But they are aluminum you could have polished them

Silver is never too bright, IMO. Your car, your wheels, your choice, but it's not what I would have done on a dark car. It'll look nice with the Tethys, though!

Medium silver is now on order - I tried them on the car with my test fender, they were too dark. It won't take very long to get them squirted the right colour. They were far to far gone for polishing (and the thought never crossed my mind, honest).

Here's the final finished product...I'd say this colour is more of a titanium than silver, but it isn't too dark. It shows off the details on the wheels very well and is much better than yesterday's colour.

Thanks Matt.

Meh...woulda' looked better white...

Oh my...not on this car. I'm just not a big fan of white wheels (well, certain wheels like GT wheels and rally wheels etc are cool).

Got the car undercoated finally. Not much point taking pictures of that - it's black and clean. The UPol Gravex stuff is wicked. Don't know how it will hold up, but it sure does apply nicely. I've got to get the suspension put back together and get the underhood ready to shoot. Still a few miles to go, but I'm hoping to get this done over the weekend and then start on the body prep work. Should shoot the entire car sometime next week!

I had a few issues at work today and didn't get much done on the car...my day, however went better than the guys at the paint store. They mixed up the litre of paint that I needed for the under hood of the car, but did it in single stage instead of base/clear. So I got a free litre of single stage to match the colour the car is getting painted.

What's a guy to do? How about paint some suspension parts to match the car (in case anyone checks). So the torque rods, panhard rod and sway are now a match to the body colour. Again, sanding them off left an even better surface to apply paint to than when I put the parts away. I stopped short of doing the drive shaft - I have to show some restraint.


Tomorrow/Saturday I'll get the front suspension changed over and the rear suspension installed. Then its on to painting the trunk (going to use the single stage for that) and the under hood area. Then the engine has to get done and installed before the rest of the car gets finished.

In most racing classes, the driveshaft must be painted white so it shows up should it fall out of the car for some reason. Porsche Cayenne blue probably won't pass inspection.

I think the wheels look much better in titanium, but I really hope you didn't take me seriously before!

This "winter" car is going to look better than any car I've owned up to date.

Edit - what do you do to kill rust, Craig? For instance - the underbody of a car, where everything's surface rusted. Do you apply (nitric?) acid, or just buff it as best you can? Then what? Just hit it with undercoat? What about body parts, like the seam between two panels? This all could maybe go in another thread...

this was supposed to be a beater right?

I thought POR 15 was a rust sealer/ inhibitor, and can just go right over surface rust?

I know some who like the stuff, but I've never had good luck with it. I'm willing to try it again if I know it was my fault (prep, prime, etc) and I know it'll last. All my attempts to use it were met with dismal failure.

Of course I took you seriously no really. I wasn't all that happy with them that dark, but they were so much better than what I started with that I was temporarily pleased. Seeing them on the car with the fender left me a little .

Killing rust - very deep topic. The situations you describe would require a few different procedures. I tend to buff with a wire cup first and remove the majority of the surface rust. Then it gets an acid treatment (usually phosphoric - Metal Ready) then I would coat everything with epoxy primer. It sticks to everything and in most military tests, out performs POR. Then I apply a top coat of some sort (left over urethane is preferred) - definitely has to be something with a hardener. Then undercoat and your good to go.

You have to be very careful with the metal ready as you have to neutralize it with water. That leaves you a nice coat of surface rust if you didn't get it coated long enough (wet for 1/2 hour) or get it everywhere. There are also many issues with prep after that process - I just shoot it once dry as doing anything else has ended up wrong.

Seams are more difficult. I first wire brush all the old seam sealer out (that's the hard part) and clean it up with dental picks or a torch (burns out pretty well). Then wire it again. If it is rusty (like on the 240), then I blasted it with my little spot blaster until the rust is gone. Then epoxy prime it, seam it again with a urethane sealer (really loving that stuff right now - Fusor 801) - apply tape to either side of the seam, tool the seam, then remove the tape in one even pull. I also use this on the back side of all weld areas.

Finally, where I use POR is where none of these things will work. There were some seams under the 240 that were not seam sealed, couldn't be wire brushed etc...so I soak them with POR. It bonds to the top of the rust, but still has to be clean. So I hit it with brake clean until clean and then coat it. If the metal is bare, it has to be treated with the metal ready (acid etched) or it won't stick.

Another weekend gone, and a few more jobs in the finished pile. It was time to put the suspension back on the car as all the bits were painted and ready to go finally. I got the front suspension pulled and it wasn't in bad shape, no big surprise here as most of this car has been remarkably clean. I was held up for a while with a single brake line and ended up bending up new lines for the passenger side as some of the nuts had seen better days.

On Saturday, I decided to give it a second coat of undercoat in the high wear areas, this is evident on the photo's as the second coat was using a different product and went on with a semi-gloss that I quite like. It is smooth and hard and should last pretty well.

Here's the front suspension installed. Billy HD's replace the old unknown struts, new lowering springs and fancy endlinks that are adjustable. This thing should handle now.


Fancy endlinks. Note, I've left the front bar looking ratty just because something on this car should reflect it's intended use.


Here's the rear suspension - things are CLEAN all over the bottom of this car now - no dirt at all. Greg stopped by to give me a hand with the shinny bits.


POR'ed rear axle and fancy painted parts no one will ever see. The diff sticker is still there, I tried not to go too far with the differential detailing.


Here' the bottom - very hard to take a picture of a freshly undercoated car.


Layed it on thick in the rear wheel wells.


More top side work yet to come and prep for under hood paint etc tomorrow.

Don't forget to fill and put the plug in the rear diff...