Bling

I don't have this one, so bit of a Ling post, but it looks to have the same adjustment knobs as my now quite old BOC MagMate 180 (long NLA so can't recommend that one). Not badly priced either, haven't tried it but three year warranty seems decent and based on my current rig would be happy to go BOC again. https://www.boc.co.nz/shop/en/nz/mig-flux-cored-welding/mig-mag-welders/boc-smootharc-mig-180-lcd-welder-boc180miglcd-p#product1

How exactly are you mixing it? lol I was doing most of mine in the middle of summer (mid 20's I guess) and would probably get at least 15 minutes before it started to go off properly. So I would say ratio was off or maybe not mixed enough? Even early stages of mine going off it was nice enough to apply. So to not even get one part done sounds way too fast. If I had primer left i'd often do another coat, so my going off time might be off a little, was a while ago now. I'd have a bunch of areas around the car ready to go and just do laps till it was all done.

It primer (anything) goes off too quick the ratio is probably wrong. Are you using measuring cups?

Go with Spencers prep just above. So with his prep, I just rolled measuring cups from the paint store, nice and easy for getting the ratio right. I wear more PPE than most due to other health issues (makes you appreciate what you have a lot more), so used a 3M full face mask (got it pretty cheap somewhere I forget right now) with organic filters. Bag the filters up when not being used as they work X amount of time then stop working. The stuff is smells potent and I sure knew when it wasn't sealing 100% right. I would prep a few areas at once so that what I mixed up was used up.

I used that epoxy primer brushed on the hardtop, no issues so far, but then it only sees proper moisture once a year on average so can't comment on it's longevity. None of my poor quality 1k top coat has fallen off though. If you were local i'd give you what's left of my small 1L tin, but shipping that is a ballache / not economical.

Is it the RCA causing this clash? I had to have mine machined down as the LCA was hitting my brake rotor (couldn't even bolt the LCA to the strut, I was spewing). So the LCA got a massage and the reduced in size RCA helped too. I can't remember how close the rack was as rotor was my biggest hurdle at the time. Didn't have to shorten it by much and headaches were gone.

Yeah that's why I question how much needs to be powered, you wouldn't want to draw much off it. Battery out of car with BMS will be the way to go. I wouldn't try and run my 16kW heatpump, but it would be able to run fridge / gas hot water / internet and maybe a TV. That keeps those indoors happy enough. Like I say, never tried it as power is reliable thankfully. But have seen it done a bit by those overseas with lackluster power supply.

What do you need to power? Haven't done it myself but from what i've seen, if the car is "on" you can run an inverter off the 12V battery and it's charged by the main battery. If I got a bunch of power cuts i'd likely be doing that myself for critical appliances.

On mine the threaded sleeve is steel because it's the shock itself. The nuts are aluminum. I had custom ones made in 6061 but the stock ones were 6061 too. Cert man was happy with that.

Thread here with a few of the posts, was only going off memory but I think conversion is covered here

I'm hoping he will chime in when he's done sniffing his lawn. I feel like he replaced the seals but can't remember now. edit: looks like it was the o-rings, I guess because old and why not.

I think @Spencer has commented about this in the past.

How old is the car for no one to have alignment specs

Been one of those days, so I won't make it tonight. Will work out how many mitsi turned up by the number of cancelled flights later.

Not biased at all, but there is more to gasfitting than jamming some pipes together and bubble testing it. Plenty of people think they are smart enough to do it though and they end up killing (innocent to the install) people. It just doesn't make the news. Not directed at anyone, but generally people who say they can do it because it's easy are the ones who should not be touching it. It applies to all trades really, every diddle-fingers think they are smarter with zero education. Ignorance is bliss till a kid suffocates in your DIY'd shower install. As you say too, too many imbeciles out there really.