Building a GD427 Cobra Replica

Given the amount of time already spent on preparing the donor parts, I am a bit hesitant to just start spraying the POR15 onto them without a bit of experience. As my motorbike needed new exhausts and as such had to be disassembled anyway, I prepared a couple of parts of the bike for spraying.

First, with the help of an el cheapo gazebo, I created an improvised spray booth.

This worked much better than expected. After a bit of testing to get the viscosity of the chassis coat right and the spray gun adjusted, spraying the two bike parts was a quick job. The goal was to record the settings for the gun, the amount of solvent to use and, obviously, look at the end result.

The chassis coat, when sprayed, gives a unique finish, more matte than brushed. The breather is no luxury, this stuff is nasty.

The rest of the day was spent masking the jag parts. I’ll probably spent tomorrow completing the masking and re-assembling the bike, so I can get it out of the way (you can just see it behind the tent on the left)

The hand brake of an XJS convertible I found on eBay arrived. Man, it does pay off to buy things in the US these days! For $45,- including transport to the Netherlands, which translates into roughly € 30,- for a used hand brake.

For reference, when you buy this thing at a Jaguar Parts supplier it’ll cost you something like € 130,- (not sure if that would be a new or a used one though) The return-spring and some spacers were not included, so I had to order those separately.

Cleaning the parts and re-assembling was a quick satisfying after dinner job. Like Andy, I too like the clean looks without the plastic handle, perhaps a pressed on piece of stainless steel instead of the plastic?

Got the donor parts back from Galvin, as you can see below, they look like new!

Had a chat with the guy on painting the parts with chassis coat. Particularly on the surface preparation, “Do I use metal ready or not?” His statement was that the paint would adhere fine to the passivation layer and that any acid-like fluid would ruin it, significantly reducing the corrosion resistance of the part.

Interestingly, asking exactly the same question to a POR15 employee (in the US, not in the NL) he stated roughly the opposite. Metal-ready won’t hurt the passivation layer because it is in so short contact with it. His advice was to use the normal preparation procedure.

That left me with nothing else than to try it out. Took two parts, prepared one by just degreasing it and brushed chassis coat black on it. I prepared the other part by dipping it in metal-ready for like 5-10 minutes or so.

The first thing i noticed is that the passivation layer is gone in 3 seconds; that is the yellowish colour is gone from which i deduce the passivation layer must be gone too, leaving a zinc coloured surface.

I’m writing this on Monday, so the parts have been curing for a couple of days now. Everyday since I painted the parts, I did a little scratch test to see if there was a difference. There is not, as far as i can see. Both parts look the same and the chassis coat adheres well to both. It’s not excellent though, chassis coat is clearly a top coat and not as much a protective coat as POR15, the real thing.

So, this leaves me with one preparation step: painting them. I’m planning to spray them all in one session, so the next days, I’ll be probably busy masking them appropriately and building a spray booth somewhere in the workshop to spray them in.

Was looking at animoto this morning and uploaded the donor parts picasa album. It automagically creates a short video from a set of pictures. Good fun.