Albi R27 452/500 (UPDATE - 19.02.2017 - The end)

[Jmax]

My trusty touchup paint for the Brembos, ready for another coat.

With the second coat applied I decided that they were really looking as good as they were going to get, so it was time to move onto fitting the new brake pins.

Old pins

New pins

A little bit of grease applied to the pins, to hopefully make them a bit easier to remove in the future.

And in place, looking even better than the originals.

Time to try out on of my purchases from earlier in the week, my alloy wheel fitting alignment tool.

It meant I didn’t have to get as low to make sure the wheel was lined up, so I guess it worked.

Wheels back in place and good to go again.

As you can see it was a lovely warm day to be spending outside working on the car.

Now that the grills have had a bit of time to dry and are ready for the matt black paint to be applied, it was time to get to work.

First coat applied.

How it’s looking after the first coat had at least an hour to dry.

Close ups show that a second coat will definitely be needed.

I then applied the second coat.

At this point I then decided to leave it for the night and see how they look in the morning, at which point I’ll apply at least one more coat to them.

As always, comments are welcome.

John

 

[shubz197]

Great work bro. I used satin black for my grills. I found it gave it a newer look than the matte. But yours are looking proper! I must be a more terrible spray painter than I thought!

 

[Jmax]

Great work bro. I used satin black for my grills. I found it gave it a newer look than the matte. But yours are looking proper! I must be a more terrible spray painter than I thought!

Lol its not bad for a first attempt at doing them, although it has taken three coats to get them right [MENTION=4553]shubz197[/MENTION]. I was standing in Halfords looking at the paint and lifted what I thought was matte, and was driving out of the car park and noticed it was satin, I did think about not going back and changing it, but I'd always intended to do them matte and wasn't sure how satin would have looked, so was swiftly back to Halfords to change the paint.

 

[shubz197]

I think satin would be what they come out as stock. Very OEM looking. Now u know for next time. It helps to have a test piece that you can mess about on at home.

 

[Yiannis197]

good work mate, it always feels nice when you refresh things us

I had mine sprayed gloss black, both upper and lower grilles. It updated the front end imo

 

[Jmax]

I think satin would be what they come out as stock. Very OEM looking. Now u know for next time. It helps to have a test piece that you can mess about on at home.

Oh I'm more than happy with how they've turned out, or how their looking so far [MENTION=4553]shubz197[/MENTION], so thankfully there wont be a next time

good work mate, it always feels nice when you refresh things us

I had mine sprayed gloss black, both upper and lower grilles. It updated the front end imo

I had considered spraying mine gloss @Yiannis197, but I thought it might be too much against the blue. How did you get the lower grill out, if you don't mind me asking?

 

[Jmax]

Update 12. 07.2014

I couldn’t wait to see how the grills were looking this morning, so even before I had my breakfast I went out to check on the.

As you can see from the close ups there was still the odd light patch showing through, so a third coat was definitely going to be needed.

Before setting into the painting of the grills, another matter needed my attention. Northern Ireland being Northern Ireland, sees a lot of bonfires on the night of the 11[SUP]th[/SUP] July, so I was greeted by a car covered in ash this morning.

Thanks to the car being wet before the ash had fallen, all I had to do was simply hose it off.

Now back to the painting of the grills.

To try and make it easier to reach the spots I’d previous been unable to paint, I wedged a small piece of wood under the grill so it was at a slight angle.

With the third coat now I applied I just had to leave the grills to dry and keep my fingers crossed that they would turn out how I had hoped.

As you can see from the pictures below, everything is looking good so far.

The car really doesn’t need to go anywhere over the next couple of days, so I can give the grills plenty of time to dry out before refitting them to the car.

As always, comments are welcome.

John

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[Pav]

nice work there..really like ur tweeking..every little bit is done with perfection..keep up the hard work..doing my grills today too so see how they turn out..:clap:

 

[Jmax]

nice work there..really like ur tweeking..every little bit is done with perfection..keep up the hard work..doing my grills today too so see how they turn out..:clap:

Thanks very much [MENTION=41063]Pav[/MENTION], I'm trying to do bits that compliment the original car. i don't want to take away from the fact it was a limited edition too much and I feel keeping the grills matt should keep in line with that.

 

[Jimmy]

Good work on the grilles John, they seem to have come up spot on! Mine are in dire need of a lick of paint, they're badly faded so your thread has given me know-how!

 

[Jmax]

Good work on the grilles John, they seem to have come up spot on! Mine are in dire need of a lick of paint, they're badly faded so your thread has given me know-how!

Go for it [MENTION=51111]jimmyd81[/MENTION], just make sure not to spray too close to the grills as it could cause run, also don't do your coats too thick.

 

[Jimmy]

Go for it @jimmyd81, just make sure not to spray too close to the grills as it could cause run, also don't do your coats too thick.

Thanks, much appreciated. I'm probably most nervous about getting the grills off in the first place, but will try it with a flat-head screwdriver and see how that goes.

 

[Jmax]

Thanks, much appreciated. I'm probably most nervous about getting the grills off in the first place, but will try it with a flat-head screwdriver and see how that goes.

just make sure to pull out from the bottom of the grill and you'll be fine [MENTION=51111]jimmyd81[/MENTION]

 

[Foxspeed]

put some tape over the ends of the pins and the caliper pin holes before bashing the pins out...saves a lot of hassle!

 

[Adam93]

Great work on the grills John, what touch up did you use for the calipers ? mine have a couple of chips which are interfering with my OCD.

 

[Jmax]

put some tape over the ends of the pins and the caliper pin holes before bashing the pins out...saves a lot of hassle!

Oh well [MENTION=29]foxspeed[/MENTION], will give this a go next time their coming out.

Great work on the grills John, what touch up did you use for the calipers ? mine have a couple of chips which are interfering with my OCD.

I can't remember what is it, i got it off Amazon [MENTION=50966]Adam93[/MENTION]. Will have a look and see if I can find it again for you.

 

[Jmax]

Update 14.07.2014

Yesterday was the day a lot of my recent work had been building towards, finally getting the front grills back into the car.

Before I could put the grills back in the car I wanted to give it a quick wash. However I was greeted by the usual problems with the stickers when I went out to move the car.

I don’t think the spots are caused by polish or anything else we do to the cars; I think it’s caused by something in the atmosphere/rain. As the car has been perfectly fine up until now, I think its possibly something that has entered the atmosphere and comes down in the rain.

Two buckets, with Wolfs White Satin Shampoo in one of them and warm water in the other.

A quick hose down.

And my Bilt Hamber Auto Mitt, which I’m loving.

Car now washed and dried.

Time to fit the grills. I was really cautious when doing this, because although I know the grills had come out of the car it really didn’t seem like they wanted to go back in. You need to have a bit of faith that nothing will go wrong and be quite firm with them to get them back into place.

Now that their fitted I’m sure you’ll agree they look great.

A sneaky shot in Belfast last night.

As it rained last night I thought I’d get a few shots of them this morning to show how the water sits on them.

I’m over the moon with how they’ve turned out; I think they still look quite stock. I just need to get the lower grill painted now to match them.

As always, comments are welcome.

John

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[shubz197]

Looks perfect! Props

 

[Jmax]

Looks perfect! Props

Thanks very much [MENTION=4553]shubz197[/MENTION]

 

[Jmax]

Update 26.07.2014

Over the past couple of weeks the weather has been excellent and allowed me to get a bit more done to the car.

First on the list was to tackle the grubby seatbelts.

I really didn’t want to go down the route of putting the seatbelts into a bucket of soapy water, so instead I decided to give the Ambersil Auto Groom a go on them.

Its good to know kettlebells have more than one use.

With the seatbelts cable tied to the kettlebells it was a lot easier to stretch them out and keep them in place.

Bucket of clean water, nail brush and clean cloth to help remove the Auto Groom and dirt from the seatbelts.

As you can see the belts are looking better, fair enough their not perfect but I’ll give them a couple more applications when the weather allows me to and hopefully they’ll improve a bit more.

Some of the dirt that was removed.

It was then onto the fabric in the door cards.

The door cards came up as good as new, and for the same of an extra 5mins was time well spent.

I then moved onto giving the seats a coat of Fabric Guard Water Repellent, as they hadn’t been done in a while and the new driver side bas hadn’t been done at all.

First job was to cover as much of the surrounding plastics as possible.

Yes I know , it looks soooo dodgy when applied to the seats, but when dried its supposed to make them slightly water repellent.

Last job of the week was to get my wheels rebalanced, so I took the car into Simon at Lurgan Tyre Centre.

Just a few more jobs need done on the car, but they’ll come over time, when money allows. Other than that I’m over the moon with how the cars looking.

As always, comments are welcome.

John

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