Racecar Damage Repair

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PostPosted: Sat Sep 26, 2015 6:56 pm
I'm mostly a lurker here, but this forum has provided me great help in my car painting endeavors, which have to date all revolved around my racecar, a 1999 Mazda Miata.

A few weeks ago the car got hit really hard in the drivers door during a rain race. Damage included:

1. Crushed driver's door and fender
2. Bent rocker panel
3. Cracked front left wheel
4. Bent from left suspension
5. Two broken motor mounts and a bent steering shaft from the engine colliding with it.
6. Broken front and rear bumper and two broken lights.

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Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of my crew, they actually got the car in good enough condition to continue the race weekend. This included some body work on the concrete with mallets, and pulling out the door hinge with a slide hammer and some screws. Not pretty, but it got the door on and closed and the fender hung. Car looked like this for the rest of the weekend.

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Once I got the car home I pulled out the rocker with a stud welder. Also had to pull out the a pillar down by the lower door hinge almost 1/2 inch to get the door lined up. Luckily I had a used door and fender that was in reasonable condition ready to go.

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Last edited by dunk on Mon Sep 28, 2015 4:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.



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PostPosted: Sat Sep 26, 2015 7:04 pm
The next step involved repair on the bumpers. The rear bumper was cracked. I repaired the crack with a large fiberglass patch on the back, and SEM bumper epoxy on the front.

Front bumper had a much smaller split and a few areas that were dinged up from the hit. I reformed these with a heat gun.

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Previously the car was painted all white, with the design all done in vinyl. I decided on the repair to do everything with paint. The base is PPG DBC with 2021 clear.

Here's a picture of what the car looked like right after its original paint job.
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Here's a picture of the front and rear bumpers after paint.

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Here's a picture of the new door and fender in primer, with the quarter panel scuffed. I also stripped the vinyl off the other side and scuffed it for paint as well.

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At this point I did a poor job of taking pictures. Here's the car in the booth ready to paint.

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I then missed a few steps. Here's the car after the first coat of the blue (final color)

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And the car ready for clear

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Put the clear on a few hours ago, and the car's sitting in the booth drying. Will take a picture tomorrow.

-Duncan
Last edited by dunk on Mon Sep 28, 2015 4:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.



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PostPosted: Sun Sep 27, 2015 7:15 pm
Here's a picture with the tape off.

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Now it's just a few hours of assembly and it's ready to race again.

Duncan
Last edited by dunk on Mon Sep 28, 2015 4:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Sun Sep 27, 2015 11:10 pm
Need to read up on how to post images.
I would love to see what it is your are posting.
1968 Coronet R/T


ACTS 16:31



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PostPosted: Mon Sep 28, 2015 5:20 pm
'68 Coronet R/T wrote:Need to read up on how to post images.
I would love to see what it is your are posting.


I think I have it fixed now. I forget to set the images to public in my account.

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PostPosted: Mon Sep 28, 2015 8:04 pm
Looks good. :goodjob:
1968 Coronet R/T


ACTS 16:31



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PostPosted: Wed Sep 30, 2015 11:39 am
Thanks!

The next project is to take apart my golf cart and paint it to match. I have plenty of left over material.

Duncan

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PostPosted: Wed Sep 30, 2015 6:42 pm
Great job, Duncan! Now keep those other cars on the track away from it ;-)



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PostPosted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 3:16 pm
Some shots of the car put together and the graphics back on.

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Duncan

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