Updates FTW!
For some reason I was under the assumption that you hadn’t tried with gas yet… Don’t mind me, my brain is fried anymore.
Nothing wrong with a cheap welder, especially when you’re doing projects for yourself and learning. Hell, even our ‘upgraded’ welder is still a ChicagoElectric lol. Though it doesn’t run on 110V so, that’s where the increased ranges come from.
I’ve been filling a lot of holes and tacking up the seams on the passenger side. There are still a few more holes and about half of the seams left on that side. I took them to bare metal, stitch welded them, and then ground them down. At the end of the day I hit them with etching primer and then high build primer to cover the bare metal and give me a foundation to do my bondo on. Pics…
Yes! Good shit man.
My two cent, of course… Use as much weld and metal as possible, and as little filler and bondo as possible. With as much vibration as a regularly driven car sees, that is definite cause for bondo to lift and crack. Especially if you hit corners and induce chassis flex. Love the work thus far though.
And PPG make awesome product… though depending on cost, if it’s cheaper, you can substitute straight acetone. Naturally, acetone is NOT plastic-safe… but for metal I much prefer it. The end result is typically the same though.
Yeah I’d like to use as little bondo as possible. I still have more to build up even in some of the areas I’ve already primed. Since I didn’t know when I’d have a chance to work on it again though I definitely wanted to get a layer of protection against surface rust. It’s been raining a lot lately so there’s a lot of moisture in the air. Moisture and bare metal are not a good combination.
Have you ever used the Evercoat Rage Ultra body filler before? The lady at the paint store was really raving about it. I had some glaze compound in my basket and she actually talked me out of buying it. She said with this filler there’s no need to use it. She said its so much thinner than normal filler that it’ll fill in the pinholes and scratch marks that you would usually need the glaze for and that sanding it was a dream compared to the lower end fillers. I’ve read good things about it online but its one of those things I think I’m going to have to use to appreciate. Just curious if you’be had any experience with it. At $80/Gallon it better be good!
I have not used that filler… But we do use an Evercoat product… it’s in a green gallon can.
You can buy a “thinner” for body filler… It helps a lot to get that smooth finish and also to help fill small pinholes. I think it’s by Evercoat as well. This allows you to go with a ‘cheaper’ filler, yet still get that feather-finish.
Huh, I’ve never heard of that before. Does it affect the strength at all? Evercoat makes some good stuff, I’m really hoping this stuff lives up to the description she gave me. I was tempted to get that green can you’re referring to and the glaze compound since that’s the combination of products I’ve used in the past but it priced out about the same as the rage by itself and she assured me I’d be making my life easier on myself.
I’m sure the thinner would affect the structural integrity, if you put too much in… but it doesn’t take much to do its job! It really is some pretty cool stuff.
But agreed, Evercoat is a great product!
I know I haven’t updated for a while but I have been putting in work when I have time. The engine harness is done, at least for now. I may make some small changes later but this is pretty much the finished product.
And a couple small things I’ve gotten for the bay/wiring lately
I’ve kind of shifted my attention to the suspension/brakes currently since I need parts for my welder and I’m having a difficult time sourcing them. Hopefully I’ll get more actual updates soon!
lookin good! keep it up
Nice updates! So much great work in your thread. Awesome work on the bay so far and harness. My only questions is why didn’t you use a tech flex type product w/ shrink wrap instead of the plastic/vinyl tape route? Just my opinion, but I think it looks better.
[QUOTE=jdecks23;2306348]Nice updates! So much great work in your thread. Awesome work on the bay so far and harness. My only questions is why didn’t you use a tech flex type product w/ shrink wrap instead of the plastic/vinyl tape route? Just my opinion, but I think it looks better.
[/QUOTE]
I personaly think the warp and tape is better than the one picture. The one tech flex product doesn’t seal the wires completely as water,dirty or chemicals can go through the mesh sleeve. The heat shirk part is fine, but only if you actually wrap the who harness, but if you leave some areas expose they are more promptly to get damage.
Thanks guys!
Decks- I initially only planned to deloom, reroute, and reloom the harness so I wasnt planning to depin all the connectors like I ended up doing. Its pretty difficult/expensive to get heat shrink big enough to fit over the connectors but small enough to hug the wires tightly so I just decided to use the split loom type of covering. It doesn’t look as baller as the heatshrink/braided harnesses do but most of it is hidden and it works well and keeps it all protected so I ended up going that route with it.
I’m with Aftermath about the flex loom. It has a nice look but I can’t imagine it staying looking nice for long unless the car never sees any dirty situations. Just seems to me that the flex loom will gather dirt and debris and once it’s in there you’ll never get it out. And like Aftermath said, it would allow water and dirt into the loom - which probably won’t cause any problems but the idea of it bugs me.
Mike, I thought you were going to de-pin everything or even crimp on new pins? I’m going to order a bunch of heat shrink today actually. I’ll be getting some 3:1 and 2:1 from Waytek. Between having the 3:1 and being able to de-pin things I think I should be able to put heat shrink on anything I need to. I’m still trying to decide if I’m going to do the whole engine harness in heat shrink, with split loom and tape, or some combination of the two. I was even toying with the idea of split loom with heat shrink over it, but that seems excessive.
[QUOTE=rollinmyda;2306354]Thanks guys!
Decks- I initially only planned to deloom, reroute, and reloom the harness so I wasnt planning to depin all the connectors like I ended up doing. Its pretty difficult/expensive to get heat shrink big enough to fit over the connectors but small enough to hug the wires tightly so I just decided to use the split loom type of covering. It doesn’t look as baller as the heatshrink/braided harnesses do but most of it is hidden and it works well and keeps it all protected so I ended up going that route with it.[/QUOTE]
Gotcha!
I got everything from cableorganizer. They prob have the cheapest prices around. The 1" and 3/4" heat shrink would probably fit over most connectors. I used this:
http://www.cableorganizer.com/nylon/?gcsct=0ChMIqLLazpmmuwIVT77nCh3DOQAAEAA&gcssku=BSNY0125
instead of the normal “techflex” product that isn’t as durable. My bay isn’t dirty by any means but the quality is very good. The braids are elastic so they stay tight but I suppose in a very extreme situation I understand what you guys are saying about penetration.
Looks good though, I know wiring harnesses are a ton of work.
www.waytekwire.com has better pricing on the heat shrink, although they do have some minimum quantity limitations which sucks.
For example, 4’ of 1" 3:1 polyolefin heat shrink:
Lookin good man! Really diggin the harness, its on my to do list to redo it now that I have it in and can see exactly how I want to change it.
Thanks Colin for the link, yet another one from you that I have bookmarked for later xD.
I still want those struts lol. If you have em after xmas I’ll probably grab em from you blown and all. Hardparkin doesnt care if they blown lmao
[QUOTE=Colin;2306361]www.waytekwire.com has better pricing on the heat shrink, although they do have some minimum quantity limitations which sucks.
For example, 4’ of 1" 3:1 polyolefin heat shrink:
Not advertise on their website, but harborfreight has a variety of heat shrink tube that come in a pack of 6 boxes from different sizes for $6. I remember I bought a few packs about a year ago.
Harbor Freight has a bunch of different heat shrink options and pricing is typical Harbor Freight (cheap!).
http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=heat+shrink
I thought about buying from HF but wasn’t sure about the quality so I opted to buy from Waytek since I know their stuff is top quality. Of course the order I just placed was over $100 (stocking up for my garage and my dad’s garage as well) so it wasn’t cheap. But hopefully I won’t ever be recovering most of this wiring.
Colin- I actually did depin and replace about 90 percent of the pins and seals. Mostly because I think the new seals add a lot aesthetically to the finished harness but partly because I shortened most of the wires that I ended up with a bunch of extra of. It was definitely worth the work though because I shrunk the largest part of my harness from about 1 1/2" to a little under 1". I didn’t depin any of the connectors completely at once, I only removed and relengthened each wire one at a time. I really did want to heat shrink the whole thing, I just couldn’t come up with a good way to do it without using breakouts and at that point I probably should have just started from scratch with building my own.
Jdecks- I actually picked up some of that braided loom to try out and really didn’t like the results I was getting with it so I just moved on and tried to get it finished up before wasting any more time on it.
Deceptakan- Thanks! It’s time consuming but as long as you are familiar with how the wiring is run and stay organized its not too difficult at all.
Aftermath- I checked out the shrink tubing they had and was not impressed at all. I can’t remember what site I got mine from but it was decent quality, although the link Colin posted seemed to be cheaper now that I look at it… Damn
Edit- I got my stuff from wirecare.com.
Mike, did you buy your OEM wiring parts from a guy named CJ? I am looking at getting some stuff from him. I was also wondering what wire crimpers you bought.