130 Station Wagon with side fold pop top build

Couple of tips that you're probably past now, but might still be useful.

Putting the resin in shallow containers allows the heat from the resin cure to escape better so you don't get the "damn my cup of resin is smoking" situation, or at least slows down that out of control cure when its warm.
Storing the resin in the fridge helps too as its starting from a lower temp.

Peel ply over the top of the wetted cloth and squeegeed down with a rubber spatula stops the coarse woven finish, and you end up with a finish like is on the manufactured panels. Needs much less finishing/sanding work.

You can get a very fine/smooth filler (think we used an Epiglass product) that will fill in small air bubbles and pores. Easy sanding and much finer than the micro balloon and resin filler mix.

Oscillating saws (like the cheapies you can get from Bunnings etc now) are a nice safe power tool to cut/trim the panels. Very little airborne dust and the relatively small diameter blades makes it quite easy to cut internal shapes and curves - even if you only need to cut one skin of a panel.

Steve

Thanks for the tips Steve. Still have some more fibreglassing to do so will try the peel-ply squeegee method.

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Originally Posted by danialan

Thanks for the tips Steve. Still have some more fibreglassing to do so will try the peel-ply squeegee method.

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Just to clarify in case there are different types of peel ply, the stuff I've used when building small foam core dinghies was just a thin woven polyester material. I've read of people using polyester dress lining fabric which is much cheaper than purpose made stuff for composite work.
Not sure exactly what I was using as someone else in the group sourced it, but we had a whole roll of the stuff so I'm guessing it was cheap.

We used small squeegee's about 100mm wide - something like this

You don't have to do the peel ply in one big piece either, and if you're just working by yourself smaller pieces are much more manageable. Just overlap them a bit and make sure you squeegee out all the crinkles - you don't have to wet all the edges out where they overlap. Lay down one edge and then use the squeegee to work from there like applying a decal. If you've got any compound curves, then cut thin strips and layer them on rather than ending up with a bigger piece with crinkles/folds that you'll have to sand off later.

I'll be interested to hear how it goes.

Steve

So I was well and truly over sanding fibreglass, my fingers/hands simply couldn't take any more 40 grit paper, so I moved on to sanding Aluminium!!

First I spent the best part of a day getting the packing tape sticky stuff off the frame. When peeling it off it left the sticky behind, which was even harder to get off than the "Defender" door decal sticky. Thinner seemed to be the only thing that softened it.

The 400/600 paper is much better on the hands. God so much sanding. Do yourself a favour and take the bubble wrap off the aluminium before letting it sit in the yard for a month or two.

When sanding the sides I was thinking about Keith and his suggestion to reinforce the rear corner of the sides and decided that while it was apart it wouldn't be that hard to do. So I got some 20x20x3mm box section drilled out all the corner rivets ground off the paint, and sikaflexed and riveted it back togther with several M6 bolts through it for good measure.

I then spent the rest of the afternoon cutting 40x40x3mm box for the front of this panel, shaping it around the seatbelt mountings, the holes for the Series door seal trims, around the top and bottom mounting brackets etc Even making a version 2 of it (shown). But it looked dodgy and after spending time googling Land Rover crash photos - it appeared that the sides always seemed to stay straight but simply fell over like a house of cards, bending at the base and top. So I aborted this and riveted the panel back up.

Lots of rain scuds coming through during this work meaning I had to race and pack up all the power tools and put them undercover, and then spend half an hour looking for the tool or bit I had neatly organised or ready to go just moments before. Wrong time of year to be doing this without a big shed.

Ready for painting. After cloudy rainy weather it was starting to look like I would have to put the car together unpainted. But I ended up taking my chances one fine(ish) afternoon.

Here ready to go and primed. I had been recommended to use filler primer on the side panels, but my poor little Wagner 180P spray gun just couldn't handle this thick stuff and just shot out clumps of paint. Which meant more sanding and time which I didn't really have with the dodgy weather.

On with the white. I'd spent an hour at the paint shop with a young enthusiastic bloke who used the computer to tell me that my 130 was actually painted in "Suzuki White", he then mixed various batches, running outside to test the colour match. Its still not the same colour white as the front of the car. Should have followed my two year olds suggestion and painted the front half of the car Series 3 yellow...

But the weather held and I got on 4 coats of (Suzuki) white.

Then forging on I did a night shift tinting the rear windows using a precut kit I got off the net. Went well except that the 50% tint didn't seem very dark, and because the kit was for a 110 station wagon I had to cut the tinting to suit the rear side windows and somehow in my sleep deprivation I managed to chop the piece designed for the rear door window - bugger!

The tint looks dark with 4 panes stacked on top of each other though.

to repeat what others have said - your workmanship is impressive, as are your posts on all the detail. its going to be an awesome car.

Sides fitted. I didn't paint the flat bits on the inside as they are getting the dynamat, foam, marine carpet treatment like the rest of the car.

I also finally fitted the little rear door triangle pieces, and sill trims properly. The car looks long, but is only 4.9m from tip of the bullbar to rear of the body, which is about 300mm shorter than a Toyota Troopcarrier.

Next I finished drilling and tapping the stainless steel angle inside the box section for the b and c pillars. I snapped 2 drill bits and two taps. Goodness me! No photos of this part as I would prefer to forget it.

Moving on... the rest of the frame is bolted on with rivnuts. I'm not real fond of rivnuts, but as I have used box section with this build I have limited options. So first I did a tests in a scrap metal. Testing how much torque till they turned. Using various "glues" locktite 401, locktite 262, epoxy etc, and also tested various countersinking of the "countersunk" rivnuts. I ended up going with epoxy, and no real countersinking, only a debur of the hole. Then I installed them in the frame, 11 per side at the rear and 6 across the windscreen.