The Church of Alvis

A couple people said I should post pics of what I was workin on yesterday with my car badges.

Instead of flooding the forums here with pics I am providing a link to my photobucket:

Ian's Auto Photobucket

My grandpa drives one of those!

Well, I ain't no young buck!

Nice, I'm still very impressed by how that interior wrap worked.

Looking for an audience for your stuff? A buddy and former co-worker of mine started http://garagelove.com/ to give anyone an outlet and an readership.

I'm not 100 percent happy with the badges. Came out blacker than I was intending so I will probably go back and do them again later. I kinda rushed the "hamburger", I made the NISSAN lettering blue as well, but effed up the black around it when the tape came off, touched up with the Blk Chrom again but it darkened the lettering so you can't tell unless you are right near the car.

I am happy they are not chrome anymore though. I cannot stress how much I hate chrome.

I'm also going to remove the wrap from the mirrors and do them in actual Carbon Fiber. I found some kits that will let me do it myself. Not a full mold setup, but it it real CF and resin, so it wont look (or actually be) fake at all. Eventually I am going to redo the inside as well. Either tighten it up, or change the CF out completely. That's a ways down the road though.

How will you place the carbon fiber around the curves in the mirrors without it bunching up?

Carbon fiber is basically a cloth substrate. You put down a tacky base coating, almost like a black epoxy, then you put on the CF. It is quite conformable actually. After that's on, its layers of a gel coat and wet sands 3 or 4 times and finish off with a polishing compound. Each run or two of it I do is gonna cost me a bit over 80 bucks, so if the first two I do get botched real bad, I probably won't continue with it.

Sent using smoke signals from my campfire.

I've actually done a tiny bit of work with CF: Timma and I built a battery tie-down out of some scraps leftover from one of Timma's school projects back in the day. I think he got the other one? It was structural and not blingy, so we didn't have any gelcoat to pretty it up. That was more than 10 years ago, it's still holding strong. But we were dealing with a very messy situation involving a mold, some felt absorbing stuff and a plastic vacuum bag to seal the thing overnight while it cured.

Yeah we started with dry carbon, sounds like shattner might be going pre-preg which has some resin in the fabric already. Pre-preg is a lot better for cosmetic finishes (weave doesn't get messed up when you brush the epoxy on) and should be just as strong if not stronger. Might be a bit cheaper to start with dry carbon if I remember right but yeah, it's been a loooong time since I messed with the stuff.

Lookin' good there shattner, like the bit of blue mixed in on the badges.

Skiggity wrote:But we were dealing with a very messy situation involving a mold, some felt absorbing stuff and a plastic vacuum bag to seal the thing overnight while it cured.

For someone who's fairly new to CoA you seem to know an awful lot about what happens in Jeezbus' basement...

yay! /happydance

New suspension gets delivered tomorrow!
Unfortunately I have to let it sit until the 13th because I have to buy a new low profile jack and I'm waiting on my new front rotors

Pick out a jack yet? Rolled the dice on a harbor freight one (1.5t I think? $150 or so), love it so far but only used it <10 times so no word on longevity. Looks identical to the other Chinese aluminum jacks out there, so could die on the next try or could last another 5 years. We'll see...

Actually I was checkin one out there, a 2t quick lift for 89.00. Probably the way I'm gonna go since I'm not rough on my tools. It should last long enough.

Sent using smoke signals from my campfire.

I went with the $130 one for its extra couple of inches of height, 17.75 vs 14.75 (unless I'm looking at the wrong one, they have a lot of similar ones). Worth investigating how short your stands are at the lowest height.

I've seen the Harbor Freight aluminum ones last quite a while, but it's the kind of jack where you ALWAYS want a jack stand just in case if you're under the car.

I picked up a Craftsman aluminum race jack about 10 years ago on sale for $99, and it STILL rocks hard. Tucks in low and pretty good altitude. And I have an old steelie for brute work, but it's a monster to try to load in and out of the car for autox days.

I literally have no idea what you guys are talking about at this point, so here is a picture of a pimped out prius.



FUEL ECONOMY REPRESENTING!!!

Skiggity wrote:but it's the kind of jack where you ALWAYS want a jack stand...

So...it's a jack? I'd use stands even if I had a brunnhoelzl. That is also such a made-up-looking name.

And I think it has changed since you got yours, but the craftsman one is now made in china too. It had similar hit-or-miss reviews to the HF when I was researching. Seems like it's all down to the seals.

Yeah most jacks that are of real quality are way out of my price range. So I shall make due with something cheaper for the time being.
My parents have a big ass steel floor jack, but they live an hour away in the middle of the boonies and I frankly don't want to be out there that long. That plus I have the feeling that once I put these coils on I wont be able to drive down their driveway without bottoming out. Pothole City.

My jackstands arent extraordinarily tall, but I aint a small guy to be crawlin under a car. I am definitely checkin lift height before I buy.

And to translate for Joun:

Oh you are making a Tonka Toy. Got it.

Marrkin wrote:

This is what you get when you let KITT have sex with a monster truck.

Blackferne wrote:Oh you are making a Tonka Toy. Got it.

Nah, but if its this high up when I need to crawl under it, then I don't have to hold my breath and suck in da'gut.

They're heeeere.....

Hijacking the car thread (is that then carjacking?)
Is there a good website on tuning for dummies? I'm thinking about 'improving' my car, but there are just so many things out there I don't know where to start.