My 182ff track car build (so far)

[1985michael182]

So the next day in it's new home at work I got up early and blitzed it. Stripping everything off. Took me just under 3 hours but I was being careful and labeling boxes/parts. Never know how long it will be in bits.
I was just going to paint the 1/4's but the wings looked crap and the the doors would look a different colour so I though sod it I'll do lot!!

The fuel tank I sprayed in wheel acid and steam cleaned it, came up nice

All the panels ready to prep

The door wiring seemed a bit OTT considering I only need the central locking system. That will need addressing and chasing back when I rebuild

 

[frayz]

Superb job dude. Looking really nice

 

[Optimista]

Loving this..

Whats the deal with alu foil on holes?

 

[gambit]

Amazing! really digging these resto builds in the clio community. Keep up the great work! Go to town on it and lots of pics please.

 

[1985michael182]

Loving this..

Whats the deal with alu foil on holes?

Blocking them off to stop the water ingress. I waxoil inside all the panels aswell. Future proofing

 

[Chambers_RS]

Fully committed 👌🏻
Top work that

 

[1985michael182]

I do try

 

[Nafoff]

So, what colour is it going?

 

[1985michael182]

So, what colour is it going?

I was thinking liquid yellow with hot pink polka dots??
Or is that too ,busy?

 

[David172]

Orange of course 💪

 

[1985michael182]

Orange of course 💪

Orafuckinge is your baby

 

[Nafoff]

I was thinking liquid yellow with hot pink polka dots??
Or is that too ,busy?

Reverse blobby?

 

[Coops Mk1]

great work, just read beginning to end! can't believe the amount of corrosion for a 47k car though! there is less on my 218k one!

caught it just in time though to prevent need for major cut out repairs so good stuff and lick of paint and she'll look a treat!

 

[1985michael182]

great work, just read beginning to end! can't believe the amount of corrosion for a 47k car though! there is less on my 218k one!

caught it just in time though to prevent need for major cut out repairs so good stuff and lick of paint and she'll look a treat!

Yea it doesnt do cars any good to be sat. When you drive the air can circulate around everything and dry it out. Plus washing you car off removes the sodium.
But you are right i was surprised at how bad it was at the rear. I've bossed it now though.

 

[Eddie555]

I was thinking liquid yellow with hot pink polka dots??
Or is that too ,busy?

But you know better than to nick my Hot pink.. Its mine and all mine..[emoji3061]

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[1985michael182]

But you know better than to nick my Hot pink.. Its mine and all mine..[emoji3061]

Sent from my SM-G977B using Tapatalk

I'm not man enough to pull it off

 

[1985michael182]

I started on the offside.
I jacked it up, removed the wheels and masked the holes to stop dust going inside the car.

The sills where littered with galv bubbles, and small areas of corrosion so I wire wheeled the corrosion and used 80grit to remove the paint to bare metal.

There was a few areas where some Rupert has tried to Jack the car up not on a jacking point 🤦‍♂️ so I used vice grips to twist the flanges back down then used a flat chisel at the back as a dolly and panel beated them square again.
The original jacking points are made of chocolate anyway so at the front I cut some 2mm steel measured it up and fabricated some reinforcements.
I started by mig braising the sill panel to the jacking point first and dressed it flush with the belt sander.

Then I clamped my new peice in place.

Mig braize around the panel, then I tapped the new panel around the sill and braized together on the inside underneath. Not pretty but very strong.

The rear 1/4 I sanded down to bare metal using 80 grit then blended into the original paintwork with 180/240.
Same with the fuel filler neck and the window aperture.

Guy before me decided to drill the rear 1/4 lexan windows and nut and bolt them rather than window bond. The holes gave me a bit of an issue, if I weld them I will burn the paint off the inside! So what I decided to do was used a 10mm drill bit to taper the holes from the outside. I stuck some plastic stickers over the holes from the back and then used metal filler to fill the holes up.

The full side was then finished in 320grit on the DA sander and wet grey scotch brite. I also buzzed this side of the roof down with 500grit and made some small repairs to where the vent sits on the roof.

 

[1985michael182]

Now that one side was prepared I got it straight into primer to stop any potential corrosion starting up again as I didnt know how long it would be before the other side would be ready for primer or when I would get it done.

I also cut the wing mounting bracket off at the front as it was rusty and the front wheel sometimes caught on it. Dont think i need it.

I started preparing the panels whilst the oven was on bake. The wings didnt seem to take the original paint very well and flaked off.

Doors are just a quick buzz off and remove any blemishes. They have a couple of dents but I'm not bothered as they are just blend panels which I will probably change for fibreglass in the future.

Skirts I took back to bare plastic they where pretty battered from stone chips.

I bought some cup racer brake ducts which had turned up so I cracked on with test fitting them.

I had to cut loads out of the bumper to make them fit but with the air saw and belt sander it made light work of it. I think I would have been pretty cheesed off doing it with hand tools.
I will do them gloss black to match the headlight blanks.

 

[1985michael182]

Ok next

So I completed the exact same repairs to the full nearside of the car as I did to the Offside.

Primed it and then guide coated the full car with a light coat of black aerosol.
I then used 400grit on my sanding block with light pressure to take the top off the primer and also to check for any missed dents or imperfections.
I then used a black powder guide coat which you rub on to the panels with a soft pad.
This allowed me to use 500grit on the DA sander with a sponge backing pad to remove the 400 marks. Whilst not creating any imperfection with the sander.
Then to finish I used 800 wet and dry in all the areas that the DA wouldnt get into plus the edges of the panels to finish them off.
This is so I'm not left with square lines around all of the panels from blocking and using the DA.
Used water based degreaser to clean the residue off the panels and an air blower to get the trapped water out of any areas the panel cloth couldnt reach.
Last but not least one final neat mask up making sure nothing will flap or create dust whilst painting, and viola ready to paint!!

Easy really 🤣

It was then sheeted down to stop people with their greasy mits touching it, spider and fly $H1T landing on it and fo keep dust of as much as possible.
Hand prints can totally ruin your paint work because of the oils in your skin.

Next step paint

 

[RSRowe]

i wish i had this skill.
the paint would look like the tide coming in if i went anywhere near a spray gun

 

[1985michael182]

i wish i had this skill.
the paint would look like the tide coming in if i went anywhere near a spray gun

It does help the wallet considerably to be able to do it yourself.

I hate prepping but 90% of the finish is in the prep.
I'm a egg whisker by trade, painting/prepping bores the hell out of me.

 

[1985michael182]

Haha egg whisker ☝️☝️🤣🤣🤣
That was supposed to be panel beater 😆

 

[1985michael182]

Ok this is it, paint time at last!!

I pulled it into the oven, jacked it up and placed it on stands underneath the car.

I Finalised the masking ensuring I hadn't left anything, panel wiped it twice with solvent (wax on wax off style) then used the antistatic blow gun and tack rag to remove any final dust particles and to discharge the panels so they dont statically attract any more dust.

Same with the doors, these needed to be painted at the same time as the shell to make sure they come out the same colour. The wings being plastic will always look slightly off because the paint takes to different substrate differently. They are also a different angle to the doors which automatically makes them look wrong.
You could paint steel, ally, plastic and fibreglass with the same pot of paint and all would be slightly different.
So the wings will be done with the trims.

At this point I forgot to take pictures during the painting process so sorry for that but I obviously have pictures post painting.

I'm really happy with it, looks fantastic in the sun, blinds you,!😆

I wasted no time at all and started the build up. Nice clean petrol tank to fit with nice new stainless bolts and washers. 😉

 

[gambit]

Wow hats off to you, that paint looks mint fresh !

 

[1985michael182]

Yea it's not bad, couple of bits of dust to nib and polish but pretty clean as a whole.

 

[Krarl]

Can't believe you haven't painted it something interesting 👀 😂

 

[1985michael182]

Can't believe you haven't painted it something interesting 👀 😂

I know what you are saying but this silver in the sun light is pretty special. I really like it. It will hold better value/resale not in a lairy bold colour.

 

[497adam]

Top work ! Nice to learn a bit about the paint process


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[1985michael182]

The rear brakes came back from Biggred just in time to finish the rear axle off. I added Carbon Loraine CL5+ rear pads and ran the proline braided lines back to them.

Really happy with the overall look and finish with it.
I ran the new handbrake cables, fitted the wheels and dropped it back onto the floor.

Now it was a rolling shell I could start the build up of the bodywork.
I'm planning on keeping this one so I need to future proof it with waxoil.
I started with the front inner wings. Taping up the holes and cavity wax inside the panels.

Thermo formed lexan 1/4 glass was next.

 

[Colin-S]

Incredible build! Well documented and enjoyable read. I'd be scared to drive it or get it dirty after doing all that work, you've got a lot of skills I wish I had. Congrats!

 

[gambit]

Wow just wow!

 

[finch wxm]

Which thermoform kit you using ?

 

[Nafoff]

Very nice mate. Looks like its coming together very very well

 

[1985michael182]

The rear brakes came back from Biggred just in time to finish the rear axle off. I added Carbon Loraine CL5+ rear pads and ran the proline braided lines back to them.View attachment 1506706
View attachment 1506704View attachment 1506705
Really happy with the overall look and finish with it.
I ran the new handbrake cables, fitted the wheels and dropped it back onto the floor.
View attachment 1506707View attachment 1506709
Now it was a rolling shell I could start the build up of the bodywork.
I'm planning on keeping this one so I need to future proof it with waxoil.
I started with the front inner wings. Taping up the holes and cavity wax inside the panels.
View attachment 1506710

Which thermoform kit you using ?

ACW ?
AWC?
Something like that

 

[1985michael182]

Thanks guys, shes a labour if love!
More to follow

 

[JamesBryan]

ACW ?
AWC?
Something like that

ACW yeah.

 

[Nafoff]

ACW yeah.

Didn't know they did thermo now.
I had the original clio kit from them way back when they very first started (a sponsorship thing when I was on Fastcar, that is whats on the Clio).
Weirdly I have now moved just down the road from them.... I need to pop back and say hello

 

[JamesBryan]

Didn't know they did thermo now.
I had the original clio kit from them way back when they very first started (a sponsorship thing when I was on Fastcar, that is whats on the Clio).
Weirdly I have now moved just down the road from them.... I need to pop back and say hello

Yeah they never used to, it was only Plastic4Performance that did the Clio ones back in the day.

 

[1985michael182]

I just called them and asked and they said yea no problem

 

[1985michael182]

I skimmed over a couple of things in that last post which I thought I should address.

The door Lexan windows I cleaned up and machine polished to revive them before I built them up as they were a bit scratchy.
The sills where the skirt rivets go I waxoiled and then waxoiled the rivet heads once fitted.

Prior to fitting the tailgate I weighted it. 15.6 kg. Think a fibre glass one is 5kg so future job.

The cup spoiler is pretty heavy too. 2.6kg

I de pinned the door and tailgate wires I no longer wanted just leaving the central locking.

I also bought the de wiper kit about 2 years ago and never got round to fitting it so I bonded that in too whilst the bonding was out for the rear 1/4s.

So next, I figured "Winter is coming" so I need some wet tyres.
I got the extreme super soft full wets.
Look great and they really are super soft!
Fitted them to the second set of 2118's. I contemplated getting different colour decals for these wheels bit like F1 with different coloured side walls for different tyres.

Very nice 😁