5/27/2012

This Is Black

Hello again, it's time for another update. We spent two days with my ever so helpful assistant Hanna at the garage again. The car is quite rapidly moving towards completion, missing the ABS sensors still but I expect to get some money soon enough so I can get them ordered. A lot of pics this time, so let's cut the crap. :)


Here's a pic of the latest purchases, the reverse radar from DealExtreme.com arrived.. Box a bit damaged but everything seems good, won't know until install which is probably next winter. Also I bought 2 cans of VHT Vinyl spray, Satin Black. A+ stuff. :)


So here's the dashboard after spraying on the vinyl dye. Looking good, I thought the color'd be more matt as I had a semigloss / gloss theme going on but apparently "satin black" is as glossy as my glossy black in the upper part of the dash, so that didn't work quite well. :D Oh well, it works out cos' now I can leave the black matt objects such as the steering column alone, as they will play that role now in the theme.. Also they would've been totally bitchy to paint with all the buttons and shine through labels in them.. It'll probably be better this way !


Hanna sanded this and all the other black _plastic_ bits you're going to see. She also painted them all. What a great girl. ;)


Together, we got the dash installed, wasn't as painful as I thought it would be. A lot of bits to attach still but it'll come through next time I think.


Here's a new vs old pic. :P As I'm going to have to leave the doorcards until next winter as well, I just aim to put this back together now and get it on the road for the summer. Besides I haven't got the money to build the speaker stuff yet which is an essential after doorcard removal process. Anyhow, like the left better ?

 Anyhow, here's just a few of the many items she did. We used matt black and semigloss varnish on them, looks pretty good although here they ended up being a little less glossy than I thought, but it looks good altogether.


And sadly some of the items had a lot of problems with the combination. We are unsure why, cos she sanded em down and tried again and this is actually a pic of the second trial. I need to try again, I think it's the varnish / paint combination, they somehow don't like each other as the "pattern" appears after second coat of varnish. She did a splendid job though, but we all know sometimes this just simply happens. :)

So that's it for now, there's a few pics I didn't post again in the Picasa album link to the right, you can check them out there.

See you in about two weeks. Enjoy the summer !

5/10/2012

All the gauges

Well I got around to install the new gauge dials and the Autogauge boost meter. Also, it took a lot of time for everything to find its place in the garage. But I think 2-6 days at garage and the car is ready.. I just need the sensors..! My finance is a lot worse than I thought so unless Mark from FordProbeStore actually gets something done with the money I've sent him a year ago for the sensors, it might a be a few months until I can afford them... But I _will_ drive this summer! :)


Here's the dials in dark. The color is actually more white, the camera distorts the color. The needles are also lit by the stock system, so that's cool. :) It was a lil bit of PITA to install the dials as I was so sure I was going to break some of the needles or mechanisms of the gauges as the needles were so fucking tight. Luckily, my loyal tool, the fork (yes, fork) didn't left me down. :)

If anyone does the same, temp oil and fuel gauges require the rod taken apart from the needle by squeezing the attaching point a little with nose needle pliers to break the glue. Then you place the rods before you install the face because you need to make the rods go through another blue plastic ring below the dials. You will need to remove all screws under there and be very careful not to lose anything or switch place of the parts. Otherwise it's pretty much the same as always.


During daylight. I tried to remove the plastic in the front so I could have painted the plastic black but it cracked a bit, it's glued very tight. Maybe if I get my hands on a spare, I might try again. It would look so much better if the plastic was black .


Added some more stuff to my own electrical center. :)

 This is the boost meter I mentioned. I still need to drill a hole to the drive computer cover (don't have drive computer). For some reason the gauge showed almost 1.0 bar vacuum and I couldn't get it to boost zone in the idle.. We'll see how it works during drive. There was some weird valve in the T-pipe that came with it, it doesn't seem to have any logic in it as you could blow and suck through anyway.


One more pic of them both babies. :) Booyah!

Anyways, next time I'm hoping to paint the dash and get it installed.. Until then. :) Happy beginning of the summer!