BUILD THREADÂ Janky- A Mexican Monte Clone
- Thread starter UC645
- Start date
Did you get that from Lutty's? The Jr. Mechanic was trying to have me buy it despite haveing one already.
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Yeah it was the one at Lutty’s, had some damage on the driver’s side rear corner like it got dropped. Got it for a steal for what I have to fix but I won’t ever buy a steel hood again, this thing is way heavier than I gave it credit for.
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Figured I’d give a little update on the interior pieces I’ve been painting over the course of the week with the paint kit from GbodyParts, and the heater box.
To keep it short on the paint, if I were to do this again, I’d spend the money on getting some SEM color coat or some other flexible coating.
To put it longer, while I’m ultimately satisfied with the results on the pieces I’ve finished, getting there was an outright challenge, mostly from my inexperience of using this type of paint. For starters, the paint itself (Dark Maple specifically) has some rather bad coverage properties, and will take several coats on colors other than red to sufficiently cover. For an example, my upper sail panels were light saddle tan and those alone took 3/4 of a can to do and they still look lighter than the A pillar covers that were maroon. The paint is nice because it doesn’t fill in the texture of the panel, but if you’re intending to do a substantial amount of your interior with this, get the kit with 4 cans. You’ll need it.
The clear coat however, is a monster to say the least. Again, I’ve never used anything like this stuff, but it’s frustrating to work with. Unlike the paint, this stuff if THIIICK. Thicker than molasses running down a mountain in Siberia in December kind of thick. Thick enough to be on the border of what’s attractive kind of thick. This stuff sprays on heavy and really sticky, you have to saturate a panel to get runs or sags in it- not like you want that. This also brings a problem: if you spray this stuff onto a panel that’s not up to an ambient temperature of 80 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, it hazes. Badly.
This is after two coats sprayed in 70 degrees, with 15 minutes between coats:
Sometimes it clears up after about 20 minutes, sometimes it takes overnight at that steady 70 degrees, it all feels up to chance. This is the same panel 30 minutes later:
(Socks and Flip Flops gang)
It’s like I just laid the paint on wet, so your milage may vary. All in all, I think it was worth it, but I’d like to try some of the alternatives in the future.
And the A/C box is finally glued back together, and boy is it ugly.
At this point, I’ll just trim what needs trimmed, fill the low areas, and just shoot it with VHT, cause there’s no way I can fix that without another 3 months worth of work.
To keep it short on the paint, if I were to do this again, I’d spend the money on getting some SEM color coat or some other flexible coating.
To put it longer, while I’m ultimately satisfied with the results on the pieces I’ve finished, getting there was an outright challenge, mostly from my inexperience of using this type of paint. For starters, the paint itself (Dark Maple specifically) has some rather bad coverage properties, and will take several coats on colors other than red to sufficiently cover. For an example, my upper sail panels were light saddle tan and those alone took 3/4 of a can to do and they still look lighter than the A pillar covers that were maroon. The paint is nice because it doesn’t fill in the texture of the panel, but if you’re intending to do a substantial amount of your interior with this, get the kit with 4 cans. You’ll need it.
The clear coat however, is a monster to say the least. Again, I’ve never used anything like this stuff, but it’s frustrating to work with. Unlike the paint, this stuff if THIIICK. Thicker than molasses running down a mountain in Siberia in December kind of thick. Thick enough to be on the border of what’s attractive kind of thick. This stuff sprays on heavy and really sticky, you have to saturate a panel to get runs or sags in it- not like you want that. This also brings a problem: if you spray this stuff onto a panel that’s not up to an ambient temperature of 80 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, it hazes. Badly.
This is after two coats sprayed in 70 degrees, with 15 minutes between coats:
Sometimes it clears up after about 20 minutes, sometimes it takes overnight at that steady 70 degrees, it all feels up to chance. This is the same panel 30 minutes later:
(Socks and Flip Flops gang)
It’s like I just laid the paint on wet, so your milage may vary. All in all, I think it was worth it, but I’d like to try some of the alternatives in the future.
And the A/C box is finally glued back together, and boy is it ugly.
At this point, I’ll just trim what needs trimmed, fill the low areas, and just shoot it with VHT, cause there’s no way I can fix that without another 3 months worth of work.
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From garbage to.... semi gloss garbage?
I was debating on throwing some bondo on this but after taking a straight edge to it and finding out it needs a quarter inch of filler on it, I decided against that.
Here’s the guts of this monstrosity:
From left to right (top to bottom): a centrifugal blower from SPAL, the only one that was straight 12v feed, the other ones available have built in speed controllers.
An A/C evaporator and heater core out of the rear climate control system of a GMT800 Suburban. The plan with the evaporator core is to eliminate the H valve if possible, and use a compression fitting on the large pipe, I’ll cut a hole or two in the box later to fit hoses. I’ll be trimming the heater core pipes even more, and plan on going with a Chrysler style (at least that’s the style I think it is) heater core control valve to shut off both pipes when the slider is set to cool. I had originally thought to use a manual valve running off the blend door rod, but the evap core blocks the opening completely.
I was debating on throwing some bondo on this but after taking a straight edge to it and finding out it needs a quarter inch of filler on it, I decided against that.
Here’s the guts of this monstrosity:
From left to right (top to bottom): a centrifugal blower from SPAL, the only one that was straight 12v feed, the other ones available have built in speed controllers.
An A/C evaporator and heater core out of the rear climate control system of a GMT800 Suburban. The plan with the evaporator core is to eliminate the H valve if possible, and use a compression fitting on the large pipe, I’ll cut a hole or two in the box later to fit hoses. I’ll be trimming the heater core pipes even more, and plan on going with a Chrysler style (at least that’s the style I think it is) heater core control valve to shut off both pipes when the slider is set to cool. I had originally thought to use a manual valve running off the blend door rod, but the evap core blocks the opening completely.
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And while I’m here, anyone know where I can snag another one of these brackets from?
This is out of an aero mirror from a Trans Am with power side mirrors (motor works) and the upper tab just corroded off, it’s basically white sand at this point so I can’t even glue it back on with metal glue.
This is out of an aero mirror from a Trans Am with power side mirrors (motor works) and the upper tab just corroded off, it’s basically white sand at this point so I can’t even glue it back on with metal glue.
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Driver side?,or passenger side?
I might have one extra. I forget which side it came from, although it would be easy to check, my mirrors are still disassembled.
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