Ivan's coupe: bodywork is done

[banpei]

Looking great Ivan!
Didn't you take photos of the roof before you sent it to shotblasting?

I think there is a lot of change in the way people consume media nowadays. Build threads like this don't fit in the newer media like FB/Instagram/Wheelwell, while many actually find the "traditional" forums a bit outdated. I like the idea by Thomas where the TS can only post, but that would be impractical for reading the comments. It would be better if the replies would somehow be indented. I'll have a look if I find something similar to that for mybb.

[Ivan141]

It may well be a little outdated, but Instagram is only for showing off imo, how are you going to learn something you need to know from there? The catalogueing function of a forum is lost with social media.

Enough nagging about everything being better in my day though.. I'm moving to the desktop to post up some pics of my powdercoated brackets 'n stuff.

Sent from my FIG-LX1 using Tapatalk

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So, as I was saying: I picked up all my brackets and suspension arms etc from the powder coaters today..
The color was a bit of a shot in the dark since I went there thinking to get them coated a flat RAL graphite gray, but the man kindly offered I could pick anything I like, including metallics, so I went for something resembling gunmetal metallic.
It looks a bit brighter in full light but it has a nice sheen to it and makes the parts look really good IMO. So I'm very happy with this, even though most of the parts will rarely see the light of day on the car..

The rear axle will need some extremely thorough cleaning before I dare mount any decent ring & pinion / LSD in there though, I plugged everything off for blasting but enough dust found it's way in there, and if I learnt one thing it's that blasting dust wreaks havoc on moving parts.

[banpei]

(04-10-2019 07:29 PM)Ivan141 Wrote:  It may well be a little outdated, but Instagram is only for showing off imo, how are you going to learn something you need to know from there? The catalogueing function of a forum is lost with social media.

I agree about the "showing off" factor of Instagram and I totally accept the medium being useful for that. Personally I get a lot of inspiration from Instagram on artistic-level, but that's a whole different story.

The problem I have is rather more that FB groups and pages replaced the forums in some sort of way. I tried it some time ago with various pages/groups, but I found it very annoying people just keep on posting photos of their builds over and over again without seeing the whole context. Many just keep commenting on things that had been covered in a previous post, so that could have been avoided. (exit rant here...)

More on topic: about the powder coated parts: that looks great!
Did it cost an arm and a leg? Ten years ago I powder coated my rims and I was shocked by the high price they asked for it.

[Ivan141]

It wasn't cheap, but I did bring them at least 30 parts.
My post with the pics doesn't seem to come up on tapatalk for some reason.. Odd.

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[Bean]

(04-10-2019 09:49 PM)Ivan141 Wrote:  It wasn't cheap, but I did bring them at least 30 parts.
My post with the pics doesn't seem to come up on tapatalk for some reason.. Odd.

Sent from my FIG-LX1 using Tapatalk

I can see 3 pictures after the quote without issue on Tapatalk?

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[Ivan141]

It didnt refresh the post until I left the thread. Did make a bit off a mess with that quote though.

[Ivan141]

So,

I bought myself some panel beating hammers and dollies and have decided that my supply of ruined trunklids is a good place to start learning a new skill.

Here's the worst trunk as it came back from blasting:


2 hours of very loud beating later:


Still needs heaps of work, but with enough patience I think something may come of it.

[banpei]

It surely does look a lot better than before! I'm sure you will master this skill like you did before with welding!

[Power_uP]

Yeah dude, lid looks better already. When I restored mine back in 2006 I should have done more of the work myself and learned some new skills. I've think you've got the right idea.

[Ivan141]

This is skillful work that takes a lot of practice to master. I'm not going to kid myself into thinking I'll be a pro at it,
but with the right mindset a lot can be achieved. Even if I could find someone who does this professionally and would
be willing to do it I doubt I could afford the cost. I heard what it cost Aram to get his roof straightened at a body shop
and it's no joke.
Thank god for forum threads and youtube vids (even though there arent many about tackling this exact type of damage)
or I would really be in the dark about where to begin.

The trunklid still has some slight depressions if you look at it in the right light (difficult to see though) so that needs to be
addressed first. Now the raised sections have oil canning because the metal is still stretched so that will need to be shrunk back.
If I can get it to where it's not floppy and relatively flat that will be fine with me.. then I'll take that experience and start on the roof.