My Fibreglass Project.
As we all know air takes the easiest route, so after fitting my oil cooler, I wanted to duct the air from the bumper straight into the cooler itself.
This would involve removing the bumper. Not too much of an issue as the wheels are already off. The only problem I had was removing one of the nuts that secures the side of the bumper. It was rusted on and snapped, so I've bought some replacement parts ready for when I refit the bumper: http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct007.jpg I had already bought a plastic ducting part from demon tweeks, and after a little cutting here and there, got it to fit over the cooler quite nicely. Next was to lay the fibreglass over the bumper hole. You have to remember I've never done fibreglassing before, and it's a very messy job :D: http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct001.jpg After fitting and removing the bumper more times than I care to remember I was eventually in a position to bond the two sections together to form this: http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct004.jpg After a few more layers of glass mat, I had what looked like a rough outline of a duct: http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct005.jpg http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct006.jpg |
Next job was to apply some car body filler, in this case P38. I've never donme this before either so it doesn't look that professioinal at the moment :). This is the outcome after using the entire tub of it :D:
http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct008.jpg And after 2 hours of sanding down with grade 120 wet and dry: http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct011.jpg Now that I have a basic shape I want to slowly fill the parts I never done the first time. This is going to take quite a few attempts. Here is my effort after tonight: http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct012.jpg Hopefully tomorrow I'll get chance to sand it down and have another go at filling it :). |
I applaud your attention to detail as i think for me that would be a bit too much for the amount of stress my car ever gets. However I do intend to properly duct my intercooler at some point.
How (and which side) are you going to attach the duct to? |
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The duct fits snug over the cooler, and as the cast has come from the bumper hole, it fits very tight in position, basically squashed between the two if that makes sense. It fits on the bumper the same way the SMIC ducting does. Here's a picture of the Oil Cooler fitted, thanks to Dunk's custom brackets: http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct002.jpg |
I'm going to be fitting my grilles as the bumper is off. With these and the ducting, it's going to be very difficult to get to the bulb holders which need to be removed inorder take the bumper off. To over come this problem, I've bought some waterproof connectors, which I'm going to fit between the stock wiring and the front indicators. These are IP67 rated:
http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct009.jpg |
Looking good and with it being low level i'd be adding a fine mesh in there too
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Well I've managed to apply two more layers of P38. Here's what it looked like after the third fill:
http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...v/Duct2002.jpg And after the fourth: http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...v/Duct2003.jpg I know there doesn't appear to be that much difference between the two but it's now a case of filling the imperfections. |
I've also sent my facelift indicators off to a guy to get converted to LED's, which I'm hoping will look great. This should also eliminate the problem of a bulb going :)
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