650sx rebuild and restoration.

[Myself]

Remember, half the people out there are below average!

HALF!!..........you're being too kind!

I never saw any finished pics.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Not finished yet , I am repairing all the cracks inn the hood right now buy 650SX restoration does not keep the doors open here so loys of other suff going on for that ourpose.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I ground down the cracks in the hood yesterday and there were many, pretty typical on 650SX hoods, I used a die grinder and a carbide bit and cased the cracks as far as I felt comfortable with without going through the material.

Then this morning I mixed up some chopped glass, epoxy and cabosil, this puts some strength back into the hood but it doesn't lay down really well, to fix that issue I let it set up for a while then use packing tape over the repaired area to force it to lay down, it also allows you to Manipulate the material a bit.

Sorry but it's kinda hard to see in the photos because the epoxy-chopped glass is almost the same color as the SMC.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I got all of the cracks filled and faired out, I did all the sanding I can do by hand, the rest is so tight it has to be done with paint sticks and tongue depressors with sticky back sandpaper on them,, yes it's that tight. I have it all fixtured up to put the pieces back on that hold the hood from going side to side , a lot of them were missing or broken.

This has been the least fun and most time consuming part of this project thus far, it flat out sucks !

The foam is wrapped in saran wrap with cardboard shoved behind it and it's all held in place with scotch tape, I am sure I will have to keep a close eye on it when it is setting up and make sure it dries at just the right angle, some tweaking will most defiantly be involved here and I don't mean the kind of tweaking they do in Montgomery either.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

The next issue is I am going to have to build or borrow a spray booth to paint this in, the lovebugs are out in force right now, no way you are painting anything white outside without it being full of lovebugs. Everytime I do any type of FRP epoxy work they get all in it.

My garage has a really nice exhaust fan I will probably clean that out and spray it there.

 

[Half flip95]

Remember, half the people out there are below average!

Ha!

The math doesn't check out, but hilarious nonetheless

 

[kevbo]

Almost no people are perfectly average, half are above and the other half below. Using standard deviations will place the majority near the mid point with a few really smart and dumb ones at the ends. There's a book called "The bell curve" that demonstrates the phenomenom very well.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

And we now return you to the regularly scheduled programming.

Trimmed it up some then laid up another layer of fiberglass tape and cabosil,-epoxy , when that dries and is sanded I am going to lay up some cloth on those flat areas and extend it up to the hood tabs, I don't plan on touching this again ever.t
Attached Files

 

[Half flip95]

"if it ain't white, it aint right"
-kevbo

 

[kevbo]

"if it ain't white, it aint right"
-kevbo

You said it!

 

[WFO Speedracer]

"if it ain't white, it aint right"
-kevbo

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I had to wait till the temps got back up to continue the body, well at least that's what I am going with.

I have hardener and reducer, it's slow hardener and reducer for 80 degrees and above , I am a cheapass and I am not buying medium reducer and hardener , at least not for this job anyway , plus regardless of reducer and hardener paint sprays a lot better in warmer temperatures, that's just a fact.

At any rate I finished the inside of the hood and sprayed it , it's nothing great and wonderful just Rustoleum flat white , why flat paint you ask, because I am trying to mimic the stock SMC finish and hey it's the inside of a damn hood !

I should get the finsh work done on the outside of the hood and get it in primer and then paint sometime next week, we hit 80 degrees here about Monday

 

[Myself]

OOoooo......purty!

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I had a couple of spots on the hood I am not happy with yet , the epoxy was starting to thicken so it didn't go on that well, no bigge it will take a couple of tries to get it where I want it on this one.

 

[Myself]

This is what it's like in REAL LIFE. Fill, sand, repeat, over and over. Not any of that 15 minutes and it's perfect crap that everybody sees on TV.