Showing posts with label FRP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FRP. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

** the risks of the daily driver..

Driving my old Trueno everyday has its ups and downs, and after the high of the weekends mods, we have a little low today. During some slightly over enthusiastic parking manoeuvres on my small snow covered driveway I clipped a small (cast iron!) fence post with my rear left corner! It was a slow speed impact but the damage was done.

 A nice big crack in my lightweight RunFree bumper and a bit of a dent and scrape into the panel. Very inconvenient when I was only on my lunchbreak. Luckily my left Redline was spared, and the damage did not extend below to the pocket.  I took the bumper off for a quick cabletie fix.

...and examined the rear of the car. I hadn't had the rear bumper off since I got the car, it was the last unexplored place, so I was pleased to find the pockets were in very good health.
  Unfortunately there was some rust growing on the rear panel seam.. I had seen a little of this a few times before when the car was up on the ramp but I got to examine it closer today, although I wish it was under different circumstances.

 I was going to keep the RunFree Aero with the early splitter combo on the front bumper but it looks like I will be going to standard rear end & skirts afterall now, a new RunFree will be silly money and I dont think it  could be cleanly repaired as its so thin. So the car will be taking a trip to the bodyshop for the rust aswell as my new damage. The not so fun part of daily AE86 life! 
 

 Anyway looks like she will be wearing her small battle scar for the rest of the winter,  at least it looks a little more presentable now with colour coded cable-ties. :)


Winter car or at least winter tyres next year I think..

Saturday, May 8, 2010

** Trueno on a diet!

Its been a little while since my last post, but in that time I have not been ignoring the Trueno :)
I mentioned a while back that I was waiting for another part to arrive, well here it is, a very tasty, OEM style non vented FRP bonnet from MCN-Sport.



It is very nicely made, with the double skin underneath so it will still keep the engine bay nice and tidy - I didnt want one of the ultralight flexy single skin type being my road car after all.
This should shave another few KG off my already light Trueno GT 2-door, (the lightest AE86 from factory) and matches the FRP bootlid nicely too.

I will be using some Aerocatch locking bonnet fasteners to keep it down, as they are a more secure and cleaner alternative to bonnet pins. Should be quite stealthy on the black bonnet!




Now that this is here and the OEM bumper is back on, the car is ready for a trip to the body shop for a little freshen up in the coming weeks (once Kev's track Trueno gets out of there and frees up a space!) the bumper is going back to graphite, the bonnet will be sprayed obviously, and there will be a couple of areas touched up on the front wheel arches and elsewhere.

Also, parts are being gathered for the coilover conversion, so expect a nice GH-style coilover autopsy/rebuild post in a few weeks :)

Dave