That yellow SLK - new owner and new fixes! (the thread of history)

[garellikatia]

Today's job involved sorting the faded bunper trim. I was recommended the autoglym gel on here, but the gel type stuff just made it look wetter rather than dark so I got some of the £6 halford special bumper paint and gave it a bash. Only managed to do the rear as I had house work to do haha

In hindsight I'm not sure ironically if I prefer the black or I should've gone dark grey it's hard to tell what the original colour of the trim would've been. 

[garellikatia]

Not any major progress with custard, but I noticed a little bubbling under the sill trims. I've took them off, ground out the rust and re sprayed them. Not the most professional job but hopefully It will keep the rust at bay. 

Next job Is to tend to the rear arches and do the same there. I know this won't be a long term fix but something I need to do before the winter. 

[garellikatia]

And here's another little photo of when she was nice and clean and polished 

[Schaefft]

Yellow is easily the best color for them, looks great now that the black plastics are black again!

[garellikatia]

On 17/10/2023 at 08:57, Schaefft said:

Yellow is easily the best color for them, looks great now that the black plastics are black again!

Oh yea I have to agree!! Haha

ah thanks mate, I do struggle with the finesse of finishing some jobs, and will never get a full professional finish. But most  jobs look adequate enough and keeps it going strong and on the road for longer 

[garellikatia]

ive been meaning to crack on with this for a long while but I've been mega busy.  Chilled out weekend at work has meant I can  crack on trying to sort the rear arches AGAIN haha. 

The black is rust convertor and believe its probably rotting from the inside out. I've managed to grind out the majority of the rust, 

Then it will be on with the filler and paint. Hopefully it will get sorted today , providing I don't run out of time haha

[garellikatia]

got this far, then ran out of top coat.  Anyone know how to het rid of the matt areas around where ive sprayed? Normally a wet sand with 1500g and polish sorts it out.but is there anything im doing wrong? I dont like masking as the yellow is hard to blend

[Missy Charm]

21 hours ago, garellikatia said:

got this far, then ran out of top coat.  Anyone know how to het rid of the matt areas around where ive sprayed? Normally a wet sand with 1500g and polish sorts it out.but is there anything im doing wrong? I dont like masking as the yellow is hard to blend

That's probably just dry overspray on the factory paint.  Wet flatting runs the risk of damaging the good paint underneath, which will send you back to square one.  A rub over with Farecla G3 or similar light cutting compound often works wonders; you want to take off the overspray and leave what's beneath intact, whilst blending the new and old areas together.  A second opinion would be nice; it's a long time since I've painted anything, so I'm quite rusty these days!  

[garellikatia]

On 26/11/2023 at 12:45, Missy Charm said:

That's probably just dry overspray on the factory paint.  Wet flatting runs the risk of damaging the good paint underneath, which will send you back to square one.  A rub over with Farecla G3 or similar light cutting compound often works wonders; you want to take off the overspray and leave what's beneath intact, whilst blending the new and old areas together.  A second opinion would be nice; it's a long time since I've painted anything, so I'm quite rusty these days!  

Ah great thanks for your help!! 

[garellikatia]

Slk is on storage at the minute and I'm due to go away with work for the next month however she's nicely tucked up.

 

I needed getting 2 sets of rims for it this month. One being the set from Agila of this parish. 

I'm chuffed to bits with them and I know it's not to everyone's taste but I will be putting them on when I return, and I think it will look great. I've been sanding the laquer down and re polishing them. I've found that course wire wool works the best slowly upping the grade. I know paint stripper would get the laquer off in no time but I don't want to run the risk of getting any on the paint.

haven't fully polished them yet, but here's a half done one.

[155V6]

On 07/02/2024 at 23:04, garellikatia said:

Slk is on storage at the minute and I'm due to go away with work for the next month however she's nicely tucked up.

 

I needed getting 2 sets of rims for it this month. One being the set from Agila of this parish. 

I'm chuffed to bits with them and I know it's not to everyone's taste but I will be putting them on when I return, and I think it will look great. I've been sanding the laquer down and re polishing them. I've found that course wire wool works the best slowly upping the grade. I know paint stripper would get the laquer off in no time but I don't want to run the risk of getting any on the paint.

haven't fully polished them yet, but here's a half done one.

Wheels look great 😎.I did wonder what they would look like on my black SLK when I saw them for sale

[garellikatia]

12 minutes ago, 155V6 said:

Wheels look great 😎.I did wonder what they would look like on my black SLK when I saw them for sale

Aye I can't wait to see what they look like on. I'll have to post a pic. 

these are the light weight ones id originally intended to put on,( need work)  but couldnt resist the gold ones when they were for sale. 

[gm]

no no no no no, those wheels are hideous, these are what you need  

 

now stop messing about, when are you coming to collect them ? 

[garellikatia]

So I've just pulled custard out of winter hibernation, put on the wheels I got from Agila of this parish. 

I have also half fitted these spats, (only gonna fit to the rear as I had new front wings last year)

  they're only held on lightly hence they're not properly aligned and flush.  I'm I'm 2 minds with these. I know they're normally there to hide rust, but in my case the rust was all ground out, but the mismatch in yellow paint looks a lot worse than the arches. 

Besides I can't really afford £500 for a panel spray at the minute. I may decide to spray them yellow to match the body, but I don't know, I quite like the black haha. 

[garellikatia]

In other news, looking forward to doing some other simple tasks over the next week, like a good old service. 

Brakes are looking a bit worn, and as much as I'd like to splash out on some more 'yellow stuff' pads and discs, I think I'm going to settle for Mintex. 

Got some decent gen merc oil for a steal though, so I'll be taking a pootle up to my local dealers for some OEM service bits, like filters etc...

[garellikatia]

Not much of an update as the kids are on easter holidays and as much as I'd like to crack on they're my priority at the moment. 

Popped into the Merc stealers near me to pick up some bits today. Namely an oil filter and a gear oil dipstick cover that was misplaced. 

Not too bad for the princely sum of £20 ish. In my opinion OEM give me a sense of reassurance,  after watching the Indian factories make there's with next to no product control or quality control, rolling the filter paper up on a dust gritty workshop floor. Seems like a no brainer to me. 

The shocks look very worn too and I'm tempted to get some fibi Bilston replacements soon, but out of curiosity thought I'd see how much genuine ones are. £1000 all in, front and back .... maybe I'll stick to the former haha. 

I also had to invest in a little tool to tighten my wheel caps, as much as I'm ham fisted the caps still needed a good old half turn or so each. Glad I did, as the last thing I need is one of these flinging off and causing an accident. 

[garellikatia]

Finally set about doing the service. Turns out the sump plug bolt was fairly rounded so instead of wasting time and effort trying to botch it off and risking damaging the sump I bought an electric oil extractor pump. Was £30 from eurocarparts. 

I'm actually very impressed  sucked out 5L in next to no time. All sorted now until the next 6 months!! 

[garellikatia]

Mot time today.  Clean sheet, no advisories!!! Happy days. 

[garellikatia]

Tried colour matching the old worn out plastics in the interior tonight. It didn't go well . I got so many runs in the paint I got fed up and stripped it all back down again. 

Back to square 1 but I'll just do them in black this time. I forgot how much of a bugger yellow paint was to work with. Oh well. Not the end of the world .