Thread: Roadster pickup getting closer

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Don- I don't know if this helps or not, but once my computer crashed and I was able to just buy a new hard drive for the computer so I bought an external hard drive also so that I could put the old drive in there to recover my documents. I ended up removing all the operating software from the old hard drive and now I use it as extra space for music and pictures. You said the hard drive was bad though so I'm not sure your case is exactly the same.

I'm glad to see things moving along on the rpu. any progress on your dodge or is there no time in this stage of Dan's build bolting on shiny parts where he wants to work alone?

Any updates Don, or has he decided to start over........LOL
BradC

Originally Posted by BradC

Any updates Don, or has he decided to start over........LOL
BradC

I know I haven't posted any updates for a while. We found some issues with the powder coating that necessitated blowing the car apart and pretty much going back to bare steel and starting over again. I'll say more after we find out what happens this time around.

Before we blew it apart we rolled it into the sunshine for the first time in it's life. Here are a few pictures of that. Thanks for asking though.

Don

Back to bare steel..??!! The frame? Holy crap; after all you went through with the special filler, etc? Bring us up to date...

Dan's pretty bummed...........no, make that VERY bummed, and since it's his car I should let him air it first. But basically, we started bolting stuff on and noticed the clear coat was brittle. As we tightened down any bolt you would hear this crunching sound. Even holes that we needed to drill out for bolt clearance after the powder coating filled them up would crack out rather than drill cleanly. We thought it might be isolated, but the last straw was when we were bolting on the front shock mounts we saw the clear was separating from the black right around the mount, and we hadn't even tightened it down yet.

After checking further we found the clear on every single part was peeling off of the black like saran wrap. You literally could take an air hose and blow sections off! That was Sunday, and Monday I was at their door when they opened at 7:30. The owner was puzzled and said he has never had that happen, especially on every batch they did...........all 44 pieces. I took a backing plate with me and pulled big sections of clear coat off to show him what was going on.

I PM'd Josh (Streetwerkz) and he gave me his phone number. Very nice, knowledgeable guy, and his opinion was that they either over cooked the black or under cooked the clear, so there was no adhesion. The owner of the shop said he would do whatever to make it right, and I told him we wanted every piece sandblasted back to bare metal and to start over, but this time WE WANT NO CLEAR ! The black was bonded on pretty well, it was the clear that was the problem.

So, what this meant is that we have to disassemble every part of the chassis we had just put together, including pulling the entire rear axle apart. I took the frame back on Wednesday and they spent all day Friday and part of Saturday sandblasting the frame back to bare metal. Our problem is, the body shop that did the fairing in with the Tiger Drylac won't touch that stuff again for any amount of money.........it is a b**** to sand, and they lost money on the first go round. They only did it because we give them all our business.

What that means is that we are going to take the bare frame to the body shop and tell them to do their magic with epoxy primer, regular filler, and black enamel. We won't go through that again because without the filler the frame has some areas that won't come out right. We will let the powder coater blast and redo all the other stuff, BUT NO CLEAR.

Like I said, Dan is really discouraged with this whole ordeal. The thing that should have been the most fun (bolting parts on a finished frame) ended up being the start of us having to go through all that work and money again. We ended up losing the $ 120 we paid for the filler and another $ 350 we paid the body shop to fair it in, all that got blasted back off. Building cars is SO MUCH FUN !!

Sorry for the long explanation, but it was quite the ordeal.

Don

Sorry to hear about this. I feel bad for him, since I know he wants this car to be right. It sure looked fantastic in the pics, though.

It's a real downer to have to redo something you've put so much effort and money into. Even worse when it isn't your fault.

Mike

Ya know Mike, it seems every problem that comes up in building a car happens because of things outside professionals screw up.............be it a body shop keeping a car way too long, or an upholsterer messing up, or, like in this case, the powder coater doing something wrong. You can control the stuff you do yourself, but lose control when it goes to someone else.

We are actually in worse shape than we were 3 weeks ago because now every part is powder coated and that stuff is a bear to get back off. At least before we had bare metal to work with. Don tried to put it into perspective for us by saying that he had those problems with his T when it got together. First the bent valve, and then the motor and transmission coming back out so the transmission could go back for rebuilding after it failed. Oh, and he also had the steering arm snap in half. Don rolls with the punches pretty well and simply parked the T until he felt like working on it again. Dan will rebound too, but I think the 4 years worth of work is wearing thin on him right now.

Speaking of Don, he went to another show today and picked up another trophy. I'm gonna stop hanging around with him, it's bad for my ego.

Don

Do you think this is some sort of adhesion problem??????? This is the backing plate, you can see how the clear peels right off like that shrink wrap some products come with.

Don

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

Speaking of Don, he went to another show today and picked up another trophy.
Don

Tell him I said congrats!!!!!

Sorry about the ego!!!

Mike

Sorry to hear about the troubles Don!!! Im sure Dan must be pretty bumned! But you never know, maybe it happened for a reason, and in the end he`ll get a better final product.

A real bummer for sure, but perhaps you should be happy it showed up so soon and not after you had completely put the car together. That would have been even more discouraging.

Yep, I'm kind of a glass half full optimist, and you are right. Better to find it now than before all the other stuff was bolted on. I picked up his frame on my lunch hour today, it is back to bare metal. After we spend some time DA-ing it (again!!) it will go to the body shop for their touch.

Golf is looking better all the time.


Don

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

Golf is looking better all the time.


Don

Here, let me help you with that idea.

That's a good one Bob!
How's the weather in Florida, Don?

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

Golf is looking better all the time.

Don

I suppose golf is alright for people with the right temperament. I've tried it, though, and I'm told it's supposed to be relaxing..? My ass! Golf would be a short cut to a heart attack or a stroke for me. I have never done anything that put me in a screaming rage as quickly as golf. My fourth (and last) round of golf, I got so mad I bent the 7 Iron around a tree.. and they were borrowed clubs! That was 29 years ago; never again. In my next life I'm going to be a stamp collector...