What have you done to your car today?

[aim]

 Shale said:

Claybarred, cut, polished and waxed the living sh!t out of chrisjunkie and ReubenH's GTBs over the weekend. VERY satisfying given the awesome reflect-o-matic paintwork now! ;D

Also filled up and jumpstarted my Legacy today. Reckon it's a cracked radiator at this point/ Meh...will just match the engine to the ECU and get an alloy radiator with a feckload of new waterpipes. ;D

Claybar... hmm where might I acquire?

[Shale]

Repco stocks the Mothers stuff. It's pretty gentle. $50-$60 for a pack (two claybars, Showtime, microfibre) depending on your local store.

Personally I recommend using the Meguiars Ultimate Compound straight after the claybar - as the clay itself won't drag out rusted contamination, but it gets almost everything else out. The Meguiars does a brilliant job of finishing up.

If you can find Meguiars claybar of some sort it might be worth trying that too and giving a report ;D

[Scoobydoo]

Supercheap do the Meguiars single clay bar kit for $45. You only use half a bar anyway. Then keep the bars in an airtight container afterwards.

[Simon C]

Got WOF'd today, had to explain to the WOF guy why I don't have airbags, and showed him the letter from Subaru saying so.

Also found out that my next door neighbour has welding equipment in his garage. So he welded me up the seat rails for my new bucket seat! Only problem is that he welded one of the fittings on backwards (found out the seat won't bolt in!), so we'll have to take it apart again and reweld it!

[Guest keltik]

Fitted new gearbox, re-fitted airbox and intake scoop, fixed my EDFC controllers backlight, replaced my clutch and was delighted to see my friction plate was almost like new. So stuck it back in and just changed the release bearing and the pressure plate. Also replaced the bearings in my serpentine belt idlers. Turns out i need a new front bearing in my alternator too.

Short shifter kit from driven performance didnt fit. As i suspected - the bottom ball joint was too small for the nylon bush in my model. Will be ordering a new bush tomorrow and hopefully that will have it sorted.

Big thanks to madmike for his help and QYKCHK for a mean feed!

[subypower]

 keltik said:

Fitted new gearbox, re-fitted airbox and intake scoop, fixed my EDFC controllers backlight, replaced my clutch and was delighted to see my friction plate was almost like new. So stuck it back in and just changed the release bearing and the pressure plate. Also replaced the bearings in my serpentine belt idlers. Turns out i need a new front bearing in my alternator too.

Short shifter kit from driven performance didnt fit. As i suspected - the bottom ball joint was too small for the nylon bush in my model. Will be ordering a new bush tomorrow and hopefully that will have it sorted.

Big thanks to madmike for his help and QYKCHK for a mean feed!

NICE WORK BRO!

[Guest keltik]

Didnt take long either. Started at 10am and test drove it at 3pm. Then spent the rest of the day fecking round with small stuff.

Oh and if anyone wants a turbo friction plate with about 2,000km on it. Gimme a yell.

[madmike]

Backed mine outta the shed to fit Kelt's in....

That's pretty much it....

[Guest]

new tyres and wheel alignment on the wagon for me. found the new rims i gotta convince the mrs into letting me buying, also the genuine carbon fibre mirrors,tein adjusties,86mm silicon intake pipe,rear cusco strut brases (upper and lower) as i have the fronts already. anyone have a spare money tree?

[ReubenH]

 Shale said:

Claybarred, cut, polished and waxed the living sh!t out of chrisjunkie and ReubenH's GTBs over the weekend.

Pics!

Said GTB also got the steering rack fixed, CV boot replaced, hand brake adjusted, and wheel alignment done. Tomorrow, the alloy radiator get's replaced on warranty, as some of the weld have broken! Silverdale radiators are bloody good blokes. Auckland, if you ever need a new radiator... GO THERE!

[ReubenH]

Swapped the radiator today. Went for a test drive

F*cking up-pipe rattle.

I'm going to have to listen to it all the way down to queenstown. FFS.

[Shale]

The ONE part aside from a complete engine I don't have spare, and you had to go break it!

Currently hunting in a mad, disorganised manner for my USB adapter so I can upload photos of epically shiny GTB.

[Simon C]

Replaced the horrible worn out exhaust hangers on my car which make my aftermarket exhaust slap against my rear diff. Now I have nice stiff Group N ones.

[ReubenH]

Pics of the polish from the weekend:

[subypower]

 ReubenH said:

Pics of the polish from the weekend:

NICE MAN! THAT LOOKS WICKED!

WHAT DID YOU USE TO GET IT THAT SHINY?

[Divine]

Its like a mirror, holy shit

[DRFVDR]

 subypower']

[quote name='ReubenH said:

Pics of the polish from the weekend:

IMG]http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa208/Pilot_Reuben/DSC00061.jpg[/img]

NICE MAN! THAT LOOKS WICKED!

WHAT DID YOU USE TO GET IT THAT SHINY?

He Used SHALE heheheheheheheh

[Shale]

Damn straight, that was most of the weekend scrubbing with two of us. Totally worth it though...black cars are INSANE when polished up that much! Doesn't it look awesome?! ;D

The process: (after two thorough bucket washes)

1) Claybar - Mothers is brand of choice here.

2) Meguiars Ultimate Compound - very hard to use but the results are amazing. And it's not an abrasive, violent cutter so it's gentle on older clearcoat.

3) Have in the past used a light cut and polish to finish it off. Not necessary/no time here.

4) Mothers Sealer & Glaze - fills in all the scratches the Meguiars didn't get out and adds an extra layer of protectant.

5) Mothers Pure Carnauba Wax, two layers on upward-facing and front-facing surfaces. Dang this stuff is nice!

From what I can tell and what I hear, Mothers and Meguiars are effin' good brands...but the Meguiars has a slight edge over the Mothers and is the preference of a shop or two I've spoken to.

[chrisjunkie]

Wish I had of had the time to do the sealer and glaze part too! That looks AWESOME ;D

[Guest]

Wowsers... that looks awesome!

[sultan]

you forgot the 6th step in that process, playing with the hue/saturation and brightness/contrast in photoshop. (the ghost house in pic 2 is awesome) But yeah, looks really good

my thing today:

took car for wof, and failed.

1 window tint darker than the rest. 1 damaged cv boot leaking guff. no window washer nozzles installed.

first wof guy to pickup on the wash nozzles in about 5 wof's, 3 of which were different vtnz branches!

[Shale]

 sultan said:

you forgot the 6th step in that process, playing with the hue/saturation and brightness/contrast in photoshop. (the ghost house in pic 2 is awesome) But yeah, looks really good

Psh. Given I'm a graphic designer it's entirely possible most of my photos are bollocksed up, but these photos are virgins Btw us pros don't touch brightness/contrast. And who needs sat when you're talking about a black car

[sultan]

ok, so that house truely is invisible then. what're you talking about, black car with blue reflections from the sky respond very nice to a cyan saturation enhancement and slight hue shift. :

or maybe i'm wrong and you've sprayed a massive amount of cyan pearl over the top of your gunmetal paint on the hx and have a 100 billion candle power flash that some how misses a lot of reflective material in the foreground and concentrates on the house and sky in the background?

[Shale]

 sultan said:

ok, so that house truely is invisible then. what're you talking about, black car with blue reflections from the sky respond very nice to a cyan saturation enhancement and slight hue shift. :

or maybe i'm wrong and you've sprayed a massive amount of cyan pearl over the top of your gunmetal paint on the hx and have a 100 billion candle power flash that some how misses a lot of reflective material in the foreground and concentrates on the house and sky in the background?

Actually you're completely and utterly 100% wrong on both counts.

I paid $150 for the camera

Ever tried to take a photo on a bright afternoon with massive contrast on the main focus with a cheap camera?

If either of us were to use Photoshop, these are the sorts of things that would be taken OUT. Not put IN.

Also, for the record. That's not gunmetal, that's blue steel. It inherently likes to pick up blue, given it's got an arseload of it in the paint. Not THAT much, and not CYAN, but you get the point.

That cyan is actually the sky reflecting off the paint FYI. You know, that bigarse blue thingy that those freshly shined surfaces are facing.

[ReubenH]

Yeah, i had to **** with the colours with photoshop, cause the point and shoot basically spat out cyan monotones at me.

Here's the original:

What i did.

Colour balance: Highlights: Cyan/Red; +15 (shift to red). Magenta/Green; 0. Yellow/Blue; -5 (shift to yellow)

Auto levels

Fade auto levels to 50%

Resized to 1024

Sharpen

Fade sharpen to 70%

Save.

Sure it's a quick hack to try and get rid of the cyan everywhere, but meh, i'm no professional, i taught myself this ****. So yeah,amy's right, i photoshopped, but to get the cyan out. The only real cheat was the sharpen at the end, but i do that to ALL my photo's when i downsize for web. It's a nasty habit, but it sure makes em pop.