My baby turned 300 at last (pic heavy)

[discostig]

Sure do Henz. Saw a PW surge go for like 500 or 700 from xr6tego here in WA recently but couldn't justify the purchase :(

Don't wanna break driveline anyway. I said to myself if a big dollar cost repair came up I'd get a crap daily instead but I conveniently forgot that when the flex plate went!

If I had the billet input shaft Simon reckons the box is good for 800hp!

Edited 27/10/13 02:35 AM by -SteveR-

[Henz]

Seen a few for $700, single 044 early jobbies. Soon they will be popping up 3rd and 4th hand.

[discostig]

Last month I finally got around to ordering a pair of Bosh Aerotwin wipers. Fingers crossed these stay silent and streak free for a while. Passenger side is the new wiper







Around this time I started hearing a buzzing from the driver's door speaker. I thought it was a bit of plastic or something that had started touching the metal panels but no such luck:

After starting a thread here I was recommended to use "Shoe Goo" to stick it back down. Bought some from a shoe repair guy in the shopping centre. It's been a fortnight and what do ya know, it worked a treat.




Also fixed some shoes with it! Standing around in puddles at cruises last winter caused me to resulted in me driving with wet socks afterwards. Seven year old Nikes from my trip to the 'States








And now on to the real update...



So my lovely performing Brembos are looking a bit sad. Rims as well, flash really brings out the worst in them.



I bought a can of red VHT to touch up the brakes myself but felt dirty even considering doing it, I've never spray painted anything in my life. A thread came up over on another forum about brake caliper painting, I shot a PM and was keen but never got a reply on if it could be done over a weekend.

I was attending a massive cruise and didn't dig the faded pink look so with a couple hours before I needed to leave for the cruise I sacked up and had a go at covering as much as I could (picked off the peeling clear with fingernails) without hitting the logo:



Met up at the cruise with Masda74 (Marco) and xr6tego (Brendan) from here, thrashed it all night and got home at 2:30am with slightly lighter tyres. No dirt stuck in the caliper paint and car 100% - great success!

The next day I remembered that one of the well known Perth B series guys turned to painting as a profession a while ago.

I got in touch with Mike/XF Falcon of [FORCED] fame and he was keen as, plus assured me it would only take a weekend, possibly just one day. He reminded me I could have them any colour I wanted. I had grown quite attached to the red calipers against the rims and the rest of the car but I did some googling late one night and got pretty excited. I posted stuff like this up in WA chat



but was met with resistance.

Haters gonna hate! I was in love with my chop plus Mike was keen on bright metallic green, I have a text to prove it.

The above also didn't go down too well with the missus, not that I'd let her decide mind you, but input is always welcome. I slept on it.





The next day I revisited the images and my enthusiasm had been curbed. Looking at more photos and talking to (hassling) Mike we finally decided on a basic colour. I needed to come in with the brakes and look at paint chips to decide the final version. He was free that coming weekend to do it. Drop off on Saturday 7am and if they were hard enough to handle he'd let me have them that arvo! Couldn't fit until Sunday just in case though.

[discostig]

Come Friday night I got home about 6:30pm and changed in to my garage tuxedo. I immediately set to work removing the brakes. Dinner was served after a short while and I scoffed it down. My lovely fiancé came to help me remove the brakes as well, bless her. Finally at about 10:38pm I was done removing them. I really wish I had a hoist when I get stuck into this stuff, but who doesn't...




The Brembos took about 10 minutes once the wheels were off, the PBRs took about a trillion hours due to one stuck bolt that started rounding off until I WD40d it and changed to a plain hexagonal socket from the multi point one.


PS I later found these new wheel chocks are upside down according to the guide, but worse than that they are only to be used on 15" or smaller tyres. WTF, no new car comes with 15" tyres any more!

That was Friday night done, I got to bed at about midnight I think after draining the fluid from the calipers and removing various bits. Up again at 6am (ye gods) to go drop off the parts a bit after 7.

First I set a warning in case anyone found my spare keys, decided to fit the rear wheels and take her for a burn!




PS see the grid of things inside the tool box lid on the right, those are magnets from this forum (cheers Adam) Safest place I could think to store them.


So we get down to Extreme Panel and Paint at 7:10am. It was great to catch up with Mike again and see his gold 1967 XR GT, last I saw him was back at Racewars 2013. Mike when you read this, Jen said the GT reminded her of a pedo's car in some show she's seen. I said she should let you know this for the lulz but she wasn't keen for some reason? LOL. Anyway you can roll up to my playground anytime with a sweet car like that and you won't even need a "free candy" sign to get me to hop in. Wink wink.



I'd googled a couple of paint codes on Thursday night but failed to tell him what they were on the Friday (they can often get them in the same day they are ordered) so when he looked them up in the database they were out one specific additive, 994 I think, anyway he did have a nice pearly one on a colour chip so he mixed it up in front as a sample, I said along the lines of "this with more pearl in it is a goer" and off we went.

I spent the next 5 hours shopping with the missus for useless sh!t like washing machines. Did you know a Yaris can fit a 7L front loader in no problems? Could just about get two in there. Can't even fit ONE in my Falcon. But my car makes loud noises and does skids so whatevs. Also picked up brake fluid (2x500mL Bosch Super DOT4) and a giant syringe to suck out the old stuff.

While I was being mentally flayed alive with shopping chores I asked for progress pics and luckily Mike was only too happy to oblige!

Looking like a horror movie scene with body parts strung up!








At this point I'll chuck in Mike's little essay on the various steps! Cheers Mike (PS f*ck me you weren't kidding about it being fiddly work, I'm impressed):

Block up all brake line fittings,cover bleed nipples and tape over the pistons on all brakes to keep dirt out.

Blow off brakes and clean brake dust off

Sand back peeling clearcoat and brembo decal and smooth off any chips on front brakes.

Disassemble rear brakes

Starting with coarse sandpaper smooth out the casting imperfections back to metal, then finish off with a smoother paper till sanding marks are gone.

Clean surfaces again

Re tape all the pistons to ensure nice and clean still

Clean bare metal parts again and then spray etch primer over those areas

When dry lightly sand to ensure smooth finish

Take off all the tape, clean brakes again thoroughly.

Re mask all the pistons and nipples

Hang items in the booth and go over them again with prepsol and a tack rag to ensure clean dust free surfaces.

Spray on a primer

Since the final colour contains a lot of pearls it is fairly transparent so a groundcoat was sprayed on first which was a slightly darker brown colour to aid in proper coverage

The final colour is sprayed onto the brakes

Baked at 60 degrees for 20 mins to allow the primer/basecoat to dry enough for sticker placement.

Apply stickers to front brakes

A few coats of clearcoat is then applied to the brakes

Brakes are baked at 60 degrees for 30 mins or longer if required

Phew! Now I really know what I payed for.

[discostig]

The next lot of pics he MMSed me got me excited, especially when he sent the ones with a flash on and then out in the sun, but I'll keep those to myself as he was also very excited about how they turned out and I think he was naked in the reflection like those people that sell kettles and pots on ebay









The charade can no longer continue, I did not end up picking green. As sick as it is you would need a black car and rims to really pull it off. And probably the type of car that costs six figures in base spec and gets lap times compared to others on the Nurburgring, hahaha.


Photos before the clear coat went on






I got super excited at the later clear coat + flash shots he sent. I got home and left again about 20 minutes later to go collect the finished products! Once I got home I went berserk with photos. Here's the cream of the crop:

First the rears.



Upon reassembling and looking at the disgustingly dusty/crap covered bolts and brackets in my hi tech storage containers (3L milk carton bottoms) I realised they needed to be cleaned. Mike also advised to let the brakes sit overnight before fitting to get extra hard (giggidy), so I got to work.

Rears with hastily cleaned brackets, not as much love for these as they are a bit effeminate as far as performance brakes go, cheers FPV for giving people a dodgy looking option. Still about as big as my fronts were before though so... Also remember to use loctite on caliper bolts when reassembling



Mike did a great job of smoothing the visible faces. In this pic you can see the pock marked surface on the inside (non visible when fitted) surfaces to compare.




It was dinner time so all I could do was imagine the fronts being fitted at this stage:

Oh my yes, here's a taste




I brought one of each caliper in and sat them on display in the living area above my PC, then took more photos while my nachos got cold.

Dat Redback Reflection <3





Also before someone says something I don't want to turn to April as it's some boring Maserati.


PBRs




Dat light source reflection on Brembo lettering <3

[discostig]

Dinner was over so back to it.







Finished with the rears so I fitted them to the car very carefully. By "very carefully" I mean I whacked a rim against the surface of one of the PBRs whilst fitting it. I saw the paint chip and my heart sank. It was a good test of Mike's materials and skill because the thing was actually just dirt and rubbed off! Hahaha. F*ck yeah.


PBRs fitted (hey look I cleaned my suspension for you):




With those safely on the car it was time to attack the dirty fittings for the mighty fronts.



Plus a wire brush and 1200 grit sandpaper I had laying around.



Main mounting bolts before and after



I forgot to take pics of the pad spring plate thing, but I did that next. You'll see it clearly in the fitted pics, the big shiny plate.

That wasn't enough though. I noticed the nipples were pretty black and one had overspray from my hack job .

Half way through one



Both done



Don't stop yet, pad slider/pin things! These got a good rapid thrusting in the polishing pad lemme tell ya

This pic was taken at 0048 hours. That's almost 1am to the rest of us.



Jen woke up and came to see what I was doing. She managed to talk some sense into me and I went to bed.


Next morning, wake up at 7:45am and have a rest browsing the forums on phone, 8:30am get up, eat 5x Vita Brits and back on it!


The locking pins, or whatever they are really called, sitting on the foam polishing pad.





It's alllllllll worth it though!

Booyah






I wish I had new rubber nipple caps though. Cute.






Almost there. Reassemble passenger side the same way, whilst taking pics:

Pad backs wire brushed a bit clean


Plus this stuff just in case



All wheels off, all brakes on, being ultra careful and getting the existing fluid lines on there quick as to avoid brake fluid running down the calipers. Had a rag there to soak it up as I went.



Clean the wheels and finally get inside the stud holes properly, leave them to dry



With all fittings done up, time to change fluid out

Old fluid, which may or may not have had the giant beetles in it, you decide




New fluid, mmmm yum

[discostig]

By now it was almost 6:30pm, how did that happen? Chuck the wheels on and BAM

Oops, wrong picture, here we go


BAM























Finally today I got some pics in almost clear sunlight, just thin cloud




Forgot to try HDR mode so the sunlight kinda killed the dark areas (rear wheel well) in the above shot.


What I really need though is a rolling shot in decent sunlight, so I'll need to have someone film me driving along to see how they look on the road!


Also took the opportunity to snap this - same colour, same rims, same brakes - except mine are prettier. Same issues with the clear on the rims too hahaha.


Simply put, I'm ecstatic with the result. I think I gained 10rwkw as well.

Massive thanks to Luke for selling me these, Mike for painting them and sharing my enthusiasm, and Jen for helping remove them on Friday then feeding me and keeping me alive during the non stop Friday night to Sunday night saga.

It's farking 2:24am, I should have waited until tomorrow to finish this! Cars do funny things to people.

[sexual harrassment panda]

Great work Steve

[xr6tnv]

Mate awesome work as always ! What a fantastic write up on the whole car ! The newly coloured brembos look killler.

[tab]

Needs more pics.

Oh and brilliant write-up Steve All we need now is some pillock to ask about painting the rest of the car and we're pretty much done.