forward to disengage the fastener and remove the whole thing. I gave a good cleaning to all the areas underneath - there was quite a bit of old mud and debris under there. For the rear, just gently pull one side out until the clip lets go and gently pull outward once started until all of the clips let go. No fasteners on the rear upper gutter trim. Install is exactly opposite - engage the clip on the front piece, pull it backward to lock it in, pop the clips in along the back, screws back in, pillar cover back on, weatherstripping around door pushed back in. Took about 45 minutes to install.
After doing a lot of research - some here and some on other forums, I narrowed down my stripe material to either some Avery stuff, or the 3M 1080 vinyl in a darker silver color. I tried the wet application stuff before, and was not happy with how it came out. So I ordered a 12" x 60" roll from amazon for like $17 bucks shipped. I gave the middle of the hood another pass with polishing compound to remove any gunk still on there, then gave it a pass with degreaser and then a soap and water wash. Dried using a clean towel to minimize lint. Applied in the garage as it is windy out today and ddin't want any grit blowing in. I cut two one inch strips off of the edges to use as side stripes using a rotary cutter. I found center on my hood front and back and marked it, cut a 25" piece, and laid it out on the hood using low tack green tape to hold it in the middle, top, and bottom. rolled the bottom half back, peeled off the backing and cut the backing off in the middle, gently stretched it to my marks and tacked it down in 3 or 4 places. Did the same thing to the back half. Then I used my applicator felt side, started in the middle and worked my way diagonally toward the edges. Let me tell you - this 1080 stuff is ****ing awesome! So easy to work, a kid could do it. The air bubbles came out so easily - I almost just had to look at it. Same with the back half, trimmed it with about 1/4" extra, and rolled it over the back of the hood and into the hood scoop area. I did 3/8" space between the main stripe and the sides. Same procedure with the side stripes. I used the color 'sterling silver' in gloss finish. I also bought a nice felt backed applicator as I have seen vinyl scratched by the plastic ones.
I think it came out great! This was mostly a practice run for applying the vinyl because I plan on having either this hood repaired and repainted this fall or winter, or sourcing a good condition low mileage indi blue one from a junk yard somewhere. It came out so good, I am ordering two more rolls of the stuff for after the body work is done in case they don't make it any more (alot of the 1080 stuff is being replaced with 2080, and I don't know how similar that stuff is).
If you've been on the fence about DIY stripes and you're good with layout, this is really pretty easy and cheap! Give it a go - all you have to lose is 17 bucks if you don't like the results! (but I really think you will).
Now I just gotta figure out my hood not closing issue. Cable probably needs lubing/replacement.
It's funny to me how we all see things differently. I've loved using wet application vinyl, and was looking for that to do my wrapping to finish my dechrome project. I'd never used 1080 before. I can work with it, but decided to hold off redoing my stripes because I think I'd rather try to find wet vinyl. To me it seems easier to work with. Again, the 1080 isn't bad, and I haven't done a big, relatively flat piece like that, so I could be wrong.
You may have just given me the nudge I needed to go redo my stripes.
Very nice! Did you detail around the badge, or put it on after?
Did you consider striping the scoop too?
I'm thinking about it, but can't decide if it will work or not. I can't recall seeing anyone do it. That's probably a bad sign. 🤔
Woops - sorry - didn't see your reply and weirdly, didn't receive a notification.
I detailed around the badge. I have been considering doing the scoop as well as it is loose right now. Bolts were all seized up when I took it off and all of the super cheapo plastic brackets broke. Have to come up with an alternative means of mounting, so would be the ideal time to try striping it. I am sure I have seen a striped scoop before though, and I think it probably looked good.
Been working away on a bunch of small stuff that wasn't worthy of an update. Replaced the driver's side mirror gasket as it was shot. Changed out the grilles in the front again as I wasn't happy with the look of the black rubber trim. My paint order came in, so I sprayed the primed area in the right rear tail light housing in Indi blue. I also took off the rear spoiler to prep for paint. The clearcoat was peeling badly on the spoiler top from the hot sun of the desert this car saw years ago. Sanded the spoiler top from 600 to 1500, cleaned it well, sprayed two light coats of 668 black on the top, and then two nice wet coats of clear blending the clear in to the sides. There was some dust and a few hairs, but a wet sanding with 1500 and then a good buff with rubbing compound after letting the paint cure for 12 hours and a final wax gave me a nice, mirror finished wing. Color match is pretty close - not spot on, but close. The new color is a tiny bit warmer than the original, but you have to really look to see it.
It came out so nice that I just resprayed my mirror caps.
In other, more expensive news, my driver's side seat is shot, and so I had been looking into reupholstery sets from leatherseats.com - got some of their samples and several of the colors are very close to the Panther color. But then I thought about how unhappy I have been with the design of the seats - they just don't seem to fit the interior. I looked at Recaro seats - most are so ugly I want to run away screaming. Same thing with most of the Bride seats, and the Cobras - except the 30th anniversary one - that is beautiful, but it is too expensive. And for the price they want - it's very heavy. They also do not have any in the US that have built in heating. I looked at Status because they would do custom, but don't care for their designs much either. And Braum has one design that I like, but they will not do the stitching I want because it deviates from their stock pattern.
So, I just asked for a quote from classiccarseats.com for their Nurburgring - though because of my size and height, might have to go with their larger version of that seat - what they call the 'Avus'. I asked for a quote for a heated pair in dark grey - graphite or charcoal leather to match the Panther Black R53 interior in a good bumpy leather (I don't care for the super soft, smooth stuff) with cobalt blue double stitching around the outside only and grey stitching everywhere else and with stainless steel grommets in the inside 'field'. I asked for the whole seat in leather, but I am considering the basketweave for the middle. It's growing on me. I am just concerned with maintenance. I think dust and grunge will get trapped in all of those little divets, and I don't think vacuuming will get it all out.
versus
Although I think the Mini sport seats are fairly comfortable (bear in mind I do no track driving), they have always struck me as not really having the same character as the rest of the car - the R cars are retro - the R50, R52, and R53 most so, but the seats just seem to be 'tacked on' - like what they could find without putting too much time into design. The rest of the car - is stunning; everything well thought out and retro-ed out. The seats - not so much. So I think that retro-style seats will be a good update to this overall very retro-feeling car. AND - there is the rather nice bonus that each seat weighs less than 20lbs. That saves 60ish lbs for the pair.
I've been wrestling with replacement seat options as well. Not finding what I like in a price point I can accept.
Starting to get some Sean separation in my driver's seat. I have the panther black as well. I want something with more bolstering, while retaining the heated seat function. I'm not sure I would like the "bucket" style for a DD.
I loved the Recaros I had in my Mustang, but I can't bring myself to spend that kind of money. 😳
I hear you. All of the good quality aftermarket options are pretty pricey. And the R56 transfer option is out for me because I don't really care for the look of those either. I don't care about the side airbag so much, but I do want the heated option also. I have to make some measurements of the interior of my car tonight to start thinking about which seats will actually fit in the car - and then about which ones fit me.
The seat heater in the MINI seats are just a pad that can be removed. You could look at doing that and installing them in an aftermarket seat. There may be the need for a little glueing but I should think that could be done.
Not exactly sure of the direction you want to go with the seat. I did see the pictures above and did see they were a bucket style, but have you looked at the base seats from the R50? They look more like an old school Mini seat. They have a flatter bottom and sides than the R53 seats. The seats in the R53 are the “Sports” seats, which were an option for the R50, but likely that was a rarity (like ours), so most any R50 will have the base seats.
The car has been running fantastically all summer. I have a couple niggling little things that need to be addressed when I take it off the road for the winter: 1) the front brakes do not seem to have as much grip as they should for being brand new rotors and pads. I suspect that the lines to the calipers need bleeding; 2) the gas cap is still giving me an intermittent gas cap light, almost always followed by the P0455 code. I put a new gasket on the gas cap, but I suppose I need to take it apart and give both mating surfaces a good cleaning; 3) an intermittent rattle from the new Borla exhaust. Not sure where it is - might have to replace a couple of the rubber exhaust hangers maybe. Other than that, the car pulls like it has NEVER done before - I think the pulley, combined with the lack of a SC driven water pump and the BPV that is always open all have amazing synergy. So much so, that I am noticing a LOT more torque steer than I have ever noticed previously. I am sure some of that is related to old bushings on the control arms - which will be one of my winter projects. Overall, super happy with work done this far.
The list for this winter includes:
New control arm bushings and any other front end bushings I can get to without dropping the entire front subframe
New rotors and pads for the back
New struts for the back (Koni red)
Source and reupholster new headliner
New seats
Replace left rear taillight (grunge inside that cannot be cleaner out)
Source GP styrofoam rear seat basin insert thingy
New front tires
Alignment
More cleaning
As you may have read above, I have been enamored with the Cobra 30th Anniversary seats, but at 32 lbs each, there is no way to justify the price of $4 grand for the pair after rails and plates and all that. But I have been more and more gravitating toward the classic look seats. I really wanted leather, but man - justifying the price when looking for good, lightweight (sub 20lb) seats has just been difficult to do - especially as I have lived perfectly happily with 'leatherette' for the past 17 years with this car. Holy crap, 17 years. So I have finally made a decision re: seats. I am going to go with the Cobra GT3's, unheated, no airbags. Seat weight is a scant 8.7kg (19.2lbs) each - even after adapter plates and hardware, I would imagine at least a 50lb weight savings for the pair - perhaps more. I will probably mount the passenger side in some sort of non-adjustable mount, and ideally would mount the driver's side on some kind of flip-forward bracket to allow access to my second trunk (the area directly behind the seats). I think these are groovy looking seats, the weight savings is fantastic, and they will really wit nicely with the interior. And with the chrome grommets, these may go really well with the chrome trim rings I have been thinking about.
I like the looks of the stuff that GTS Classics, but Stefan over there is definitely a flake. He stopped emailing me back about custom building seats for me when I told him I wanted him to build one seat first so I could check the fit in the car and in my butt. He seems to have a few customers on his facebook group that have been waiting ridiculous amounts of time for their seats as well. These two things are unfortunate, because he'd do all sorts of custom things, like add seat heaters, and change mounting point spacings. I may see how difficult it is to remove the bottom cover of the Cobra seats when they come in, and add at least a butt heater pad. Nice looking chairs. Here they are installed in some other car.
Well, found out that the other name for these seats is RS Forty. Have been talking with Brian at HMS Motorsports and they have a container of these seats coming in at the end of October. I've reserved two of them. They're going to be $650 per seat, and the Cobra hardware and planted brackets would add another nearly $600 - and I hear that the Cobra mounting plates are very heavy. As this is being done not only for looks and better support in spirited driving, I will be fabricating my own adapters and using the OEM sliders.
There's a guy on the Pelcan forums who made this type of simple adapter from steel bar stock which seems to be a great, inexpensive solution. In the pic below he was making templates from wood.
Having all sorts of trouble with posting images right now.
Been looking around for the closest to exact match to the 'black' interior carpet as I've been on the fence about whether to do the rather pricey GP2 rear seat delete, or do a diy one. I think I have decided to go the DIY route now because of (1) the price of the complete system, and (2) the still semi-unfinished look without the not-so-great looking GP rear panels. The other thing is that the shape toward the front seems overly cutesy to me, and I want to mount a fire extinguisher in that general area.
Anyhow, I ordered several samples from automotiveinteriors, and one of their cut pile samples is a very close match. Their 879A (dark slate) is very close. http://automotiveinteriors.com/v/vsp...ile/colors.htm The 897 (charcoal) is pretty close too, but is just a smidge on the lighter side as compared with my back carpet and the back of my rear seats. Both of these are backed as well, so not very flexible.
I just ordered a yard of another thing that looked pretty close from ebay. This stuff is unbacked and fairly inexpensive. Hoping for a good match.
Super stoked - seats came in early to the distributor and are on their way. Less than 13lbs per seat - should be a pretty large weight savings. I need to start a spreadsheet of the stuff I yank as I yank it with the old item weight and new item weight and total weight savings - that'd be fun. Seats should be here on Monday. Image below of the Cobra GT3 (also called the RS-forty or Rs-40) - this is a pattern that they've recently started importing into the states, and a few distributors have been getting them. Someone else's picture below.
The color is not a perfect match to the panther black - it's less slate-y than the panther black and more black, but it's not a super black black if that makes sense. Also just got all the parts for a Dave F intake. Taking out the old stainless intake - I forget who even made that thing 16 years ago. The filter is still pretty good, but without the hood blanket anymore, I don't get a sealed space, and the filter just sucks in warm engine compartment air. May put that in tonight.
Stoked about the seats! The airbag resistor value is 3.9 Ohms, correct? I've seen some folks say 2.2 Ohms...
Man, this resistor makes me nervous. I don't want to have to buy a device just to clear the airbag code. I have seen various people say 4Ohm, 3.9Ohm, 2.3Ohm, and 2.2Ohm. Has anyone ever actually measured the resistance in the airbag circuit?
Man, this resistor makes me nervous. I don't want to have to buy a device just to clear the airbag code. I have seen various people say 4Ohm, 3.9Ohm, 2.3Ohm, and 2.2Ohm. Has anyone ever actually measured the resistance in the airbag circuit?
I made this job many many times, the only good value for resistor is 2,2Ohm, no doubt.But even you mount the resistor, you need to clear the fault code stored in Airbag module.No other way, the error does not disappear from the car's dashboard without being reset after resistor mount.
05-23-2020, 01:37 PM
