Kavik's She-Devil Build

I got one from river rat 69 and the paint started to chip away after 3 months plus he used cheap ass mesh, so I decided to pick up a speedway blue grille that a gril was selling for 50 bucks (a rock went straight through the center of her grille) and started cutting, sanding, and fiberglassing. I just need some mesh and a lil more Bondo to fill in a couple spots and it will be good for paint!

 

Good luck with the glass.
I had trouble getting it to stick on mine. No matter how much I roughed up the surface, after a week of curing, I could still easily peel it off... very little adhesion.

I poked around online, and all of the ricer body mod guys were saying that you can not effectively bond glass to ABS... it needs to be plastic-welded (which is what Homertaco does), or the original needs to be modified using structural foam or polyester layups, then a mold made from that and a completely new part fabricated from 100% glass using the mold.

I went with a happy medium. I picked up some ABS sheet at a local hobby shop and used plumbers ABS cement to weld it together. It is a solvent process and as solid as welding. I used enough to soften the added ABS sheets to be able to bend them to better fit the contours and reduce the amount of Bondo needed.

So far, it's been on for over 6 months and I've encountered no cracking at all. Couple of minor dings in the paint, but I've got that on the surround and hood as well... the part I painted with white Krylon Fusion is in no worse shape than the rest.

Advise on Fusion for white trucks. It is a very good match and works fine for the inner part, but as with most rattle can jobs, it lacks the smooth gloss and "depth" needed for the surround. I bought a colormatched Super White grille so I didn't need to worry about paint on the surround.

 

Hmmm seems the fiber glass is holding up pretty well, I mean it is just used to patch the sides, the rest of it should be pretty solid, I guess the true test will be on the truck against Texas heat.

 

Heat and vibration. Heat will be more of a problem on a black truck.

There's a lot of people selling Satoshi grilles using fiberglass, but we don't see many long-term reports. Homer has been making them forever and a good number of what you see on the forum are his.

 

Switched to Castrol Oil Synthetic today. Ramps made it super easy this time.



Also messed around by starting to build a fiberglass enclosure today.

 

What's the enclosure for?

 

Bait bucket?

 

Its just a speaker box, you will see when it is done.

 

Going in the corner of the bed for tailgating I assume?

 

Thinking about it, this is the test run.

 

Sweet! I wanna make a custom box for behind my seat!

 

Yeup that's a massive spacer, interesring That they did it it if mild steel and not aluminum. Your ride needs mo lowerdz, notch and QA1 adjustables up front

So you can be like dis

 

I wonder if that mild steel will be a problem, but I agree that I need to be lower, are the adjustable QA1s out yet? I need to head over to XRU to see.

 

Not yet and they could possibly seize.... I can't wait to get the Qs so I can take off my spacers. Why haven you comitted to lowerz?

 

Mainly because this truck is my DD and if I were to fuck up the notch, I would be in some trouble, plus the roads are not very lowered truck friendly out here.

 

That sucks

 

Its impossible to mess up a djm notch. Lol they got stencils and everything

 

This is true, but I did weld in. So mines mo coola

 

But I really want it to be boxed and I am kinda surprised the DJM one isn't. But we will see what happens down the road. I will notch one day. Lol

 

Scored some Raptor mesh from Homer! http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2n...7252-homertaco-raptor-style-mesh-set-f-s.html

Now I have to finish my Satoshi.