Final Paint and Clearcoat Complete

The day I've been waiting for for so long has arrived.  The paint and clearcoat are finished.  The only remaining issue is spraying the undercoating, and painting the targa top.  The metallic in the paint doesn't show up well, but trust me, it's in there.

Avila Beach Concours 2010

This weekend is the Avila Beach Concours car show, and unfortunately it was cloudy and drizzly, so attendance was down but there were some great cars nonetheless.

I saw this in the parking lot as I was walking in, the new Honda CRZ hybrid.

 Here are a couple of Lamborghinis and a Porsche 911 GT3 RS

CXC Simulations had a tent, giving demos of their incredible racing simulator.  There are 3 large screens and the driver's seat is on hydraulics to mimic the feel of the track as you drive.  They have hundreds of cars and courses available.  They had pictures of famous drivers using the sim, including F1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton.

This is the Ariel Atom, hand built in Virginia.  This car is insanely fast, and Jeremy Clarkson just gushed over it on Top Gear.  That's him in the second picture; you have to keep your mouth closed as you drive...

Here is a favourite of mine, an Acura NSX, and one of the most beautiful body styles ever, the Porsche Turbo whale tail:

This is a 1937 Bugatti Type 57SC.  It's as good from the back and the front, and one attendee said it was valued at $4 million.

This is a rare mid-60s Toyota sports car, designed by Toyota but built by Yamaha, including Yamaha piano builders for the woodwork.

And this one is for my Dad, a 1953 Jag XK120, hot off a frame-off restoration and several upgrades such as an E-Type rear-end, a 5 speed synchromesh transmission and a more-recent paint color.

Seat Restoration

When I got the car, the seats were in pretty bad shape.  Both seat pads had cracks at the stitching lines, and the driver's seat had cracks in the vinyl on the seat's side.

After a quick, disheartening thought of gluing the seams on the seat pads, I ordered two vinyl pads and a vinyl seat back from Autos International.  They came in very quickly and I started working on the repairs.  I used copious amounts of contact cement that I originally bought to restore the dashboard, but the seat restoration needs a *lot* of contact cement, so be prepared!  Don't use the spray stuff out of the can, use the stuff you get from a specialty fabric store that's specifically for gluing vinyl.

First I pulled the bad vinyl off both seat pads, and replaced it.  Luckily I had a pneumatic stapler in my woodworking toolbox, because each pad takes about 50 staples to hold it in place.  My friend Gary at G Rides took some time out of his work on Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches to re-rivet the seat-holder-clips into place.

Then I went to work on the driver's seat.  I stripped it apart and found some problems with the foam, so I repaired the issues before starting to put the new vinyl on.

The new seat cover was sized perfectly, and the result is great.  Here are the completely new driver's seat, and the original passenger seat with new pad vinyl.  The driver's seat is on the left, with a matte finish from the new factory vinyl, and the passenger seat on the right with a bit of shiny patina...

I also restored the seat slider mechanisms, cleaning them, grinding off rust and oxidation, repainting and clearcoating.  Nobody will see these without sticking their head under the seats, but I know they're there and they look great!

Steve Pittelli is selling his completed 914 electric conversion

If you live near San Luis Obispo California, Steve Pittelli is selling his recently-completed 914 electric conversion.  The electric kit is the same one I'm getting from ElectroAuto.  The price he has it listed for is less than the cost of the car, parts and batteries, so it's a great deal on a way to jump right into the world of electric cars.  I almost bought Steve's car in not-quite-finished state, but he decided to complete the project.

His ebay auction is here http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320599517320#ht_750wt_966

He uploaded some YouTube videos of an introduction to the car and his first few rides:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_MFWcUJm3c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm7e6N6QHnI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvvs79INjmA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpvF-dKX3n8

Good luck on the sale Steve, and to whoever buys it.

Welcome to Home Power Magazine readers

My article, titled "KEEPING TABS ON YOUR PV SYSTEM" has just been published in Home Power magazine, issue 139.

It's a survey of the products and technologies on the market for monitoring your home solar power and overall energy management, which fits in well with my job as the Monitoring Systems Engineer at REC Solar...  You can go to the magazine's web site at http://homepower.com to view sample issues or subscribe to the digital or print editions.

If you have questions about solar power or your monitoring options, I can probably steer you in the right direction!

A fully clean Transmission

Four sessions and around ten hours later, the transmission case is clean enough to eat off.  Compare the pictures here with the one I took when I pulled the transmission off the engine.  It was coated in grime and under the grime was some patchy black paint.  I don't think the paint is factory, so I went all the way down to fresh metal.  I bought two wire bristle wheels at Lowe's and used them in my cordless drill.  This was much more productive than the wire brush I used at the beginning.  I posted a question on the 914EV forum about how I should treat the finished product.  The consensus was to leave it bare or paint it silver metallic, so I sprayed with clear, hoping to avoid any oxidation and to set up a good base for the next time I want to clean.

Start of Final Paint!

I stopped in at Rainbow today to find they are working on the final paint.  They started by spraying the front trunk, passenger compartment, rear trunk, inside door panels and underside of the front and rear trunk lids.  They plan 4-5 coats here and then the exterior surfaces, followed by the clearcoat.  The color looks very deep and rich metallic gray, even in the poor shop lighting you see in the pictures below.

How much will it weigh? How fast will it accelerate?

I wanted to know the completed weight of the converted car to get an idea of the net extra weight from the electric kit minus the weight of the removed gasoline engine, starter motor, fuel tank, etc.

Shari at ElectroAuto says the completed car will weigh about 3300 pounds.  I'll have the car weighed at a local scale once the project is complete.

According to the car specs, it has a curb weight of 2139 pounds, which includes a full tank of fuel.  This means the electric kit is net 1161 pounds heavier.  The US-125XC batteries are 67 pounds each, for a total of 1340 pounds, plus 140 pounds for the electric motor.  Not counting small stuff, this means 319 pounds of original 914 parts are removed from the car.

1161 pounds represents a 54% increase in total weight, which is pretty dramatic.  Luckily the original 1.7 liter engine is pretty anemic, with a 0-60 mph time at 14.0 seconds.  Given the extreme torque of the electric motor I'm hoping to match or beat that.  My traveling needs trade off acceleration and top speed for distance, so I'll be happy to just get up to traffic speeds in a reasonable amount of time.  We'll find out soon.

Cleaning the Dirty Bits

While waiting through the delays getting the body and the electric kit parts, I've been working on cleaning the items I pulled off the car and will be re-installing in the early steps.  The motor mount bar was caked in 37 years of grime, so I power-washed it, scrubbed with degreaser, coated with de-rust fluid, primed, painted in satin black and clear coated.  It's now beautiful!

Next, I started to clean the transmission case.  It's full of nooks and crannies, crammed with grime and flaking paint.  I power-washed, and am halfway through cleaning with a toothbrush-sized wire brush and degreaser.  This is what I started with, second picture is half-complete.

Lastly, I worked on the driveshafts.  The trick is to keep water out of the gearing.  The shaft appears to be covered in a layer of plastic which is flaking away in some places but still holding tight in other places.  The first picture is as pulled off the car, second is ready to go back on.

Can't wait to get the body and the kit and get started!

Guide coat during priming is on

Rainbow sprayed what they call the Guide coat this week.  It's a light black mist sprayed over the primer to give guidance when doing the blocking sanding.  The sanding is complete when there are no black specks remaining.  This ensures a smooth surface, ready for any last-minute body filler or the start of the final paint coats.  Tom found the paint formula for "Porsche Meteor Metallic Gray" so we're getting very close!