Point 'n Shoot

There is a lot I have put into Elvira, by the way that is her name, a lot of time, blood and sweat has gone into this fourby. I have also spent a lot of money, my wife is not very happy.

Well enough of the bullshit.

My mate Dan had told me there was a car for sale and it would suit me down to the ground, so we organised to go see it. My first thought when I saw it, was that it needed a lot of work.

Peter, the owner of the XB 4×4, was the one who built her up. Peter did not want to sell her to just anyone, he did not want to see her stripped down for her parts; I said there was no way! She is one of a kind!

Queensland Roads and Transport were the ones that had engineered her in the first place, I do have a photocopy of the paperwork. Well, when I went to get her registered, they had “misplaced” the originals. So I had to go and find an engineer to fix my problems, she ended up with a blue plate on her firewall (now I have a blue plate and full engineers report).

The First Attempt – The Beast

Don’t ever rush the job!

The reason my first rebuild attempt was rushed, I had some sponsors that wanted to put their vinyl on her. I am not going into detail about this first build (link to previous article) because with the second I will get into the real nitty gritty.

The reason I said don’t rush? Because I had the car on the road for about two weeks before it nearly burnt to the ground!

Just outside Yatala, Queensland, about 15 minutes away from my home. I had just finished work at midnight and I saw smoke coming from under the dash. I was doing about 105 km/hr and whilst reaching for the fire extinguisher, the dash caught alight. This was about 0130, well I was not happy! It took me hours on the side of the freeway to get her hotwired and start up again. After getting home, she sat in my car port for about two months, I was to angry to start again from scratch!

The reason for the fire? An overheated wire under the dash, melted the insulation and shorted.

The Second Rebuild – Elvira

I started by taking all the barwork off and then dragged her into the garage.

First the bonnet, it had a bend in the back and rust in the nose. With the bend, I put the bonnet on car chocks under the back of the car, then with a bottle jack on top and a Primus blow torch giving a little bit of heat, it all worked out awesome! The front of the bonnet, I cut out the rust, got some of the same gauge sheet, went to the vice and started to bend the new steel into shape. There was a fair bit of shaping work before I tacked it into place with the MIG. Once it was tacked in, I still had to grind back and smooth with bog. Then I could primer the bonnet.

Next, I ripped out the engine and all the wiring loom. Welded up the cracks in the engine bay, resealed the old seams with bog, sanded it all back and then painted it gloss black with a purple pearl.

Once I had taken the whole car apart, I started to sand it all back with a Makita orbital sander. Back to bare metal.

Now be careful doing this, if you stay in one spot too long, you can heat up the steel and warp it. Move around, do different bits (Hmmmm paint stripper is good in one way, no heating of the body. But bloody messy!). I started with 80 grit, then moved down through 120 to 180.

Now prepare to spend a lot of money on bog, most of the bog is going to be sanded off, if you want the job to last, don’t buy cheap body filler!

Take care here. The final finish all depends on this part of the job, it seems to go on forever, but it is worth it in the end.

The tools I used for sanding the body filler (bog)

1. Body Speed Rasp
2. Velcro Roll Sandpape
   1. 40 Grit
   2. 80 Grit
   3. 120 Grit
   4. 180 Grit.
3. Makita Electric Orbital Sander
4. Air driven Orbital Sander
5. Meter long Velcro faced Sanding Bar
6. Bog Cards, Hardener, Body Filler and a lot of cardboard

I used K&H primer, thinners and spray putty system.

1. 60L thinners
2. 8 L gray primer
3. 4L spray putty and yellow primer
4. 1L blue spray putty
5. 10L clear
6. 8L Ford Phantom Purple
7. 3L Aluminium Sparkle

Now how you do this will depend on what tools you have. I have a large compressor (14 CFM) and a whole heap of different Star Brand spray guns.

So it’s time to put the primer on, but first I had to wax and grease remover the whole car (personally I leave this to dry for half an hour afterwards). Put on the first coat of primer, normally when the first primer coat goes on there will be little pits in the bog. This is when I use spot putty, once dried, lightly sand back the spot putty and then sand pack all the primer with 900 grit wet and dry. Now wax and grease remover it again.

Time to put on another grey primer coat, then I let her dry for a day. When I went and checked out how it all settled, I found a few scratches and little holes. This is when I used the spray putty.

Most of the primer and spray putty I sanded back by hand, it takes a long time to sand, spray putty, wax and grease remover again. So after I’d put the next coat on, I left it all to dry for about 5 days.

By this time I was getting bored with sanding and primering, but I did it all again, the last coats to go on were another spray putty and a light overcoat of matt black. The black over coat will show up any high or low spots when you sand it all back again, a bit like bearing blue. When I was happy with the finish, I dewaxed and degreased the whole car.

With the last coat of primer gray, I left the car for about two weeks to even out, and to give me a bloody break from it!

I had to wait for the perfect day, my time was running out, before it got to cold I had to spray!

Finally, about 33 degrees, 25% humidity, not too bad, I started to lay the paint on. It is hard to describe how I paint, as an old school panel beater (my friend Ray) taught me how to spray cars properly.

I gave the car a light sand with 1200 grt wet and dry, then de wax and grease one more time.

I ended up laying down about five coats, to jazz it up a little bit, I added progressively more clear. Not e that this doesn’t work for all paints. I then let it set for a week.

Stage 2 of the paint job, Aluminium Sparkle!

My wife designed the flame on the bonnet, it starts the stripe off that goes over the roof and down the boot lid. I did not go all the way with the stripe on the boot lid, because I did not want to join up with the GT striping, so I left about a ten centimetre gap. It took me about 14 hours to tape up and mask off the whole car, had a hang over the whole time… not good, very seedy. But, the striping turned out awesome! When I went out shopping for tape to mask up with, I made sure that the wax and grease remover was not going to affect the tape, I do learn from my past mistakes.

When it was all taped up, I lightly sanded all the exposed parts with 1500 wet and dry, this takes the gloss off the existing paint and “keys” it to allow the new paint to stick better.

What next? Wax and grease remover.

Then I sprayed the exposed areas with aluminium sparkle and let it dry overnight.

One last time. Wax and grease remover.

At last, the final coats of clear. I ended up with about ten coats of clear, why so many? The Queensland sun is harsh! Then I left the car to dry for about a month.

This part is hard on the body, my body.

I cut back the car by hand with 1500 wet and dry and Sunlight soap, why the soap? It makes the cut on the clear much finer and you don’t go through as much wet and dry.

Once I had cut the whole car back with wet and dry, it was time to cut it back with cutting compound. I bought a generic compound and I had a Makita hand buffer, then I let it rip. Once this was done I cleaned the whole car down.

For the next part of the cut, I used Meguiars cutting liquid 1,2,3 and then swirl remover. Once I had done all this (it took about two days), I washed the car to get all the crap out of it and she turned out bloody fantastic!

The Interior

I only changed two things from the first build, I made a new back parcel shelf to suit the 6×9 speakers and a custom made dash insert from 6mm MDF covered in grey leather to house the Autometer gauges.

So after all that, I started putting the car back together. All new wiring loom, the gauges, all new fuse blocks and a heap of relays.

All the Bar Work

The bullbar, side steps and rear bar, I sanded all the way back to bare metal, then painted gloss black, with clear over the top.

Other Custom Work

I ended up taking out the petrol tank and put the spare wheel in. I had to reinforce the side panels where the old tank sat, so I could move up the Toyota spare wheel carrier off the chassis, it worked out quite well.

Having two gas tanks in the boot, I cut out the old filler neck on the passenger side of the car and plated it up. I then moved the filler neck to the right hand side, where I carefully cut out two custom made flaps and welded them into place to cover the filler nozzles.

The Last Car

This is the last car I am going to build.

This fourby took it out of me, I have always wanted to one of these cars (some years ago I wanted to do the same thing to a Holden ute. Now that would have looked HOT!), I have always had Holdens and buying a Ford was a new challenge.

I use Elvira as my everyday car, she runs on straight gas and believe it or not, I get over a week of driving from one fill up.

I am thinking of putting her back on dual fuel, so I can really go out and play with this toy that I have rebuilt. I am making up a custom tank to go where the old Ford diff used to be, this way I can keep the spare wheel where it is.

The End Result

Body		Ford XB Sedan (Police Pursuit model)
Motor		GT 351 Clevo
Gear Box		C4 Auto
Wiring Loom		Half Ford, Half Custom
Chassis		FJ 62 Land Cruiser, and Ford XB
Differentials	Front	Land Cruiser, 4.2 w’ Air Locker
	Rear	Land Cruiser 4.2 w’ Detroit Locker
Springs		Modified Land Cruiser Front and Rear
Shocks		EFS
Transfer Case		Nissan
Rims		15×8
Tyres		33”
Brake System		Land Cruiser, including Booster, Disc Front and Drum Rear
Steering		Ford XB, F350 and Land Cruiser
Paint		Ford Phantom Purple w’ Aluminium Sparkle

• B&M Shifter
• SAAS Bucket Seats
• SAAS Sports Wheel
• Gauges, from Auto Meter
  • Electronic Speedo
  • Tacho
  • Voltmeter
  • Second Gas Tank Level
  • Oil Temperature
  • Water Temperature
  • Transmission Temperature
• Reversing Camera and Screen
• Sound System
  • Kenwood Head Unit
  • Pioneer Amp
  • Clarion 6×9 Rear Speakers
  • Kenwood Front Speakers
• Uniden UHF Radio
• Springs, shocks and bushes
• Cross Flow Radiator
• New Air Tank lines and fittings
• Holden 160 Amp Alternator
• Five new Fuse Blocks
• Hundreds of Terminal connectors and lots of metres of wire
• Hundreds of nuts, bolts and screws

Tags: elvira

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 7:51 pm and is filed under Vehicles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.