My Smyth-Utes build thread

jmodge

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Jun 18, 2015
Location
Greenville, MI the winter water wonderland
TDI
More than I need, less than I want
I feel your pain, I've used that poly paint before on marine plywood. It doesn't take much of a layer to skin over and not dry properly. That stuff turned out to be a longer process and many more coats than I imagined. Popup canopies work for the dust, bugs not so much. Smoke is the only thing that drives them off.
 

Powder Hound

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Oct 25, 1999
Location
Under a Bridge, Crestview, FL, USA
TDI
'00 Golf 4dr White 5sp, '02 Jettachero 5sp, Wife's '03 NB Platinum Gray auto(!)
Finished spraying (mostly) Jettachero. Yeah, it has been much too long. And my experience has been fraught with problems.

1) I decided to use a color shift paint additive. I didn't realize that using this stuff will destroy the clearcoat in a short time (weeks? months? not sure) due to chemicals in the dyes or coatings on the particles. You need to use an intercoat or midcoat (depends on who is selling it) so that the regular clearcoat can be sprayed properly as just clearcoat. Seems to be OK, but the provider I used (Eastwood) does not UV stabilize theirs, so it is required to use clearcoat after spraying. In this heat, the flash time is only a few minutes, but the window for the next coat is 18 hours. If you wait longer than that, you'll need to sand the intercoat to provide mechanical bonding with the next layer. So be ready to keep going if you do this. Besides, sanding an intercoat will degrade the effect since the intercoat is formulated to be very thin when cured to get the particles to lay flat. This is better for effects, but it means as soon as you start sanding, you're sanding away the particles.

2) Practicing spraying is a good thing. I don't have a history of doing this, I don't have a spray booth (said this before), and drips/runs aren't the end of the world. You can fix them later. That's what I keep telling myself, even while knowing that it won't be easy to sand them to level and polish them so I'll have a reasonable shiny finish.

3) Practice spraying will also help you set up your gun and help avoid orange peel, which I seem to be very good at generating. I'm just too frustrated to say anything else about that right now, and probably ever.

4) Modern clearcoats with a very long pot life (2 hours is a good amount of time, IMO) and while it increases the danger of sags, drips, and runs, it also allows you to be able to wait for your air compressor which is too small for painting to catch up and not panic about the clearcoat gelling in and destroying your spray gun.* Actually you can disassemble the gun and clean it all out, but the time and effort to do this does not bear discussion.

5) This is the most important point, and one you should remember if you ever think about doing paint on a car. Do NOT ever even think about using plastic film masking materials. They are reasonably priced, very convenient to tape onto the car windows and such, and they make you think it will work out great. For example, washing off sanding dust won't phase them at all. But even with these and many other things that make them seem like a good idea, there is only 1 scenario where I would think it is a good thing to do, and that is one where you are spraying all your paint in a single session (however long that takes) and then peeling the plastic film off and tossing it. And, frankly, it might not even last more than 1 layer in your planned paint scheme.

Here's what they don't tell you about this stuff: paint doesn't stick to it very well. That means the overspray, which is why you use it in the first place, will start to flake off when that overspray dries and then the masking plastic film is disturbed by air currents, such as pesky breezes (those of us without a paint booth are subject to this since you gotta leave that garage door open when spraying unless you have a suit and externally aspirated breathing mask) or even the air from the next pass of the spray gun. I think I saw more than a thousand paint particles magically show up on the areas I just finished spraying. It drove me crazy. I think just because of this I ended up with a 50 foot paint job instead of the 5 foot one I could actually produce. At least, this is the only explanation for paint particles that magically appeared when and where they did.

So, that is about where I am. I still have the front grille and bumper cover as well as the tailgate to do, but everything else is sprayed. I did it this way so I could move Jettachero out of my garage; it will still be driveable if that becomes necessary (it isn't registered right now; it is a spare in case my Y2K Golf takes an unplanned vacation, or I just switch cars) and I can do those parts separately. Of course, after the above headaches, I might end up wondering if I should have just done the whole bleeping thing one panel at a time. Hmmm... a philosophical discussion for another day.

Sorry, no photos. I just couldn't look at it again for a while. And really, it needs to be in the sun to show off the color shift anyway, and it ain't moving for a week or so.


Cheers,

PH

* - BTDT but it was with gelcoat for fiberglass, which actually was much more difficult to clean. Yikes - I ended having to burn the siphon tube to clean that out.
 

Nuje

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Location
Island near Vancouver
TDI
2002 Golf 6MT; 2015 Sportwagen 6MT; 2016 A3 e-tron 6DSG
I'll tackle anything in the realm of car-fixing.
Except paint.
For exactly the above reasons (and I'm sure you're only barely scratching the surface (pun unintended) of the "fun" this has been for you).
 

Powder Hound

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Oct 25, 1999
Location
Under a Bridge, Crestview, FL, USA
TDI
'00 Golf 4dr White 5sp, '02 Jettachero 5sp, Wife's '03 NB Platinum Gray auto(!)
After looking at everything left behind when I peeled the plastic film masking off this morning, I think the sanding dust left from primer and body filler was the main source of the junk flecks that spoiled my day. It would take a good wash with soap and water all over to get it all off prior to paint.

But I still stand behind the idea of only leaving that stuff on for one session, no matter how many layers you apply, then peeling it off as soon as possible and not using it for multiple sessions. It is doable, but it makes for long sessions when your compressor is too small as mine is.

Cheers!

PH
 

Powder Hound

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Oct 25, 1999
Location
Under a Bridge, Crestview, FL, USA
TDI
'00 Golf 4dr White 5sp, '02 Jettachero 5sp, Wife's '03 NB Platinum Gray auto(!)
Over the last couple of days, I have reinstalled the mirrors (now with newly painted covers), the door seals, and the aluminum top parts on the bed sides.

I thought about why the mirror covers were so <bleep>ing hard to take off and then put back on, to the point where they refused reinstallation. I took a good look, and came up with this: https://forums.tdiclub.com/index.ph...-your-mkiv-today.452221/page-434#post-5867357

So now I have the bumper cover and tailgate yet to paint. There's also a couple of aluminum trim parts for the tailgate as well.

I will also have a fitment problem with the tailgate, because I didn't pay attention to the sides at the rear well enough when I put that part together. So the sides are about 1/2" total too narrow. Well, I could do it with 1/4". But still, it is a charlie-foxtrot waiting for me. Rats.

Anyway, it is pretty much streetable again, so I can make room in the garage for the next project.

I'm not done yet, so don't forget about me completely.

Cheers,

PH
 

Powder Hound

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Oct 25, 1999
Location
Under a Bridge, Crestview, FL, USA
TDI
'00 Golf 4dr White 5sp, '02 Jettachero 5sp, Wife's '03 NB Platinum Gray auto(!)
Today I decided to get going on the finishing of the cab. Of course, some it is done, such as the headliner is covered with new material. Next is adding sound dampening so that I am not hearing exhaust and road noise right in my left ear while driving. Not only did that make me wonder if my door and/or a window was open, it was loud enough that hearing my music thumb drive was not doing it for me.

Here's a before and after photo, and as before, click to see a larger version.

Before:


And after:


In the before photo, you can see the aluminum wall that goes up to the height of the bed sides. Above that is the rear of the cab which comes in one piece that you then cut out for the window and then attach to the back of the roof of the car which was cut earlier. Well, lots earlier since it was one of the first operations you do.

Both of these surfaces are one layer, and that means noise hitting them is transmitted to the interior. Adding the sound dampening material helps a lot in making the interior much more comfortable noise wise while driving. That's the working theory, anyway.

The material I used is in a box labeled as 36 sq.ft., and 90mil thick. It consists of a thin aluminum layer, maybe a little thinner than a beverage can, but not much, and is probably 1100 aluminum (meaning unalloyed with other metals so pure aluminum) and I believe that because of how soft and stretchy and pliable it is. Not that I'm complaining. Those qualities are essential for installation into corners, for example, or being able to easily conform to the shape of the surface onto which it is being installed. The rest of the material is a tar-like substance which is only medium sticky, but plenty sticky enough for this purpose. I am sure it is filled with something (filled as in added to the "tar") to help make it cheaper, and not so sticky as to make it too sticky to handle easily during installation. That is, you can get it stuck to your fingers, but you'd have to work at that.

Also, it would be harder to install if it was cold (e.g. during the winter, unless you have a heat gun handy). Anyway, I just looked at the surface I needed to cover and tried to used the largest sheet possible to cover the area and keep from having to cut and fit small pieces. That worked well on the lower part (the aluminum sheet making up the bed side) but I did have to work on it around the sides and window. The B pillar brace is done nicely with 3 lightening holes and look cool, but I covered them up because I figured they would just make ports for sound coming in from the side. Put another way, the B pillar brace goes on the edge of what was the rear door opening before. The new bed side is on the outside of that and ends up making a chamber that is empty. I decided to cover up the openings. Another possible solution is to spray some urethane foam from your friendly local home improvement store to fill the space and deny a sounding area to sound. At this point I will need a short test drive to see how well just a cover has worked and thus whether I need to go buy a can of foam.

The damping material I used seems to cover well, and a closed fist bumping on the aluminum wall seems to dampen the bump. I hope it works well, and I will report back when I've had a chance for a short test, and then later with a better test (including interstate driving since I can't do that right now because I can only afford to insure one car).

The material I used is branded Noiko. This is a report on how well it seems to work so far, and I can't say it works better than other brands because I haven't tried other brands. I can say that you only need 35-36 sq.ft. for a Jetta turned trucklet. Other cars are about the same, or maybe a little more than I used for larger cars, but I have quite a bit left over from the one box, so I think any of the Smythe-ute kits would be covered by this one box. Now, if you go to town and start lining the doors and parts of the floor, or other areas, then I couldn't say. I just guessed as to how much I'd need, bought 2 boxes, so now I have plenty for my next build.

So, major tasks left are finishing up the interior, which is mainly covering the sound damper foil with the same material I used for the doors and headliner, installing the headliner, reinstalling the lights and interior trim stuff, and painting the front bumper cover and tailgate. I'll have to see if I can find my Jettachero logos and fix up then glue one of them onto the tailgate. Fix up means I need to use a fine file or files and sandpaper to remove the plasma cutting scrim (burrs on the edges) and smooth the cut lines. Maybe I'll polish it too. We'll see. This logo part may take a while (Ha! as if the build up to now has gone quickly!?!?).

Cheers,

PH
 

Powder Hound

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Oct 25, 1999
Location
Under a Bridge, Crestview, FL, USA
TDI
'00 Golf 4dr White 5sp, '02 Jettachero 5sp, Wife's '03 NB Platinum Gray auto(!)
I was able to go on a very short test drive and the sound insulation worked - it is much quieter inside now. Yay! Now I jut need to find some adequate contact cement.

Cheers,

PH
 

Judson

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2001
Location
Cheyenne, WY
TDI
2001 Jetta
Use Noico on the front wheel wells. It makes for a bit of a tight fit getting the liners back on but totally utterly worth it. Most bang for the buck.

Also consider some for the firewall, and the underside of the engine cover. Research sound proofing materials that are specifically temperature resistant for these steps. If you still have the hoodliner, keep it!
 

Powder Hound

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Oct 25, 1999
Location
Under a Bridge, Crestview, FL, USA
TDI
'00 Golf 4dr White 5sp, '02 Jettachero 5sp, Wife's '03 NB Platinum Gray auto(!)
No hoodliners. Irritating rodents have made all of them fall apart and require removal to keep them or chunks thereof out of the belts and other running gear. This is all good advice though. Anything to interrupt sound conductance or resonance helps!

Cheers!

PH
 
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