mjrstar

Not sure if I should get some epoxy or try to rangi up a vacuum system or just carry on as I am.. Did some reading about prepreg but seems like the cost skyrockets / is not really novice spec.

Sanded and polished, finish is a little better but not amazing, the voids are flat now but did leave a visible bubble under the surface for some reason. I think could in part be the difference between cheap polyester resin which is not doing a great job of self levelling when compared to proper epoxy, and leaves a slightly dull finish. Did at least get rid of the pva streaks. Went from 600 wet sanding to polish because I didn't have any 1200. If it turns to crap down the track I will spray on some 2 pot clear.

Certainly not perfect, a couple of bubbles on the surface, and spots at the edge where the resin didn't fill right out, but the weave underneath looks better than I anticipated.

Had to fight for over an hour to get the second light out of the l/h mould. I was willing to sacrifice my $20 light to save the mould. Below is the remains of the light. Also my aliexpress carbor fibre turned up today, man you have to be careful not to open up the weave! Will find out if I have managed to make a thing or if I have wasted a bunch of time and have zero to show for it. this is just 2 layers of cf and budget polyester resin. It went off a bit too quick for my liking probably because it was pretty hot in my shed this afternoon.. I'm pretty confident it won't be great on the finished side but may be salvageable.

Please tell me there is something in a spray can I should be using instead of PVA.

Impatient much.. anyway I decided to get in to it because I wanted a bit of flex to the the light out before the resin had 100% cured, but moreso so i can sleep tonight, lack of draft angle and semi keyed in angle in a couple of places meant it could have been touch and go. surface finish has some light lines from brushing on the pva and a small bubble at the point of the light which is covered by the bumper so no problem. Released easily... I'm calling that a win for a first attempt, hopefully I can now make a usable part! Will have a think about how much of the edge to trim up.

This thread has inspired me to dip my toe into the world of composites.. (please don't use any of the below as advise just observations from a noob) First attempt on a headlight mould to make more headlightly type things for my pos racecar.. no idea if I'm doing it right.. or if it will release properly.. if it does the next step will be to use the mould to produce a headlight blank. If it doesn't I'll need to figure out why and try again. . Made an edge barrier out of junk, cleaned sanded, cleaned etc.. Laid down 7 coats of wax -/ mould release. 2 coats of PVA. 1 coat of moulding Gel coat, next time I will use a bit less than 2% catalyst as even on a small thing like this I ended up in a hurry. 2 layers of 200g cloth. 2 layers of 225 chopped strand 1 layer 450g chopped strand. (No idea if that will be strong enough) What I noted is that working the cloth required scissors to get it to shape nicely whereas the chopped strand behaved better when pulled apart.. When the mat wasn't behaving more resin seemed to help. The little roller thing I purchased isn't much good dabbing with a brush was the successful method. Be prepared to go through a fair few brushes and mixing cups etc and set up a covered area on your workbench. And use disposable gloves etc... It's hard to tell if you are pushing the first layer of mat through the gel coat- I reckon the inside may have signs of this if I get to split the part open. If it turns to shit I will delete this post and deny having done any fibreglass work..

I had a seized proportioning valve on my kp years ago. I would crack one bleed nipple with the pedal hard down and see if it makes the pedal sink.

all good, i'm not looking for someone to learn / have a tinker anyway, i'm really after someone who is already proficient in such activities. If there was no risk of turning my ute into a paperweight (immobilised with no way to rectify) i would find someone to simply swap the EPROM from my working correct cluster into my cool looking FPV cluster wth built in oil temp and boost gauge. this theroetically would drag across the canbus ID for the immobiliser and the mileage in the odometer.

Hi, Does anyone on here have experience with Ford IDS. I am looking to get a cluster odometer changed to match actual vehicle mileage and pair with the immobiliser. Both of these things are hidden away in the cluster EEPROM. There is some vague info on how this is done and a few Australia ford dealerships can do it. Ideally looking for someone in nz familiar with this sort of jazz rather than calling a bunch of ford dealerships trying to find the one guy that might know what he is doing. More than happy to pay going rate to get this sorted. Thanks.

Aah yes well anything that passes the tennis ball test will be fine for a turbo car. Do all you can do to keep dump pipe size as big as possible out of the turbo(s) to help with spool. You won't need much to quieten it down, one thing that seems to reduce drone is a reasonable length of tip after the rear muffler ( say 300mm will make a dramatic reduction compared to 75mm of the same pipe diameter from what I have found). Also twin tips of maybe 2 1/4 reduces drone compared to single 3 inch tip.

If it was mine I would go 2 1/2 inch mandrel Bent, single 18 inch reso, and something like a flowmaster fx. 3 inch on a non turbo 3 litre is probably just making life difficult for minimal gains. Years ago I replaced the rear muffler on my 30m Diamante and ditched the flapper bypass system, it made enough noise with the front section standard. I actually purchased a somewhat expensive coby muffler from coby in hamilton recently for my honda, pretty happy with the build quality and sound. If you don’t mind paying a bit more to support a local company.

A lot more than you do running a tig! If you were building a trailer from scratch get a bigger bottle, if doing occasional odds and sods it'll last a decent length of time. Remember to check for leaks and turn gas off at the bottle when not in use.

Zf in falcon has no drain plug either so you get covered in oil when you remove the pan.. does at least have fill plug though.

You can halve the surface area straight off as 50 % of the bar area has the external cooling air passing through to the radiator. Then take a look inside at the amount of vane material which extends into the airflow, minus this off next. Then take off the bar (or tube) thickness (top, bottom, and side material each bar is made from) as this is another reduction of internal surface area. @Beaveris right though it will work, (so would a straight piece of pipe though) it just may not be optimised. Just to clarify I'm not trying to be negative - just trying to educate from my own experience.