Project Sky Blue (Now TURBO'd)

[Wild E. Coyote]

I admire the effort and the end result! Really a top job. My only regret is the chosen colour, but de gustibus non disputandum est!

Top job there!

[Brian']

Time for another update on the blue Puma.

All the bits and pieces are on now and we (me and my brother's) assembled it in more or less two days. Everything went really smooth and the end result looks really awesome.







Few things left to do now, let me sum it up:
* Tax, insure and MOT it
* Give it a darn good wash! It's really filthy of sitting in my grandpa's storage for two to three months.
* Polish it to a more uniform finish, order some orange peel pads which should remove most of the imperfections it has! If that somehow fails I might try some wetsanding..
* Paint the brake calipers a different colour (most likely gold)
* Custom midpipe so that it doesn't sit as low as it sits right now.
* Find some 16" wheels that fit just right (An example are my brothers' Compomotive CXN2's, fitted in the pictures above)
* Drive it!

[ArtfulHussy]

Love it! Those wheels are cracking too, maybe you could persuade him to let you keep them!?

[Brian']

Love it! Those wheels are cracking too, maybe you could persuade him to let you keep them!?

We swapped wheels now and he said I could have to for a short while. Tried persuading today be he wants to keep them - And these CXN2's doesn't seem to be that common, so might have to search for another type/model alloy.

[ArtfulHussy]

There should be plenty choice that have a similar design, a very quick search yielded these which have a similar design but narrowing it down to ideal offset/width etc could make things trickier!
http://m.wheelbasealloys.com/alloy-whee ... ed/16-inch

[tuonokid]

Hi Brian
The car looks stunning mate!
Barry

[XAF]

Looking brilliant Brian, top work with the respray!

[grayfox]

That's bloody gorgeous!

[TGPlayer1]

Great work my friend, it really just looks "right".

Just out of interest, and sorry if it's already been asked, but do you know the dimensions of the wheel and tyres, ie width, offset and tyre size?

Nice one.

[Brian']

Hi Brian
The car looks stunning mate!
Barry

Looking brilliant Brian, top work with the respray!

That's bloody gorgeous!

Thanks guys!

Great work my friend, it really just looks "right".

Just out of interest, and sorry if it's already been asked, but do you know the dimensions of the wheel and tyres, ie width, offset and tyre size?

Nice one.

The wheels are 16" by 7J ET35 with Hankook Ventus V12 Evo2 in 205/45/16 87W. And it's lowered on TA Technix coilovers on the lowest setting making it look really nice, don't know if it drives really well with this setup though!

[moondustka]

Well done Brian, it's looking really really well

[TylerB]

Very nice result man !!

[RICHARD MANSFIELD2]

Hi Brian,
A lot of work there. It looks great, the colour suits it. well done.
regards,
Richard.

[PhilLew]

Wow, looks amazing, great work!

[Brian']

On the photos the finish of the paint looks really nice. And yes, on some places it certainly does. But on other places it doesn't really look spot on. This was also due to having to do a spot repair on the door because there were some dribs on it..

Yesterday we started wetsanding (color-sanding) the roof. It took us nearly the whole evening to get it to a really nice and glossy finish. Sadly I didn't made before and after photos, was too busy sanding and compounding. I do have a photo of the result though!

Seeing this photo I noticed I missed a spot near the antenna

Onwards to today; Finished work early today and so I had a few spare hours. As I work across the street I went on and join my mother (who was already busy wetsanding) with the wetsanding progress. The goal of today was to finish the tailgate, there was some overspray on the flat piece making it a bit dull. Again, me being too busy I didn't make any photos of this.. Not even an after shot.

We then went on to the back panels which had a slight orange peel effect to it. The progress of wetsanding with P2000 > P3000 and then polishing it with a yellow pad with M105 worked out really well and turned it into a really shiny surface. Only managed to do the top piece of the backpanel and I did made photos of the results!




Photos are not of the best quality but surely you guys can see what piece is finished (kinda) and what piece is untouched. I'm really impressed with the effect of wetsanding, althrough it still scares me a bit.. Don't want to ruin the paint by sanding through it! So we'll take little steps at a time.

Next update should be on Monday as the Puma is going for her first MOT as a Blue Puma instead of a Silver Puma - I'm confident she will pass it without problems!

[Marcwithac]

Great thread this. Amazing job, well done. I love that colour!

[Brian']

Back with an update on the blue Puma. As I mentioned earlier, it was that time of year again.. MOT time. Well, if flew through wihtout any advisories, as expected!

Before the MOT we managed to finish the compounding stage and managed to remove most of the sanding scratches using a DA polisher. Next step will be a finish polish to get out 90-95% of the scratches. After that it can all be sealed with a wax. Paint should be fully gassed out by now.

Today I managed to fit the centerpipe of the exhaust somewhat okay and isn't scraping as it was before. Did switch from cat to decat though that helped a bit since it was scraping from the cat to the bit at the fuel tank.

* Tax, insure and MOT it
* Give it a darn good wash! It's really filthy of sitting in my grandpa's storage for two to three months.
* Polish it to a more uniform finish, order some orange peel pads which should remove most of the imperfections it has! If that somehow fails I might try some wetsanding..
* Paint the brake calipers a different colour (most likely gold)
* Custom midpipe so that it doesn't sit as low as it sits right now.
* Find some 16" wheels that fit just right (An example are my brothers' Compomotive CXN2's, fitted in the pictures above)
* Drive it!

To come back on the list I made a few updates ago, I can swipe of a few things:
* Give it a darn good wash! It's really filthy of sitting in my grandpa's storage for two to three months.
* Polish it to a more uniform finish, order some orange peel pads which should remove most of the imperfections it has! If that somehow fails I might try some wetsanding..
* Custom midpipe so that it doesn't sit as low as it sits right now.
* Drive it!

Leaving me with a few things left to for now:
* Paint the brake calipers a different colour (most likely gold)
* Find some 16" wheels that fit just right (An example are my brothers' Compomotive CXN2's, fitted in the pictures above)

A side note about the 16" wheels, My brother let me use his 16" Compomotives and I took it for a spin. I managed to let them rub once and immediately stopped driving and swapped back to the 15". The rubbing might be due to the coilovers I have, TA Technix and not having the option of adjusting the dampening. So I think I can get away with 16" wheels with 205/45 tires. Went online and looked for a nice set of wheels and saw the Team Dynamics Pro Race 1.2's. I think they will look great. But to be sure my brother made a photoshop of it (Don't mind the photo.. an iPhone 4S isn't really great in making photos when night is falling):

And yesterday evening me and my brothers went out to shoot some photos of both the Escort XR3i and the Puma.







If you want to check out more photos of my brother's or my Puma you can check out his Flickr page: Jordi Boer: Spookpictures

Now it's time to enjoy it again and being happy that I finally have my car back! After three months! Will be doing a filter and oil change this weekend. Besides that it doesn't need any thing so it might be quiet for a while after this update

[Cherie]

It's a shame you're not bringing this to Ford Fair, it looks awesome.

[Wild E. Coyote]

Still not happy with the colour choice, but admire the quality of work and have to admit it stands out from any crowd. Top job, really, a credit to you! clap-clap-clap!

Ps: I would always just go for OZ ultraleggera

[tuonokid]

I'm with Sinisa on the OZ wheels.
Barry

[Brian']

Still not happy with the colour choice, but admire the quality of work and have to admit it stands out from any crowd. Top job, really, a credit to you! clap-clap-clap!

Ps: I would always just go for OZ ultraleggera

I'm with Sinisa on the OZ wheels.
Barry

Hmm. In what colour would suit best? I think silver..

[ArtfulHussy]

I'm a big fan of the pro race 3 that you have on. I also think it looks good with the black..

[TylerB]

That's really nice. Color is a matter of taste, sure looks finished now! Time to enjoy and drive it I'd say
I'm not sure of 205/45 /16 tires on the Puma. It was much better on mine with 215/40/16 . Just felt better on the road. In your case, I would also in the future think about replacing those TA Technix coilovers but it's your choice offcourse, it's a lot of money too. Anyway top job on the car !

[Doingitsideways]

This car is awesome. Simple.
Fantastic work.

Love the Mk3 XR3i too, still miss mine after 10+ years
Very rare beast now, my Mk3 was a carbed XR3 and I absolutely loved it.
Still love a bit of old skool and still have my Capri, so all good

[Isa]

Looking nice!