R33 Wide Body

[joel]

Hey,

A few months back i decided to make some wide body guards for my skyline, fix the front bar, and also attempt to re-spray the whole car myself.

Finally sprayed the last coat of clear last night, still need to wait a few days and wet-cut the clear before applying some wax to give it that showroom finish.

Let me know what you think...

The smashed front bar...a mate backed into it with a tow ball

My first attempt at fibreglassing...

Ta da! ...it only took aout 8000 hours of fibreglassing and sanding...

The beginings of the rear guards...

The guard off the car...

Now to spraying....add one of these :

and some of this:

And you end up with this...

[S04R3R]

Looks good dude, they looks made widebody. How long did it take to do all that?

The 33 im getting has crap paint and im thinknig of spraying it matte black. How long did the job take you?

Are you qualified or was it just mucking around on you're own car?

Edited October 31, 2007 by S04R3R

[joel]

Looks good dude, they looks made widebody. How long did it take to do all that?

The 33 im getting has crap paint and im thinknig of spraying it matte black. How long did the job take you?

Are you qualified or was it just mucking around on you're own car?

It took a while, cos i hadnt done anything like it before it was a little experiemental!!

All up it probably took me at least 10 weekends worth...

The sparying didnt take all that long, its the prep that takes the longest!

Matt black would look awesome, if your gonna do it yourself here's some tips i'd recommend:

1. Spray booth, make sure you do it in a double garage, that you can close up completely and have plenty of room to move around.

2. Sanding back, use 280 first round, then 400 to smooth it off. use 600 wet and dry after your first two coats of primer.

3. take your time spraying, watch out for over spray.

I'm far from qualified matey, haha! just mucking around at home...

All up i saved heaps of cash by doing it myself. total cost including compressor, paint, materials, fibreglass and everthing came in under $1200!

[S04R3R]

Thats awesome. What compressor did you use? Was it a faily big one, last time i talked ot my old man about spraying he was saying ot use a decent spray gun you need a compressor that is big enough to be able to cope with constant spraying.

[joel]

Just a super cheap one, it was on special for $160

it came with a tool kit including all the fittings etc, a few tools as well (like an air gun for wheel studs and what not).

The compressor is a 2.5HP/40Litre, i would go bigger though, cos it was on fairly constantly, the only break it had was when i was re-filling the pot!!

The spray gun i bought was from bunnings, just a cheap $60 one. it was okay, does the job fine, you just have to fiddle around with the settings a bit to get the right spray coming out...but that half the fun hey...

[S04R3R]

Did you have any practise first?

[LiQuid IcE]

Looks tops!

How do you graft the fibreglass to the body?

[joel]

Did you have any practise first?

nope..haha just went all in...

the fibreglassing is pretty forgiving as you can simply add more, or sand it off...but its very hard to get it super smooth. the spraying is another story though, the silver colour is really hard to get it looking smooth throughout, porbably should have chosen another colour, but it would have been more work then, doing all the inside of the doors, engine bay etc..

[S04R3R]

Thats the problem I am gonig to have with matte black. The 33 is white

[R32_Matt]

^^^^^

pfft... rattle cans ftw

[ArNoLdNuMbA5]

not sure im one for the rear gaurds...hard to tell in those pictures though.....

looks like u done pretty well really....like the whole sprayin and the fibreglassing

[S04R3R]

^^^^^

pfft... rattle cans ftw

soooo tempting man. tho if i used cans i would go camo.

[ali-turko]

great work buddy not a huge fan of it but i can definently apprecate all the work your doing yourself

[joel]

Looks tops!

How do you graft the fibreglass to the body?

well i made the guards as a seperate piece, then used pop rivets to secure the guards to the car...scary drilling holes in the body!! i also used a poly-urethane compound to seal the edges in. where the guard meets the car at the top i used a plastic putty which dries really hard and can be sanded to suit!

[Bullet32]

Nice work, very well done for a back yard job by the looks of it.

Be sure to post pics of finished product.