Teal!

This goes on top of the valve cover.

The clear pooled up really bad in the transmission end cap, this will need sanded down and resprayed.  I wanted an OEM cap anyway, with a stamped VW logo in the center, so this is a good excuse to get a new one.

I painted the flashing between the engine and trans Reflex Silver.  The clear ran really bad on this piece to, I'm going to redo this as well.

I went to Baltimore last week for an advanced materials conference (nerd stuff).  By the way, Allen I totally forgot you live in Baltimore; my bad!  On the way, I stopped at my Uncle John's house.  He's an excellent cook, and made dinner for my boss and I.  It was amazing!

We had some downtime at the conference, and cruised down to Annapolis for an evening.  If you're ever in town, I recommend the Rams Head Tavern.  I had their home brewed Stout and a delicious burger.

After dinner, we went for some drinks on the bay.  The weather was perfect!

New tools!  I bought a set of Gearwrench tamper-resistant Torx sockets.  Torx are everywhere in all newer cars, so I have been adding more to my toolbox.

I also got a new air hose for the paint booth.  The 25' hose wasn't quite long enough, and it was all crusted up with old paint.  I bought a new 35' Flexzilla air hose and it's pretty awesome.

I removed an elbow fitting, shut-off, and quick disconnect from the old hose.  This should give me a little better flow despite the extra length of air hose.

I moved the old hose into my side of the shop, for spraying primer outside.  I made a hose rack out of an old Snap-on body hammer handle I had laying around :)

I've been eating good the last few days!  I stopped at my parents house for breakfast.  My mom made a baked egg dish with feta cheese and tomatos and onions... it was amazing.  Oh wait is this pinterest?

I stopped at the paint store to pick up my second new gun - an Anest Iwata LPH-400LV clearcoat gun.  I also got the 3M PPS system of disposible cups, along with an adapter to fit my new DeVilbiss GTi.

You may have noticed a pint of paint in the previous picture; it's official, the car will be teal again.  I knew it would be, but now I have the paint!

Paint gun drawer is getting full

I tried out my new plumbing setup on the clutch actuator bar, it works well!

I stopped by Lewis Welding today for some more sandblasting.  All these little brackets will be teal.

I had to notch the rear engine mount for the axle, it was rubbing a little bit because the car is so low.  I cut out a notch and fit a pipe in place of the hole.  This isn't my cleanest fab work, I used a hole saw in a hand drill! 

Bill welded it up.

It was really tough to get a decent weld on this piece, the casting was really dirty.  I test fit the piece on the block and it warped quite a bit, probably because he had to go over each weld a few times.  I think I might end up scrapping it.  I have a second bracket to try, hopefully the casting is a little cleaner and I will try pre-heating or baking it out.  If that still doesn't work, I'll re-make the whole bracket in steel.

I did some more plumbing tonight. 

Before:

Now I have a hookup for the shop air hoses, my air hoses, and a filter/regulator setup for spraying primer outside.

Woody got a new .22 yesterday and we did some shootin'

Woody's dad is riding to Myrtle Beach tomorrow, he got the bike all packed up tonight.

I stopped by the paint store again.  I got them to price match Amazon on a DeVilbiss GTI.  It has 1.3mm, 1.4mm, and 1.5mm tips.  I plan to use this for single stage and base coats, it's a step up from the DeVilbiss Finishline I have now.  I also bought an Anest Iwata LPH-400LV clearcoat gun, it will be in next week.

The paint booth was plumbed with PVC pipe, which is generally considered extremely dangerous.  It's known to explode spontaneously, especially after some UV exposure - this is right next to the garage door. 

I used 1/2" black iron pipe.

I replaced the coarse filter too, there were two smaller ones that were restrictive.

This is the desiccant dryer setup in the booth, it works pretty well.

I did a little more sanding on the clutch arm, this will need some more primer and maybe another coat of mud before paint. 

Fro stopped out to do some work on his Benelli M4, he needed some retaining ring pliers to swap out a few parts.

gangsta.

I cleaned up the rack I have been using as a paint rack, it kept flaking dust into my paint so I decided to clean it up.  After some sandpaper and Awesome:

I wanted to paint it, but didn't want to spend any money. I cracked open the paint I had leftover from my last paint job - in July 2007!  The shelf life of this stuff is about a year... but it all looked pretty good.

I threw down some sealer

Mixed up some teal!

Shot some color and clear

I now have a badass paint rack that won't flake dust into my real paint.  I'm more excited about the fact that 5-year old paint mixed and cured!

It's hard to tell if this is orange peel because the surface was so rough before I started, but it will work.

I did a bunch of awesome stuff this weekend and forgot to take pictures of anything. 

I was in the city for happy hour Friday evening, and decided to swing by the Carnegie Mellon FSAE garage to check on the progress of this year's car.  They leave for competition tomorrow, good luck guys!  I was honestly impressed by the build quality of the car this year, after a few questionable years they have definitely stepped it up.  As I said I forgot to take pictures, so I stole this one from Facebook. 

Good luck at competition!
http://www.carnegiemellonracing.com/

After that I met my friends Jason and Rochelle for some brewskis.

I blew a ton of money at the paint store Saturday morning!

I bought my first pint of color coat - this is Reflex Silver that I plan to use on the intake manifold and some other engine parts.  I cheaped out and went with PPG Omni MBC base coat instead of PPG Deltron DBC, but this stuff sprays pretty well. 

I did some more painting on Sunday; more satin black stuff for the engine compartment. 

Timing cover, plug wire clips, shifter detent for the trans, and the axle heat shield:

coolant pipe:

Check out the color mismatch on these timing covers.  They were sprayed out of the same batch, at the same time, in the same booth.  Woody thinks the paint wasn't mixed up enough, that's the best theory I have right now.  They might get redone anyway because there is a shitload of dust in the lower cover.

Painters bandage

After all the dust in the last two batches of paint, I pulled the rack out of the booth to get it sanded down.  I plan on painting this thing so I can wipe it down before painting parts hanging on it.  I have some ~5 year old Deltron DBC and Stratoclear laying around, I might spray that and hope it cures.  I'm already $9 over budget after the $9 worth of sanding discs I used.