I'm really happy with the way the passenger side front flare turned out, which means I'll probably end up circling back to get the driver side up to the same level of finish. The transitions from the fender into the flare all flow nicely and should need a minimal amount of filler.





After stripping the door I found some previous damage that had been repaired pretty badly. There were two drill holes (I'm assuming they were made to pull a dent) that were then just left and filled with filler.





Because of the crash support behind the skin I'm not 100% sure how to deal with this one. The door skin is pretty lumpy and it may make more sense to find a replacement door - I've epoxied it for now and will figure out what the best fix is once the time comes.

This is how the car sits right now. Both front fenders are in epoxy, and I also stripped the entire passenger side down to bare metal and epoxied that too.



The rear flares had some imperfections at the bottom of the arches where the stamping had crushed metal on top of metal, so I spent a couple of hours this weekend cutting out and patching those.









I'm still pretty new to tig so I turned a copper pipe cap into a heat sink to help me with blow through if the butt weld gaps aren't tight enough.







I'm hoping to start welding on the first rear flare next weekend.

I finally got the flares finished, can't believe it's 8 months since I started this thread. I mean, I can, because everything takes me way longer than I think, but still...

The car is going to be in epoxy for a while while I get other random projects done like making a custom front grille, fog light grilles, redoing my engine GT engine lid, making a new oil cooler shroud, and most importantly replacing the hammered sh*t door skins with new FG door skins.

The driver's side door was certainly a highlight so far. To look at the car you never would have known there was bondo on it, yet somehow this survived 20+ years without cracking and I ended up using a hammer and chisel to remove it.

Some other stuff I got done...

Stripped all 4 wheel wells and then prepped with rust mort, painted with POR15, and then coated with Raptor bedliner.

I know a people either love or hate POR15 but I've found the trick with it is that you always have to etch the metal first as it absolutely hates bare metal and that's when it peels off in sheets.

For the Raptor, I just waited an hour until the POR15 was still a tiny bit tacky and they rolled it on with a low nap roller - I had the spray gun but couldn't be bother with masking everything up to stop overspray, and the instructions say you can just mix it up and paint it on too.

So far, no issues, and it's solid as a rock.

This was the state of the driver door after I'd removed all of the bondo - yes, they just bondo'd over what I'm guessing are holes that were drilled to use a dent puller

I epoxied them because I'm not sure how long they'll be like this, but I have FG door skins on order to replace them. So completely stripping the doors down to their shells is in my future at some point.

The bottoms of the flares didn't run in a straight line with the bottom edge of the fender, instead they slightly sloped down.

This was going to be an issue if I wanted a consistent gap between the top of the rocker and the rear fender once it was flared, so I decided to chop the ends off and remake them straight.

I probably could have just made a few cuts, hammered the edge straight and rewelded them, but getting a really sharp line like the bottom of the fender would have been tough, and sometimes I like to make more work for myself.







This is one done and test fitted to the car.

I was inspired by another member (can't remember who, sorry) to make some adjustable brackets for the FG bumpers.

The fit of the original brackets was not good, plus once I clamped the ones flat to the back of the front bumper the angle was completely wrong and made it impossible to screw them through the original mounting holes in the front of the car.

So I made two pieces - one out of the FG bracket with a channel so it could be slid forwards and backwards, and a second piece out of aluminum L that mounted to the car.

Fixing the FG part to the back of the bumper in the right place still took some work, but here's how I did it:

I mounted the brackets to the car and then offered the bumpers up to them so they mated flat to the back of the bumper and were in the correct position..



Then I put tape inside the bumper where the brackets would mount and sprayed a thin layer of insulating foam...







I then waited a few minutes for the foam to start to set and then lifted the bumper up to the brackets and held it in place for a few minutes.

I didn't get a picture of the result, but basically the foams sets with an imprint in it of exactly where the bracket needs to be mounted.

You can then cut away the rest of the tape/foam, use a sharpie to mark around the tape that's left (i.e. where the bracket will go) and then chuck the last bit of tape away. This leaves you with a clean surface to fiberglass the bracket too.

Here's the brackets mounted to the front bumper (I used a hydraulic press to widen the angle of the aluminum L on the front bumper brackets so the mated up to the FG pieces properly):



And the front bumper on the car. They need a little fine tuning, but overall I'm pretty happy with the fit.

One last post for now, here's are some pics the flares being fitted and the car as it sits right now with the bumpers and Patrick Motorsport air dam fitted.

Wow. Looking really good!

Watching you do this brings back so many memories. Almost makes me want to build another one, but NO. I'm just going to drive the one I have and enjoy it. Keep posting the process so I can live it again without getting my hands dirty

Thanks!

Plan is to enjoy driving it for a few months while I work on some other bits and then do filler and paint.

Haha, I hear you.

It was a lot more work than I expected just to get it this far. Every project I do seems to start out small, and then next thing I know my car's been off the road for six months.

The next couple of projects on this should be more fun though as I'll still be able to drive the car as I'm doing them.

Wow, great work so far, very inspiring. Keep it up, bit by bit it’ll come together.

BTW: love the gold group 5s!

Thanks!

My new airdam won't clear from the street up my driveway ramp, or from the sidewalk up my actual, very steep driveway.

So I made a pair of aluminum hinges with gas struts that mount to the bumper and the front of the car, and raise the entire bumper and airdam high enough to clear the driveway.

There are two hinges, one either side of the air cooler opening. Getting the geometry correct so the struts fit behind the bumper when it's down, and the hinges opened parallel to each other and didn't bind took a little time but I'm pretty happy with how this is working.



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Here's a video of the hinges raising the front bumper/airdam...

And here's a video of it clearing the street onto the sidewalk, and then the sidewalk to up my driveway.


These hinges are just phase one. Next step is securing the bumper to the car with a handful of different types of dzus quick release fasteners in different locations so I can quickly undo them by hand, raise the bumper, and drive up my driveway without having to take the entire thing on and off every time I want to park in my garage.

I think that your approach is as severe as my neighbor...his just adds a little corkscrew coming up to the house .The gt3rs is a stiff one !
Click to view attachment

Nice fix to an unfixable situation.

Thanks man.




@Maltese_Falcon GT3 RS is a nice problem for him to have

Julian's RS also has a factory front-lift option for driveways...but still not enough. He snakes it up or down the uphill curve, that's when she lifts a corner.
He offered the use of his rear quarter inlet scoops, when I was designing the fit (same oe parts) to graft on to the 8gtt >>great neighbor indeed

Just awesome! That's the kind of crazy I really admire.

Thanks Brent!

There’s so much over-engineering left to come yet too