Steering

Finished up mounting the steering today. Had a moment of clarity last night to solve a minor engineering problem and banged it out in about an hour and a half today on my last day of vacation. Now it's really ready for paint.

The Grey Ghost

We finaly got some decent warm weather up here in the great? Northwest and I had a little time to finish up all the small bodywork items that needed to be done still. Here it is all ready for paint. I'm just waiting for my painter to get his last project out the door and he can come get mine and get started. The steering colum is done just need to put the final weld on it.

Maybe I will have this thing done before summer is over!

Hubcaps?

I decided I didn't like the plain four bolt look on the car and the smoothie hubcaps look nice but I wanted something a little more racy looking so I have been looking for something to spruce up the wheels for awhile. I found these plastic covers in our local VW parts store, the world famous BOW WOW auto parts, they were hanging way up near the ceiling all dusty and they had 5 left so I bought them all to try them out. 5 bucks each so what the hell. I found some Porsche crest badges on ebay for 15 bucks that were the same size as the VW emblem in the center that look pretty good.

I had a moment of inspiration today anf thought there might be a way to make them match the chrome wheels a little better so I stopped by the local NAPA store and bought a can of Duplicolor chrome paint. I them trimmed all the sharp edges and flash off the hubcap and primed it with Krylon Fusion paint. This paint is made to stick to plastic and is an enamel just like the chrome paint and really works well. After the Fusion was dry I put on a good coat of the chrome and it layed down really smooth over the Fusion and looks like polished Aluminum. I think they loook pretty cool. The caps are made by REVESCAR and I don't know if they are even available any more but there should be some floating around out there someplace.

Which way do we go?

Got my steering wheel dilemma sorted out. Keep in mind that if you use a NARDI steering wheel and the adaptor that T/R uses on their cars with it. The steering shaft that you need to use is the pre collapsible shaft version. I'll call it the middle years version. It's after the late 50's models and say pre 1970. The late 50's models have very large chunky splines on the shaft. The middle years have kind of finer machined splines and the collapsible shafts have a smaller overall diameter with small splines. I was able to get another complete shaft assy. from a friend so I'm good to go. Just need to cut to length now.

My name is Bondo, James Bondo

Finished up most of the exterior bodywork today still a couple areas that need a little help that I noticed after I primed the front fenders. The weather was good enough today to give the car it's first good wash since I strated working on it 2 years ago. It was nice to get all the dust and crap off it and it makes it a little easier to spot what I still nedd to work on. One thing to watch for while you are doing the bodywork is the globs of wax they use as mold release. Some of it is pretty tough to get off as it has hardened up over time.

DUH!

Remember the J tubes I was bitching about not fitting well................THEY FIT FINE! if you install them correctly. They need to run over the frame crossmember not under it like I was trying to do. One more mistake you don't have to make now that I have made it for you.

Man, my arm is tired!

Started doing the bodywork the last couple weekends. Lots of little stuff to fix. mostly pinholes in the gelcoat. The biggest area that needs work is over and around the front fenders. I ordered to wide body option and the flares up front look like they are cut into the stock fenders and then glassed on so there is some rough sanding marks that need attention. Also around the back behind the passenger compartment by the headreast there a quite a few small imperfections that need a little bondo but overall not so bad. I wet sanded with 600 grit to smooth it all out clean it with body prep and then prime it and go back over it to see if I missed anything. Overall the fiberglass work on the kit is pretty good and tough.