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CrookedRacer
CrookedRacer Reader
6/4/21 7:56 a.m.

Ok, so the urethane is all set up and I'm pretty happy with the results, but not 100%.

If I had to do it over again, I'd do two things differently:

1) I would have put the underside tape line (the one protecting from excess urethane) at least a quarter inch farther away from the edge of the glass.

2) After squeezing the glass into place, I would have then run my finger along the edge of the urethane to smooth it out and to make the urethane very thin where it comes up to the tape.

This would make it so the tape can actually be removed everywhere. What I found is that the tape was difficult to reach and remove and so I am left with either a bit of blue on the edges, or an area that's all scratched up where I had to cut away the urethane in order to remove that blue tape.

In this picture you can see how it would be difficult to remove this blue tape now:

That's really ok, since this is a race car after all.

I shot all the pieces (except the wing itself) with some primer and gloss black before reassembling.

Reassembly didn't go well on the side that I chose first (the one that required the most work to make "true").

I guess the frame is still bent a little, and the shape prevents the fiberglass trim piece from reaching all the way back to the fastening point in the wing. I started screwing it together, and the screw easily busted out of the hole in the trim piece. Also one of the studs that's glued to it popped because it was under stress.

I moved on to the other side, and I quickly realized that when it fits right, the holes just naturally align and the whole thing assembles without fuss.

So I'm going to have to do some fussy work with this left side trim piece to help it conform to whatever shape it is in... Now that the glass is bedded in, there's no bending it anywhere else. So my plan is to do a little shaving here, relocation of studs there, and an extension of the tab with the busted hole in it using fiberglass so that the thing just lands where it should. There will be a gap between it an the bottom fairing, but that's the way it's gonna be. This isn't concours.

I am REALLY itching to take off the protective film and see how nice and clear the polycarbonate really is. But that's going to have to wait until I've got the thing mounted on the car and I have completed whatever latching mechanism I end up using. The fact is there's no good place to lock it down except the factory mounting points, so my idea is to replace the knob-shaped posts with something else inside the car that can be unlatched on each side from outside the car.

Not sure how I'll do that but I'm open to all ideas.

 

 

CrookedRacer
CrookedRacer Reader
6/4/21 8:05 a.m.

An aside:

While I was posting this, I was being presented with this ad for SCCA:

Pretty sure that's my friend Danny Kao. I had the absolute privilege of driving with/against him in G-Street class in Washington DC Region SCCA back when I had the Fiesta ST. It's fun that he's on there because he's the very embodiment of a sports car club. I instantly missed autocrossing when I saw this picture!

jh36
jh36 HalfDork
7/2/21 5:31 a.m.

Looking good John!

jh36
jh36 Dork
11/14/21 6:46 p.m.

In reply to CrookedRacer :

Hey John...how about an update...how is it going?

mgbroyles
mgbroyles
11/5/22 5:10 p.m.

I just read this entire thread. I have an 87 944 track car. This is a great read!

TR7 (Forum Supporter)
TR7 (Forum Supporter) Reader
11/7/22 12:26 p.m.

Havent seen a post from CrookedRacer in a while unfortunately. 

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