She's back in Black!

The paint color was actually dictated by a job I took on to paint a railing at our public library but she my turn that pretty Lexus blue in a year or 2.  This is semi gloss black and honestly the photos don’t come close to how good it looks in person.

Rather than me telling you how it went I did a video.  It’s fast, fun and of course has a great sound track.  Enjoy!  CLICK ME
 

 

 

 

How NOT to make DIY fender flares on a Miata!

It’s been over 2 months since I posted on the flare project.  Not because I have not been working on them but because the endless hours of filling the low spots and grinding the high spots is about as thrilling as watching bondo dry.  Actually if I put the hours working on it into a part time job at minimum wage I could have purchased a wide body kit and paid to have it installed by now!  Well anyway here is an update on it. 

 

In my last post I had the rear frames welded up and ready for glass.  This time I used tape to make bridges between the slats hoping things would be smoother than the fronts.

This looks good at first glance but it was a colossally bad idea because that tape was near impossible to get the tape off after the glass went on.  But not knowing that I glassed them up.

It was better than the fronts but I still ended up with many hours making high spots low and low spots high. 

 

Fixing the rocker rust I did make a normal cap for it but decided to try making a cap that would push the rear out some to fit better with the larger wheels.  So I took a hunk of 3" exhaust pipe and made a support.

Then I formed a panel to cover the rust.

Tech tip a piece of 2 1/2" PVC pipe is the perfect radius for that rocker curve.  

I liked how it looked so I welded it in,

and started filling.

Speaking of filling I also took out the antenna hole.

Fast forward forever of working them and I rolled it out to check for tire clearance.  Crank the sound and check out the video.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSQ4Ry3kE9I

Yeah it was fun!

The clearance was fine but the photos from that trip reveal some problems. As you can see in the photo above I took too much off a couple spots when I ruffed in the radiuses.  Also the drivers front and a weird bump in it I don't like.  It took another couple of weeks of grinding and filling to fix all that. 

I finally got to the point I put a guide coat of flat black on it and rolled it out for another look. 

Yeah I thought the same thing.  GAG!  The fronts are OK but the backs look like a wart on the car.  It looked fine up close in the garage but when it was all one color and I could step back from it she was UGLY!  

So it was back to brainstorming and a few days off.  Solution - add another layer...

This is a hunk of plastic screwed and glued with structural adhesive.  

 And the panel

More glue and screw,

and welding where I could.

20 hours of work later and presto no more wart!

It's coming along but in a nutshell there are LOTS of different ways that are better then this for building flares!  Still it's been fun and there are only a few regrets in it.

I hope things are well with you and you are living large in the joy of the Lord.  Next post paint, but I can’t promise when that will be!