Bartman

I hope my finish looks that good after I wetsand!

Making progress putting it back together. By the time I got the wheels on and backed the car out of the garage, it was getting dark already. Here's a pic anyway. I've been noticing the blue areas have a much better gloss than the black areas. After a while I determined that it's not necessarily the black areas that don't shine as well, but areas that are more horizontal than vertical. I think that the horizontal areas collected more overspray during clearcoat than other areas. Either way, I think that color sanding should take care of the problem. I'm going to try and do the sanding this weekend.

It all started with my mother-in-law. The first movies Walt Disney ever made starred my mother-in-law back in the early 20's. Unfortunately, time caught up with her and she passed away of natural causes this last weekend at 90 years old. May she rest in peace. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Davis

BTW - The bumpers themselves are chrome. The fade on the paint below the rear skirt was off, but installing the rear skirt fixed that.

Yes, it's a shark theme complete with gills and a shark emblems from the Mako Shark concept car. The blue and silver are much lighter than they appear in the last picture I posted, as it was dark when I shot it. It's not for everyone, but then again - it's not supposed to be. I put a couple pieces in the sunlight before I put them on, and it looks fantastic in the light. More pic's to come...

Two good layers of clearcoat. I had everything apart for painting, and painted the body kit at the same time. I've starting installing it tonight and It's looking great so far.

Looks good! Any specific details regarding your wetsanding technique? I need to do that next.

The silver isn't chip prevention, just a look I wanted. Here's a PhotoShop of what it's supposed to look like when it's done:

No it's not satin black, hopefully I'll be able to get the full shine out of it before it's done. I used Restoration Shop Urethane basecoat / clearcoat system and shot it with a DeVILBISSFinishLine gun.

I think it came out pretty good. I just finished the clearcoat less than an hour ago. Now I need to let it fully dry before color sanding and putting her back together.

My vents are from a 79 Camaro.

I have fender vents installed on my car:

It sounds like you installed the glass onto the car before installing the ss trim. You should install the ss trim before installing the glass onto the car.

Move the switch/stalk between high and low beam, and make sure that it is fully into the correct position. I lost my lights once, and this was the problem.

Thanks, and the plan is to reinstall the stock glass into the CF hatch. The only stock items I probably won't install are the hatch weatherstrip seal and the strut that holds it up. I just bought a seal from 1 tuff z, but it appears the CF hatch is slightly taller and therefore won't close all the way with it installed. There are provisions to install the strut, but I would think it would need to have less pressure since the hatch is way lighter than the stocker. I'll have to find a seal that isn't as thick as the stocker as well.

So I bought and received a carbon fiber hatch last week. I got it from Raceonusa and I'm very happy with the overall quality as well as the fit. I'm installing it using the stock hinge and latch and I thought I'd show a couple of pic's to show how it looks now. I can post more pic's and details of the installation process depending on demand. So far I had to remove the part of the hinge that was welded onto the old hatch and bolt it onto the Carbon Fiber hatch. Then it just bolted to the rest of the stock hinge still on the car. It didn't come with the hole for the push bottom latch, so I drilled it myself and gave it the notches the same as the stock one has. It installed easily and looks like it will work great. If you want any specific details or pictures, just let me know and I'll add them to this thread.

Nope, mine is low and on the passenger's side - but I'm running an LT1. My setup is different, but I'm just saying that in general gutting a power steering pump is a possible solution. It may not be easy to do, but it will work - and yes it still has fluid in it. Some people even use the power steering pump as a pulley without gutting it - they just run the line in a loop.

On my setup I'm running the power steering pulley on a gutted power steering pump. It's been working great so far.