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Refreshing Glenlivet's ride

With luck I've found and filled all the little defects from the original manufacturing process. The pinholes in the plastic filler have been corrected with a skim layer of polyester glaze. Unfortunately, the glaze is white and scratches were proving very difficult to see...and doing the coarse sanding with 80 grit left plenty of scratches! So today, when I thought the tub had been well sanded and my tired old eyes weren't finding anymore defects, I sprayed the tub with guide coat. Guide coat is a sandable primer that comes out in tiny speckles instead of a smooth coat. As you sand it, the specks quickly disappear from the good sections but linger in pinholes, scratches and low spots. Here's the tub with the guide coat applied after I felt my sanding job was as good as it could be.

Jan16A.jpg

Just a few seconds of sanding removed the guide coat from the good sections and revealed several scratches from the 80 grit sandpaper. Those scratches would need to be sanded with 180 grit.

Jan16B.jpg

Less than a minute later, the 180 grit had removed those scratches and I was able to move on to the next section. My goal is to minimize the number of defects exposed by the first primer coat that will have to be resanded and reprimed. I'm not sure at this point if I'll be using regular paint or metallic, but if I go metallic those scratches cannot be unseen.

Jan16C.jpg
 
This is going to be the most beautiful sidecar in the history of motorcycling. Just sayin'...

Can't wait to see the final product.
 
This is going to be the most beautiful sidecar in the history of motorcycling. Just sayin'...

Thanks, but I'm sure it will be battle scarred by the time we reach Tennessee this summer!

A short day today as we have a major storm rolling in tomorrow and I had to (a) push snowbanks back to make room for more snow, (b) get gas and diesel tanks topped off, (c) lay in extra sheep and chicken feed, and (d) pick up some essentials like bread, milk, eggs, peanut butter and beer. But I did manage to fix a few pinholes and scratches on the tub...and find a few more. Still, it won't be long before it's ready for a coat of epoxy primer!

Instead of bolting the small skidplate back onto the lightbar I decided to weld it. Four welds through the bolt holes, then a two inch butt weld along each side. I figured it was never removed anyway, so why not permanently attach the darned thing.

Speaking of epoxy primer, I hung all the metal parts in the paint booth (bike and tub subframe, and metal mount support bars to mate the tub to the subframe), fired up the heater to bring them all up to temp, then applied two coats of primer. All those pieces-parts are curing overnight and will be ready for the finish coat. I'm still undecided between chip guard (the rocker panel stuff) with a painted finish, or going with bedliner. I'm leaning toward the bedliner as it is easily repaired and would cover those horrible welds full of pits and splatter done by a welder who must have been on his second case of Budweiser at the time.

Jan18.jpg
 
Welder

My sister lives in Murray so I have been there many times. From what I heard starting salaries are at Pella or Briggs & Stratton ( 2 large employers in Murray) I am guessing Bud would be way to expensive for Hannigan workers thinking Keystone or Milwaukee’s Best :)
 
What color will you paint the bike and sidecar?

I prefer yellow for the visibility. Sidecars aren't as nimble as bikes, and with my precious cargo I want to be seen. (Though even with the bright color and four Clearwater lights up front I've still had drivers turn left in front of us!) The challenge is finding just the right yellow. It's not the most popular color in the motor vehicle market, and yellows with pearl or metallic in them are even more rare. Toyota has a nice one this year they call Solar Flare Pearl. Porsche's Yellow Saffron Metallic is incredibly lovely, but I can't find the paint code anywhere. I suspect since that color is an $11,500 upgrade on the Carrera that's it's a proprietary paint only sold through Porsche. But they also have Racing Yellow on the 2018 line; it's not a metallic but is very bright

And yes, the bike will be painted to match.
 
It's probably wise to take today off. It's 8:30am now. The snow started about 3am and we have 14 inches so far with the snowfall forecasted to continue till midnight. It's currently six below zero with a minus 30 windchill. Plowing the 300 yard driveway, plus my elderly neighbor's 200 yards, will be enough adventure for one day.
 
Porsche's Yellow Saffron Metallic is incredibly lovely, but I can't find the paint code anywhere. I suspect since that color is an $11,500 upgrade on the Carrera that's it's a proprietary paint only sold through Porsche. .

Pete:

Yes, it might be Paint to Sample. But I can post the question of the paint code on the Rennlist, if you like.

Also, Porsches's Fly Yellow (from Ferrari Light Yellow) is nice.

P.S. I found this thread on it:

https://rennlist.com/forums/991-turbo/1052520-saffron-yellow-metallic-photos.html

And here's some more info on the Porsche Exclusive program:

https://rennlist.com/forums/987-981...ordering-a-981-porsche-exclusive-and-you.html
 
That was interesting.
My Chevy has a tricoat color and had never looked up what that meant. The video explains it and I see the Saffron color has a extra Effect coat for a total of 4 coats, not counting primer.

Not only that, but the hand sanding is done by attractive young German women in dirndls. That adds considerably to the cost. If I do the hand sanding in dirty coveralls my cost should be more reasonable.
 
Today Miyagi-San called PPG Paints directly. Sad news. The Porsche Yellow Saffron Metallic I wanted is so completely secret that in the event an owner damages his or her brand new Carrera the work has to be done at a Porsche repair center with the paint coming directly from Germany. Well that just sucks! So I think I'll use Nissan's Solar Flare Pearl as a base, but substitute medium aluminum for the fine aluminum it calls for. Should give more sparkle. Or maybe call House of Kolor and ask how their experts would give that color code more punch.

We awoke to an additional six inches of snow on the ground this morning, bringing our storm total to two feet of incredibly light, fluffy powder. The John Deere tractor protested mightily since our high temp for the day was minus six, but it did start. It had difficulty getting up to temp, though, so I grabbed an old sign for some forgotten political candidate and taped it in front of the radiator figuring politicians were full of hot air. It worked, and the temp gauge rose several notches. Then off to the shop to work on the tub.

After inspecting the top of the sidecar tub and finding no more defects I flipped it over and started inspecting the bottom half. Not having to crane my neck let me fine tune the air scoop. Applying a guide coat revealed a few very minor scratches that were erased with 220 grit. In short order it looked good enough to set aside

Jan21A.jpg

With the tub on the dolly the work table was taken over by the clamshell, the trunk lid, the fender, and a couple of small trim pieces. These will all be sanded with progressively finer grits, get a coating of polyester glaze, then join the tub in the paint booth for a generous coating of epoxy primer.

Jan21B.jpg

The fully cured subframes and mounts came out of the paint booth and took up residence on an old quilt. Thanks to input from several who told me bedliner, once graced with road grime, would never come clean again I have decided to go with chipguard (rocker panel paint) on the subframes.

Jan21C.jpg
 
Today Miyagi-San called PPG Paints directly. Sad news. The Porsche Yellow Saffron Metallic I wanted is so completely secret that in the event an owner damages his or her brand new Carrera the work has to be done at a Porsche repair center with the paint coming directly from Germany...

Ah, good sleuthing. I was going to call one of our local specialist shops to make the query, but you beat me to it.
 
So I think I'll use Nissan's Solar Flare Pearl as a base, but substitute medium aluminum for the fine aluminum it calls for. Should give more sparkle. Or maybe call House of Kolor and ask how their experts would give that color code more punch...

I'm wondering whether a good paint guy couldn't just mix up a batch of paint that was close to the Saffron Yellow, if you sent him a picture of that Exclusive Porsche.
 
I'm wondering whether a good paint guy couldn't just mix up a batch of paint that was close to the Saffron Yellow, if you sent him a picture of that Exclusive Porsche.

With prices in the ballpark of $200 per pint, guessing can get expensive really fast!

No progress today. With three feet of snow on the ground and us coming off a string of sub-zero days everybody is doing their best to push back the snow before tomorrow's rain turns it all to ice that will be impossible to move. Poor Miyagi-San used his little gas-powered bulldozer to push his snowbanks back, but got too close to the edge and the little dozer went over. To make matters worse, the carb float stuck and gas went everywhere, including into the cylinders! He pulled the plugs but left them connected, then when he cranked the engine gas spewed out, hit the spark and a huge ball of flame shot up in the air! He managed to put it out by throwing snowballs at it, but in the process fell over the embankment with his legs sticking out of the deep snow.

We managed to get the little dozer back onto level ground by pulling from side to side, switching the tow chain from right to left to sort of inch worm it along. Once it was on level ground with the tracks disengaged he was able to use the snowplow on his pickup to push it inside the heated shop for repairs. All that effort left us both exhausted so I came home and he took a nap.
 
With prices in the ballpark of $200 per pint, guessing can get expensive really fast!

Well, it is Porsche Exclusive, after all! :D And they have to pay for all that Saffron.

Hope you get through your weather. Living near the ocean is tough. :D
 
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