Not sure if anyone has done this before but well, like staring at Angelina Jolie's enormous lips (politics makes me soooo horny - just for you kate), it just seemed right to do.
Add that to the fact that I haven't driven Roxy in damn near two weeks because I removed the bumper for the shaving project, I'm itching to get her back on the road. Buuut, after said shaving project, I now have no turn signals, parking lights or the nicety of fog lights (it's safe mom, trust me). That won't do. I was going to graft in some cayenne lights but they are just too damn big for the MK3 bumper so I was stuck with no options. And then after I was staring at all of the parts on the floor of the kitchen, it seemed like both turn signals AND fogs would fit on the duct grille. w00t!
Now don't start shaving up them bumpers so quick folks, it isn't plug and play. MANY things have to be relocated in the engine bay for the lights to fit including the radiator overflow tank, the factory horn and alarm horm as well as somehow notching the drivers side frame rail (yeah, that's gonna be fun). But fuck it, it will be dope when finished right?
So yeah, construction was pretty damn easy. Begin with cleaning everything up so the glue will stick to the plastic. I was gonna wet sand the lenses to clean up 180,000+ miles of debris pitting but decided not to because a) I was tired and that would have cut into miller time and b) I don't want Roxy to be perfect anyways...
Oh and p.s., a few of you have mailed me asking what's up with the summit hat. Trust me, it's not product placement, just my inability to keep a clean house =)
Take a dremel or a cutoff wheel and trim some tabs (denoted in red)
Take a hot glue gun and glue the lights to the grille for placeholder purposes only. I'll be using flexible epoxy to attach them permanently later.
I took some scrap ABF plastic sheet and cut a small piece to fit between the lenses and clean up the overall look to be more OEM-ish
The drivers side grill had these lame filled in sections so I decided to first roughly dremel them out and then finally take a file (perfect fit too!) and file the sides down (yeah, I'm anal haha)
Viola. This weekend, I'll finish up the gluing as well as the final installation so I can finally drive the Roxster.
and hello to the new visitors to the site lately. We love the support we have gotten so far and would further like to request y'all keep up with the comments and questions. Also, if any of you want to contribute stories, photos or other how-to's, feel free to shoot me an email at jkrew [at] jkrew.com =)
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This thing is more of a pain in the ass than it's worth. I'm not digging this mod one bit and it will probably be scrapped soon. Did this mod with a buddy before doing mine and both of our lips fit like complete ass and that's after trimming the shit out of the north american bumpers. Perhaps we got a bad batch of lips or something... I dunno. Whatevs.
Essentially to those who don't know, the euro VR6 bumper valence/lip/spoiler is deeper than the NA (north american) lip but it obviously wasn't meant to fit on NA bumpers so trimming is needed.
At the top corner of the lip, the tabs need to be trimmed and notched so they bend easier with the curve of the NA bumper. Instead of just cutting "V's" and leaving the chance of cracking at the v point, drill holes first and then notch them out. This will prevent cracking.
Drilled
Cut
Now, flip the bumper and remove the old lip if you haven't done so already. You will notice a small notch going along the perimeter of the edge (denoted in red). This has to be trimmed so the lip will seat correctly. I used a dremel with a rotary cutoff wheel. Start by trimming 1/8" and go from there. I eventually trimmed nearly 1/2".
Trimmed
Here is my final result which was pretty close to my buddies. We trimmed a shit load off the bumper and still get the gap. We even inspected to see if the lip was touching the bumper where it should be trimmed and there is ample space between the two so trimming more isn't an issue. I suppose it's just a bad batch of lips or something. I guess I could deal with the gap but I'll probably just pull the fucking thing off. Kinda irks me that such an easy install turned out to be such a clusterfuck.
Took me damn near 3 months to score this piece but after almost 10 auctions, I finally got one =) Grabbed the buffing rouge and got to work. Not sure if I want to get a more polished look or leave it the way it is. Dirty/shiny stylz...
Well, been a crazy week. Totally jumped into the car last week and worked my booty off. Nice little vacay for myself and I gladly thank kate for letting me become totally preoccupied with Roxy =)
Anyhoo, started a bazillion lil projects. Let's start with the sub box...
This is still in teaser territory but essentially we took the standard MDF and got to cutting an average sized box. About .4 - .6 CF if I remember my measurements right.
Grab a drill, countersink and screw in...
After drilling a hole, use a scroll saw and cut out the hole for the sub. (We're using a JL Audio 10" sub for this application)
Some trimming of a sheet of metal... teaser like whoa
And just to show how fucking NUTS kate's pops garage is hahaha
Today was a shite day outside so I kept things to the living room and relaxed a bit. I later became bored out of my skull so I slapped on some jeans and started with the mirrors. (Granted, I haven't showered in two days because vacation is fucking awesome...)
I'm kind of sick of seeing the same old mirros... stock/OEM, M3 mirrors (when will they just die!) and the racing DTM/Hagus-look that are still cool but are way played out. So I decided to make my own. I picked up some Shelby Cobra mirrors off the net and now I need to make bases for them. A lot of the people I see in the dub world buy a set of aftermarket universal mirrors from Moon and then just drill them into a shitty blanking plate and call it a day. Why? It looks like ass and kills the side flow of the entire car.
So yeah, I haven't used clay since 5th grade but it seemed like a good idea at the time so I got a slab of clay and started molding what I thought fit best.
My neighbours must think I'm out of my mind:
Finally after getting a good angle, I decided the bottom base should be removed.
But if you own a MK3, you would know their bases are made of SOLID STEEL... fuck haha. To Sears for new tools! After picking up a sweet bench grinder, I got to cutting and smoothed out the curves a bit as well...
Then, as I felt like a 4 year old, I sat on my ass and played with clay for an hour. That shit is hard man. Too soft and if you move one side, you move the opposite side. Ugh.
Anyways, I think I have a good match and will fiberglass over tomorrow to see how much bondo I need to use.
Still have no idea how I am going to make these things strong but that's for another day I guess.
Well, upon further inspection, the duct work had to be modified a bit for the left guage to tuck away completely. Now, could I have nixxed the duct altogether and sealed off the arm? Sure but fuck it, the main idea behind this build was that it was ALL in the details. Plus, doing things half-assed is for those not ready to take the next step right?
I decided to notch the duct a bit instead of cutting it all out.
After hinging the piece a bit, I burred away to a nice smooth curve and made a quick mold out of greased foil.
Laid down some resin...
Voila. While it was still curing, I wrapped it into place and trimmed off the jaggies.
Well, I decided to tackle the guage pod today after putting it off for weeks. I knew it was going to be a pain in the ass so after fucking around for nearly 2 hours on the hinge system, I finally came up with a way to mount the pod and have it hinge perfectly.
But the best part is, somehow, I came away with the following:
• a hinge system that lets me take the pod out of the dash in seconds to change out guages etc etc • the use of the factory tweeter (albeit hacked to shit but sound is sound) • full use of the air duct! Holy crap w00t!
So yeah, awesome day. All I have to do now is mount the dash and find a place for the actuator which shouldn't be a problem as I am going to use a lengthened rod attached to the actuator so I can mount the actuator lower in the dash.
But damn man, I was so stoked when I noticed more room in the dash than expected so I ran and got the duct I removed waaay back in the day and damn if it didn't fit =)
Well, let me preface this entry with this: I have no experience with autobody techniques. 0%. I just used Bondo for the first time about 3 months ago. So, that being said, if you have a brain larger than a chimp with downes syndrome, you can do this exercise.
(My apologies to anyone out there who have any chimps with downes syndrome.)
I wanted to shave the front end because I just think it looks clean as hell and who the hell needs turn signals or foglights anyways?
There are the tools I used. I think in total, the body filler goodies cost me around 100 bucks but I only used about 15% of it so do the math.
Fusor 142: This is "extreme body panel repair". It has a work time of 90 seconds. Yeah, um, first mistake getting the "super fast" curing Fusor but fuck it, I can work fast.
Polyflex: This is a bendable filler that should be used as an aftercoat. Works just like bondo.
Versa-tool: It's a glorified soldering iron but it has 19 cool-ass tips that are PERFECT for plastic welding. I found it at Micheals (craft store) for 30 bucks, laid down the 50% off coupon in their mailer at the front of the store and was on my way with a sweet 15$ plastic welder.
Cut-off wheel, belt sander and jig saw are optional but certainly help...
Let's get cutting. Mask off your front bumper and git to ruining a perfectly good bumper:
Voila:
The cut pieces:
Now, roughly measure the cut area and transfer to a rear doner bumper. I have heard that you can take from the center but I cut on the curve so I tried to grab from the rear curve as well...
Now, once the pieces are cut, make sure everything lines up and, most importantly, make sure the main bumper line, lines up as well. Turn the soldering iron on and wait for it to get hot. Once it's ready, place the cut piece on the bumper and literally melt the two together. Make sure both pieces melt together as this will create the strongest bond. Don't be afraid to make shitty "welds" as yer gonna sand over them later. The main goal here is to make sure both pieces melt together. I'f you've ever welded, yer looking for a "roll of nickles" here in your welds.
Now, take some plastic from the side of the doner bumper to fill the turn signal holes if you want... I'm grafting in something different later *wink*
This is where the belt sander is handy (and after using this fucking thing ONCE, I was happy to find another use for it.)
Like a glove...
Now, once the welding is done, crank out the fusor and go over all of the welds and fill in the holes that weren't welded. Also, flip the bumper over and glue up the seams. Be generous here.
Once it's dry, sand it with 60 grit.
Now, sand some more with 150 grit. Now, it's time for the polyflex.
Skim thin coats, let dry and sand some more. The goal here is to sand away most of the polyflex. Notice the low spots that are now filled? w00t!
Once everything is smooth, slap on some primer and go have a beer =)
