fiestaturbo.com

[knuckles]

Excellent work as usual james

[heeman10]

bakewell001 - Yeah I spotted those a while back, given the mileage I put on my car, I think that would be a total waste of money that could've bought the larger fraction of a turbo

Excursion - Not after this drawn-out nightmare! Grinding in the garage hey? I hope you treat her well young Herbert!

knuckles - Ta, it will be when I've finished!

[Capri]

Good work there, Michael. Easy on the quidgits; you might gunkle the fladge, and that'd be a fate worse than death. Keep it up. When are you fitting the hydropneumatic suspension?

[heeman10]

When the revolution comes round

[Capri]

Sooner than expected, then. I'll be waiting.

[mike_wall15]

No girl is going to let you near her with a finger like that!
(Not to worry, the nearest girl is probably miles away! )

I look forward to seeing a lovely dodgy red that hopefully matches the car

[Sphinx]

That finger is the least of his worries, he's a visual contraceptive.




Love ya really

[heeman10]

Mike - It's actually been an issue already, believe it or not It's so bloody hard to pick a good close matching red when you have about eight "good" ones to go from. I remembered I used "Maverick" red on the front bumper, which was too brown, so took a mental image of that, the original car panels, and the physical presence of the rear bumper with me and mashed them all together for what will hopefully be a good match! Will stick one coat on the rear bumper and see, then get another four tins (:o) mixed up

Tom - :lol::lol:

[mike_wall15]

Had you thought about applying pressure on the finger and pouring the blood into a container. I wonder how much of the bumper could be painted with it?

[HCS PIMP]

just finished reading your threat took me ages to read love the sound of squirles hitting the turbo muahahhaa beast

[heeman10]

Mike - Good thinking, I'll have to injure myself again and give it a go Started filling the top strip today, after many hours of lying around in the sun

HCS GIMP - Hahaha!! :lol::lol:

[heeman10]

Bit more bumper progress, slow as it is I spent most of the day in Preston yesterday, taking my Mk6 back to Ford to address a paint issue, but got the rest of the top strip filled in with P40 today:





I'll rub that down tonight, ready for filler later on today, or tomorrow.

Thought I might as well clean up the rear valance while the bumper was off, this bumper hasn't been removed since I fitted it in 2002!!

Semi-clean:

[nick050]

looking good mate did you just sand down the paint where you was filling and start adding layer upon layer of matting? what filler will you finish it with? something that can stand the flexing?

[Sphinx]

Looks like a nice clean base to start with

[mike_wall15]

Why does every rear corner arch hidden behind the bumper ALWAYS look as though it's been beaten by a hammer?

[xrsi]

Why does every rear corner arch hidden behind the bumper ALWAYS look as though it's been beaten by a hammer?

because it probably was by some work experiance lad whose sole job was to get the bumper to fit as they designed it wrong in the first place!

[heeman10]

nick050 - Yep that's right. The adhesive was all removed from the recess, then it was roughed up using 60 grit wet n dry paper. With the front bumper (which you'll find in the index on page 1 of this thread) I did use glass fibre mat and resin, but this time I used P40 resin straight out of the tub, which I am informed is every bit as good, and probably a touch more flexible. That top strip of resin is now roughed up, again with 60 papers, and I will be applying P38 bodyfiller to it in thin layers till perfectly smooth and ready to paint. Check out the front bumper pages to see what I did with that if you're interested

sphinx - Yeah definitely, a couple of rust blotches where the valance had been chipped, but the rest is lovely under there, after all these years. It was great when I fitted the bumper, but I expected the orange nastiness to have take a hold.

mike - Too true, they're a right wobbly mess! Character They're all the same though, funny!

[chris-fiesta]

looking good James.... 2i bumpers really do need smoothing when they havent got strips..

btw what compound you using when you mop after spraying??need to spray a clio boot that i flushed last weekend and want to get the best finish possible..

[Brammer]

Good work fella

the back panal looks clean enough

[mk3modda]

clean

[heeman10]

chris-fiesta - Yeah, they look empty without strips, and although I think the bumpers look good smoothed, a more major reason for me smoothing them is to ease cleaning! It's fiddly getting into the nooks and crannies with a strip in place, so the smoothed lines are far easier to polish, and come up better I don't have any rubbing compounds, I went over and over the front bumper with T-Cut after spraying the first time, but will hopefully borrow someone with a Porter Cable and compounds who can go over the bumpers after spraying.

h196jne - Yeah, it's coming up well! Just letting the bumper dry after some more rubbing down/washing, so the tailgate weather seal's off and the lights are about to come out for some concourse geekery

[heeman10]

Flatted the fibreglass resin down some more today, and got bored waiting for it to dry off after washing it, so decided to go a bit limp-wristed and concourse on the back end of my car. Only put 20 minutes or so in, but will continue to finish off all the nooks and crannies before the bumper goes back on.









Crap pics because it's inside using the flash on my phone, but I'll take better pics next time I drive it outside. Alternator is off for inspection tomorrow, because since May 2005 when I fitted it after having it reconditioned, EVERYthing electrical on the car has had a pulse to it! Headlights, interior lights, plazma dash, fuel pump...it all has a pulse to it, so while the car's inactive while the bumper's off I'll sort that out

[~nomad~]

what a massive guide to bodging this thread is.

[Sphinx]

what a massive guide to bodging this thread is.

[heeman10]

Next week - how to reduce backpressure and save money by selling your exhaust manifold and system!

[heeman10]

Few piccies. I decided last night I'd have enough of faffing around, so decided I wanted primer on the bumper by tonight, which I accomplished at long last. I've been having problems with the filler picking up, meaning there are air bubbles left that, once sanded down, leave really helpful little pits in the surface I persevered, applied about ten skims over the fibreglass resin, and finally got it rubbed down all over and ready for a coat of plastic primer.

Top strip finally complete and rubbed back, and the rest of the bumper flatted off:



Now sitting in primer. It was dark in the garage by the time I came to do it, so I did get one run, but I'll be sanding that back tomorrow anyway and getting a coat or two of filler primer on, just to make sure that what's left of those pits don't show through:







Am gagging to get the colour on it now, hopefully "Hip Hop Red" is a slightly better match than the front bumper, then I'll order a few more tins to finish off the back, and respray the front!

[heeman10]

And a random video I threw in because I've missed playing with my tailgate

[Ghost]

Sweet as mate, been trying to get hold of 'stopper' but cant find a sodding person that sells it so might have to buy it online. That would stop you pitting in the final filling stages!

Also been trying to achieve that with my boot, but the mk3 tailgate only has fittings for one strut. So ive got to get the bracket for the other side and drill it in

how did you fit yours?

[heeman10]

Isopon filler I've used in the past has been brilliant to work with, but I had precisely this problem last year, with the same tin even! Very annoying. I got around it be perfecting all I could, then dabbing tiny patches of filler in (talking about 5mm x 5mm patches) and flatting back till perfect. It's all pretty much bob on now

My car's a little bit of a funny crossover, and has some Mk3.5 traits. My tailgate had two ball joins on it to accept two struts I'm afraid!

[Ghost]

My car's a little bit of a funny crossover, and has some Mk3.5 traits. My tailgate had two ball joins on it to accept two struts I'm afraid!

baxtered

I've got the struts sitting in the garage waiting

and yea, I think the Isospoon is a better filler for the final prep, I just want to save all that hassle or re-applying

[heeman10]

Update

Got a few coats of filler primer on on Friday, aiming to fill in the micropits caused by my crappy filler. Flatting it down proved that it did indeed do the majority of what I'd hoped it would, though there are some remaining imperfections I'm just going to have to live with for a bit.





Then on Saturday I had to prime it again, since I'd had to rub through to the plastic in some areas:



And today I rubbed that down to allow me to spray the first coat of Halfords custom-mix colour onto it, to get an idea whether or not the paint matched. Annoyingly I got a big of a crap nozzle on the can, and had nowhere near enough light to spray by, so it really hasn't gone on well, which means a huge amount of it will need sanding back, thanks to runs and uneven spray! At least I can fit it back on the car to check the colour match now:







One of the runs

[edders]

lookng at it the match doesnt look too bad, especially for a halfrauds colour.

how did you manage to get your boot to do that .my brother had a 3.5 with the 2 struts and it didn't lift like that. in fact it didn't even stay up until they got replaced. then you still had to lift it.

[heeman10]

edders - That's not Halfords' version of Radiant Red, that's the result of my sifting through tens of "reds" on colour charts and having the nearest match mixed up.

The cars with a single strut had a strong strut. The cars with two struts had two weaker struts. Use two strong struts and hey presto!

[mike_wall15]

Don't look all that bad. Prep is a big thing, and aslong as you spend some time you can get decent results.
Beats going to a bodyshop and spending a few hundred

[heeman10]

The prep was all pretty good tbh, bar some minor annoyances that I can live with. Spraying, on the other hand, went very not well I slotted it back on the car before to check out the colour match...need to get it outside for a better look, but I think it's better than the front bumper, and it appears to match the arches, if not the car :lol: