My first mini disaster: Project BondoRocket

Started by Merlin, July 07, 2014, 10:14:09 PM

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94touring

Curious but what do they charge to strip a mini shell?

sparetimetoys

Just as a point for comparison. Here in DFW the soda blast place is $100 per hour and the dustless ground glass blaster said $3-500 to do the car.
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minifrisco

Is that the quote from the guy in Rockwall?

sparetimetoys

Quote from: minifrisco on July 21, 2014, 06:58:35 PM
Is that the quote from the guy in Rockwall?

It was just his reply to the email i sent him.
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Merlin

They told me to expect between 400-600. When it gets done, ill let yall know.

I have heard that it is best to get a coat of primer on it after, but there is going to be a bunch of rust. should I rattle can the car until the body is sorted? Or get a proper coat of base epoxy and try to remenber where the rust is?

Engineering the Impossible

94touring

Epoxy primer but just spray around the rust.  Then go back and fix the bad spots.

Merlin

I guess I need to go down to O'reileys and get some mixed between now and then. Ill drag it over to my work and shoot it when its done. Knowing my painting skills, there will be quite a bit of sanding afterwards.

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94touring

I would try to shoot buff/filler over the epoxy within the flash period to save you an extra sanding session.

Merlin

I'm afraid with all of the rust I am finding  that there wont be much to shoot with epoxy.
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94touring

What you're saying is, you'll be by for a lot of panels.   Need enough stuff and I'll order you a crate.

Merlin

I had a few that were ordered for me from minispares, but I still have quite a few left that need to ordered. When are you going to add a pickup option to your store?

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94touring

Oh my pickup option is just come by with cash lol. 

Merlin

Does the parcel shelf panel come with the front dash part that holds the switches? Mine is trashed, bu t I cant see if the front dash is in the stock photo?

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Merlin

I have been doing a bunch of little things lately. I ordered a set of pedal covers and throttle pedal from DSN classics. I stripped and powder coated the brake and clutch box. Had an issue with the pivot bolt bending the shaft, and instead of spending $50 on what might be the right part, I went ahead and chucked it in the lathe and cut the threads off and tapped a new hole.

The car headed off to the blaster today. Barely got it into the trailer.


I am working on the rear suspension, but thought I would take a break to work on the doors. Started with the door locks. Found that the chrome has been trashed by the previous paint job as they were not removed from the car and the sander trashed the chrome. These will get powder coated black. The lock on the left side was trashed as well, so new tumblers are on order.


I had a bad feeling about the doors and went and put them in our acid vat at work. A few days later, the paint would barely come off. Determined that the doors wouldn't clean up because they were smothered in bondo. Noticed that the door skins were trashed, so off they go.






Cut the skin off and discovered exactly how trashed these were. Fun Fun Fun



Do new door skins come with the stiffing piece on the top of the door? Would anyone be interested in making carbon fiber door skins?



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94touring


sparetimetoys

When you get your car back can you post up a couple of photos of the rotisary please, also how high off the ground is the bar that runs down the center of the car.  Im getting my metal around to make mine up.  Thanks
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Merlin

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MtyMous

If you want full.carbon doors, get in touch with roguese7ens.com. they are currently building an entire mini in CF and are specifically working to finish up their full CF doors. I'm personally interested in it for Tink.

Merlin

I am suggesting just carbon fiber door skins. The door skins are more than half of the weight of the door and doing those in CF and bonding them to the frame will reduce weight while not sacrificing roll up windows. the carbon fiber will be stiffer so the strength will be there. You interested?

I am eyeing up Rouge's CF front end for my flip front.
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94touring

I've thought about doing fiberglass doors on my pickup.  But it would be the whole door.  The skins are pretty light as is, and I couldn't justify the cost of the skins vs the minimal amount you'd save in weight.  The door frames on the external hinges, and guts on the internal hinges are where the weight is.  That and glass.  Skins are small potatoes. 

Merlin

The reason for doing CF door skins would be to maintain roll up glass and hinge mounts. Carbon fiber and fiberglass doors do not allow for roll up windows, stock door cards and anything else you would expect from a street car. I also gain the ability to add a crash bar to my current doors as they lack this and adding a crash bar in steel will further add to the weight. Adding a honeycomb crash bar will stiffen the hell out of the door and weigh ounces. 
http://www.carbonweezel.co.uk/classic_mini/doors.html

So I did a little measuring and this is what I come up with.

Door structure            11.6Lbs
Door skins (cut off)       7.4Lbs

This shows that 15lbs of car weight is in door skins. Based on a standard density of 0.284 lbs/in^3 we get a total volume of 26.05 in^3 of skin material. compare this to some manufactures CF weight of 0.045 lbs/in^3, we get a design weight of 1.2Lbs for CF door skins.

Is this worth it? Well it depends on how you think about it. Shedding 12.4Lbs is shedding nearly 1% of the cars weight, which is good. It is taking it from behind the CG of the car (70/30), which is not as good.

Since I have access to mold materials and carbon fiber, the question I have is if there is anyone interested in doing this as it will cut the cost of pulling this off. I think that once set up, we can do this for cheap. Materials alone will be ~$60-70 per door(three ply), putting them close to the cost of new metal skins.


So, anyone interested now?
Engineering the Impossible

sparetimetoys

Why not do the center ply out of fiberglass to save cost.
Home of Global Warmer Racing. Saving the smog one car at a time.

Merlin

I think that it would be possible to do it that way as well. Its just a first idea.
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sparetimetoys

I think it would be ok for later internal hinge doors, but early doors with external hinges may end up screwing up the skin where the hinge bolts pass through the skin.
Home of Global Warmer Racing. Saving the smog one car at a time.