2008.05.07 Filler for paint

As weather outside garage went from bad to worse (wind, rain +10), I was forced to work in a closed garage. After doing spray test of black paint on black/dark brown epoxy primer, I saw nothing, so it become obvious, that I need different color to see what I'm spraying. Also filler fills some surface imperfections (which tubes have). However you need to sand it for that. I've been too lazy to do this (this is roll cage, not the bling bling). After some experiments with thickness, thinner and air pressure, it started to go well :). It looked really nice (and matt surface hides all spraying mistakes).

2008.05.04 Painting started

First sprayed the cage with anti-rust epoxy primer. This is not the best choice for thing like roll cage, however it does not require any surface preparation (I had no time and patience to prepare anything). So it ate all the rust, and coated everything. Now nothing will rust there (tested on rusty garage elements ;)). It was just about 1000 times harder to spray that stuff on a tube, than on somewhat flat with no obstructions...

2008.05.03 Preparation for roll cage painting

So, roll cage is in place, we can proceed to painting. But how to mask the car? Usually I cover area with old newspapers, but this time I haven't had any. What if to use old supermaket bags which I have plenty of :).After few hours it started to get shape, and look like el cheapo rally car:Also covered the intercooler

At last!

At last I've got my baby back! Now it is grown up, with FIA homologated roll cage installed. I haven't seen my car for ages (50 days to be exact). Isn't it beautifull? More shots of the roll cageElectricity is all messed up, and fuse box is teared apart (roll cage goes through it now). It will be quite a challenge to start the car again...

Meanwhile...

As you may have noticed, no updates of this blog for a month. Main reason is that, bad luck strikes again. My car is stuck ant Sabotaitis racing, because of change of their working premises, so it was a bit lost in all the moving of stuff. Now it's in small garage with one guy working on it. That cost me another two weeks :cry: ...

However, I have continued to do some small things at the garage. Updates - ADZ after rebuild (nice and dry):ADZ box was rebuilt, however it has 20v input shaft, which is smaller (14.5mm if I remind correctly), and bearing in my AAN crank is 18mm. That is not big problem, however it's quite PITA to get old bearing out of crank, and it costs time. Did a quick search around and found AOB box. This thing is almost the same as AOB, but with thicker input shaft (and lucky for me it was reason to drop the price ;)). AOB (messy messy):

Dragon of the King...

If you didn't know - seven years ago, I have purchased homologated racing seat from little known manufacturer King Dragon. They are based in Italy, however name tends to be somewhat oriental. Knowing that Italy some time ago was primary "relabelling port" for China - that's no surprise.

Also as you all know - I'm the slowest person in the planet, so the seat was stored in the basement for quite a few years. As years passed - homologation expired, but I think, that this seat still is safe enough to use. Carbon/kevlar - lasts quite a long without changing its' strength Now obviously it is time to pull seat back upstairs, and mount it into the car (because at last it will have roll cage).

So, to mount seat into the car - we need mounting rails. Let's see what do we have there, under thick layer of dust:Seem to be untouched by the time :), 5mm heavy as hell FIA approved mounting brackets
Let see how they bolt to the seat... WTF? Seat doesn't have any thread (at least visible) in it's mounting holes. After searching Internet, and discussing with more expierenced local guys - decided to use M8 (standard) bolts, and just screw them into the hole, hoping that it catches thread somewhere there... Not very professional approach as for 700$ kevlar/carbon racing seat I would say. Here is result:With both brackets mounted it looked like this:Not so bad. At least it is holding me sitting in :). With racing harness. BTW camera used better color balance - this picture shows more realistic color of the seat:P.S. Yes, I know about position of the belts. They are just posing for the picture.

ADZ

Today it was very nice spring day - very suitable for working outside the garage. As I had no car, pulled "old-new" gearbox to the daylight. What a mess. Spent almost hour scraping few pounds of gravel from the housing, to reveal that it is audi gearbox ;). And the code is ADZ.
Long fifth gear, i theory, it can go beyond 280km/h limit. Tempting ;). Will see :evil grin: