i recon he should badge it up as a vxr nova going by the front endQuote:
Originally Posted by Matt2107
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i recon he should badge it up as a vxr nova going by the front endQuote:
Originally Posted by Matt2107
why not go along the lines of
http://www.evo.co.uk/images/front_pi...o_219519_5.jpg
aye thats pretty smart - the original design was based on the monaro/corsa opc so will draw up some finer plans...
like the wheels on that!
Very nice car coming along there hopefully see it at the shows in lets see a couple of years :lol:
what colour are you painting your vectra ade?lol
exactly what the front looks like well i thought soQuote:
Originally Posted by dave.gsi
Going to be a one off thou when its finished
IT'S NOT A FECKIN VECTRA!
lol
probably dakar yellow with anthracite highlights - or Anthracite.
Car looking mint, i agree on the wheels they do look mint, i think theyre 19's tho and obviously 5 stud so be a bit of a pain to fit. reading this is a motivation to me to get working on my nova, in the process of stripping it down to a bare shell to get it acid dipped and phosphate coated.
if a vectra had sex with a nova..................it would give birth to your car lol
A Novra? Nover? Vecva lolQuote:
Originally Posted by dave.gsi
nah - its actually been nicknamed "Puntova" - or "novunto" due to the punto's lights...
Well today I decided I'd buy a mig welder this weekend. Been poking about the rear arches and think I need to replace them.
No idea on how to weld but bought several books and have a wad of scrap metal so will mess about with that till I'm up to speed.
Work looks fantastic ade, and i'm amazed you've done this without any welding so far !
The only thing i'm worried about is the top half of the car ! With all these super-modern looking bumpers/lights/grill e.t.c isn't it going to look like you've chopped the top half off and replaced it with a poorly designed 80's box ?
Hey how about a roof chop? would look mega neet but be very hard to get looking nice. Has anybody ever seen this done to a nova before?
the top should be okay. The boxy look should fit with the body kit which has sharp lines on it - also I plan to mess about with the spoiler - perhaps extend it a bit (eg new fiesta st style one).
Sorry to post this question in here but i was wandering how to start my own post so i can put up some pictures of my own project?
Ade, looking good. With regarsds to learning to weld hop over to mig-welding.co.uk, there are some good tutorials and a really helpful forum. Mikey14sr and myself both hang about there.
cheers Bump - just joined
Saturday 01/12/2007
Christmas came early in my house!
Posty deliverey my new chrome uprated boot strut courtesy of supernovas
Also delivered a new bootpop kit courtsey of Blaize Electronics
Took myself off to Machine Mart and picked up the following welding gear -
Clarke 110E gas mig welder. Comes with CO2 bottle, welding mask, regulator and wire
Some welding Gauntlets
Spare wire
A nice Clarke joggler with hole punch
2 x argon heavy use canisters
and a proper welding mask with flip up face protector and flip up screen
?250 all in. V Happy!
All I got to do now is remember how to feckin weld!
lol
love the car, top work m8, am sure with the amount of time and patience put into your headlight conversion picking up welding wont be a problem. ignore the whole roof chop thing, think that would take it too far with the shape and angles of the car. if you need any help with fibreglassing methods and materials pm me, have done quite a bit of it. lmao at the predicted end date at start of post but top work bud, keen to see finished article:thumb:
cheers!
Ade, drop Weldequip a PM on mig-welding and grab an auto mask, once you've used one you never go back. I've been using them for about 6 years now.
Hows the welding going? i found it real trick at first and kept welding the wire to the tip of the welding gun which was really annoying as it ment i had to keep taking the welder apart and unravalling the wire etc. however after a bit of practice it really dose become very easy and once you step back and have a look at what you've done it feels really good. the car is really looking smart now mate, i love the idea of the punto lights blended into the nova front end, i'd never ever thought of this before. great car and good luck with the rest of it.
ta - havent even had chance to unpack me welder yet but hsve been warned about the welding the tip thing. Bought some spare tips just incase!
good luck with welding ade, its easy once you know how..
How's the nova coming along mate? you managed any sucsesful welds yet?
lol nah - welders still in its box - havent had 5 mins to do anything.
Dont think I'll get much chance this side of Christmas now tbh - working this weekend and my shifts are right bawstewards between now and next Friday. However I'm off Thursday and then I have a week off 1st week in Jan 08 so will probably mess about then...
Saturday 29/12/2007
More parts gathering today - picked up a set of minted GM front wings from a fellow PNG'er this afternoon. the pattern parts I had were okay but the gaps were a bit out and they seemed a tad short in length at the front (didnt fit the lower valance snuggly).
New ones are perfect (as youd expect from a GM part).
Took a detour via B&Q on the way home and picked up a bandsaw in the sales along with a few other odds n sods...will come in useful.
Off work next week although most of it will be spent away for anniversary - but when I get back the project will pick up big time - deadline is September 2008!
Good to see your still cracking on with this :)
It's like childbirth (so I'm told). The progress is slow - the pain is horrible - it's taking forever - I want it finished NOW - but in the end (hopefully) it'll be worth it!
Or the missus will have it scrapped!
Its nearley september!! Lol. Hows it goin mate? you done anything else recentley to the car? oh just out of interest are you goin to be painting the car again yourself? and what colour is it goin? or gonna stay red? good luck anyway mate, this is the best thread on here, totally original.
Done a little more to the bonnet - basically I thickened it up. the reason being (after a few posts of the usbject on this thread) - if I took a cast from the original one the new skin wouldnt just bond straight onto the spare bonnet I have - simply because the thickness of the fibreglass would obstruct it.
So I've beefed up the original design with a 3mm layer of acrylic sheet curved and bonded to the existing design. It's been bonded and filled along the gaps/edges - just needs shaping the checking for accuracy however compared to the original design I've already noticed a slight difference from one side to the other.
It's my wedding anniversary over the weekend so am going away (weather permitting) so probably wont start any proper work on the car till the following week - then it will literally be all hands to the pumps!
Current thoughts on colour is BMW Dakar yellow (or similar) with gunmetal/anthracite lower valance/skirts and wheels...
September sounds like a close deadline but its basically 9 months - plan to have the car and kit ready to spray by April (ish). Whilst its away I'll work on the dash and interior...
ade
Wednesday 09/01/2008
Day off work so attacked the bonnet (again) - had some problems getting it balanced correctly - the drivers side for whatever reason was slightly higher at the edge where the wings meet when compared to the passenger side. the odd thing was the thickness of the bonnet on that side was the same as the other - managed to figure it out as a combination of too much material underneath catching on the top of the light housing and the wing not being properly aligned...
Now that both sides are the same height I needed to ensure the front corners were the correct shape and met the lights at the right angle - this was (and is) a nightmare as everything needs to be measured then check by eye...almost there though - just the drivers side corner needs blending a bit more.
Thankfully once this is done thats the bonnet pretty much ready to be moulded. I'll give it a coat of paint and level everything before hand but the new increased thickness means I can now just take a copy in fibreglass and then bond it directly to the donar bonnet I have spare.
Also got a couple of packages delivered today - my new rear 1/4 panels and drivers full sill arrived courtesy of www.beeversautopanels.co.uk and I also got some items from www.frost.co.uk - comprehansive auto restorers, included some special little grips for welding called intergrips that hold your panels in place ir awkward places without the need for clamps!
Thursday 11/01/2008
Spend most of the evening sanding the corner from the previous day - finally managed to resolve my bonnet corner issue and both sides are now within 5mm of each other which isnt bad considering...
I applied another primer coat and checked for further adjustments - of which there are several - most to do with the 2 curves line details on the bonnet - also the detailing on the front needs tidying up a little...
Heres current pics - they look very similar to the prev ones I posted prior to thickening up the bonnet however the front is a tad different - plus both sides are now balanced...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...onnet20001.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...onnet20002.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...onnet20003.jpg
Now the top of the bonnet is pretty much done I should sort the underside out however its pretty much done as well - just needs tidying up - but I really need to leave it till I've sorted out the grill area out (incase I extend it under the bonnet).
I need to work on the wings and sort out the parts that will go round the lights and then extend the tops...
Heres what I'm up against...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...onnet20006.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...onnet20005.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...onnet20004.jpg
I've modified the wings slightly to account for the depth of the new lights but what I'm not sure about is whats the best way of filling the gaps? Iit needs dont really want to bodge it as I want it to last and the thicker the filler the bigger the risk of cracks so I'll probably need to fabricate some kind of metal support and skim it with filler.
the 1st task is to extend the line fron the wing to the back of the lights and up. I then need to extend the corner to blend with the curve of the bonnet. Then I need to sort the lower section - the current Nova corner where the grill clips are fits very snuggly underneath the light base so I'm looking at extending this out so the bonet has something to clip on.
I'm not 100% sure how this is going to blend in...time to rattle the brains I think...
Anyone ever made fibreglass wings??? mmm
I think Dan and a few others were on about standard size F/G wings, obviously you get the wide ones...
Could you not chop up some punto wings and sort of tack that on? Maybe lead fill it?
mmm not a bad idea - although dont really wanna have to fork out for a set of punto wings...will hunt about
Looking good mate, the gaps at the front do seem to be one of those annoying little niggles though, obviously using plain body filler would be a recepie for disaster cause it'd definetley end up cracking, perhaps the best thing to do would be to get some fibreglass wings and mould the front of them to the shape of the lights with some more fibreglass and a skim of filler, it'd definetley be a whole lot easier than trying to make some metal supports, the other option of using the front half of punto wings isn't a bad idea though, granted you would have to buy a pair but theyre not expensive, however it may be difficult to get it looking nice after tacking the front half onto nova wings (lining everything up etc) look forward to seeing the result whatever you decide to do.
I'd cut the required bits off a scap punto and tack them on with the welder, then use FG to blend the two together.
Sunday 13/01/2008
Decided last night to make 2 light surrounds for the corners of my wings. Deliberated for ages about making fibreglass ones but that would be too complicated and long winded and cost more in materials in the long run. Buying Punto wings was too expensive and a waste - also the angle of the corners although correct is slighthly steeper (downwards) than the angle I'm using.
I recently picked up a set of GM front wings from a guy off here and as a result I had a spare set of patterns wings. These werent a great fit however I got to thinking perhaps I could lob the front corners off these and modify them with a bit of hammer and dolly work and weld them on to the front of my new wings...this I felt was the best course of action.
So I set about my old pattern wings.
The idea is to cut a section from the old wings leaving enough material to allow me to adjust the flow of the front part of the wing to bring the new section up behind the new lights - which actually protrude a little outside the "natural" curve of the existing wings. because the angle of the new front section is shallower that the front part of the Nova wings (which drops off sharply) the differences in height between the new welded section and the existing wing can be belnded in with a skim of filler - no more than a few mil thick.
The 1st task was to make a card template of the basic shape around the rear of the punto lights and then the angle across the front. I then needed to modify the angle of the corner. The nova wing corners are stubby and well rounded unlike the punto ones which are sharp and pointy. After chopping off the front 1/4 off the old wings and flattening back the undercuts of metal and set about hammering the stubby nova nose into a pointy punto one. Took about an hours to get the basic shape.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../wings0002.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../wings0003.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../wings0004.jpg
I then needed to cut the excess metal off leaving enough to make the new undercuts and to follow the line around the light housings and underneath the lights. This took a further hour of fettling and filing and bending.
The nova corners also have to detail lines that run contours down the wing. these had to be adjusted so further fettling was needed...
Heres the semi finished result -
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../wings0009.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../wings0010.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../wings0013.jpg
I also did the other side -
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../wings0014.jpg
The both fit really well.
Heres a pic of the parts I made today -
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../wings0007.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../wings0037.jpg
Theres still a bit of work to do on them both - I need to clean off the black primer and then sand them smooth to ensure theyre both level.
I'll then tack weld them into place and then a bit more hammer and dolly work will be needed to ensure thet sit smooth and level with the corner of the bonnet and the tops/sides of the lights. I'll then weld them up.
Both corners will no doubt get a light coat of filler to remove any dips etc but I'm happy with the current results - much quicker and stronger than fibreglass!
Ade