Engine bay progress

I was able to spend most of my Saturday just working on the car. Most of the time was spent working on the fiberglass repair for the lower engine cover. Part of the lower engine cover broke off around one of the holes where the hood prop bolts to the cover. I seriously underestimated how much time and work it was going to be. Had I known this, I wouldn't have even bothered repairing such a minor thing.The repaired fiberglass is so thin and feels so weak that I don't feel that it was worth the work.

Here is the break in the fiberglass. Very minor.

I applied the fiberglass the night before to give it plenty of time to set. It was really hard to get the fiberglass to conform to the corners to make it shaped like I wanted. It thus resulted in me having to add much more fiberglass material than I wanted to, which I regretted the next day.

The next day, I needed to sand down the fiberglass to match the shape of the rest of the cover. Trying to do this by hand was taking way too long, so I used a grinder and then a sander. It turned out smooth, but the remaining fiberglass just doesn't seem very strong.

I then wiped the cover down with acetone and lightly sanded with 400 grit sandpaper. I then wiped it down again with acetone and painted the cover using SEM Trim Black. I will post updates of the engine cover once I have made more progress.

I then focused on other parts in the engine bay. I used POR 15 to put on a couple of coats on the engine cover grill retaining strips that were rusting, and also on the metal bracket that holds the ignition resistor:

  

 I may apply another coat of POR 15 if it needs it. If not, I'll finish them with some SEM Trim Black to match the rest of the engine bay and then reinstall.

I also finished restoring the plastic coil cover assembly and it looks fantastic. I wiped it down with acetone to try and get it as clean as possible. I then sprayed a couple of light coats of SEM Trim Black to clean it up really nice. Below are the before and after photos:

 

As a parts order arrived from DMCMW, I discovered that instead of the new hood struts that I had ordered, I was sent a pair of rear louvre struts. You can see the difference in length here:

Luckily they are a great company to work with and correct struts are getting sent to me this week. They will include a return label for me to return these struts that I have since my rear louvre struts are in excellent condition. 

In asking for advice on how to restore the look of my air filter assembly box on the DMCTalk.org forum, I receive the advice that I should wet sand the plastic with 600 grit wet sandpaper to restore it to its original glory. In my attempt to make it look new again, I nearly destroyed it. 

First, using wet sandpaper to make it look new failed miserably. All it did was scratch the surface where there weren't scratches before. I used lower grit sandpaper to get rid of the top layer, which made it look like this:

I tried multiple things to make it look better. I first tried a product called Forever Black that I have used on other trim pieces on my Jeep to make it nice and black. Probably because of the sanding, this made the filter assembly look terrible. It looked worse than before. I then sanded that all off and then used a semi-gloss black spray paint. That looked better than the Forever Black, but still not the look I was going for.

I then sanding it down again, made it as smooth as possible with the 600 grit wet sandpaper and then sprayed it with the SEM Trim Black. Bingo. That was the look I was going for. 

For those looking to make their air filter assembly look new again, I recommend just cleaning it with acetone and then spraying with SEM Trim Black and it will look as good as new. 

This is what it looked like in the restoration process:

 

As seen in the picture above, I also took the time to paint the engine bay with SEM Trim Black. I didn't take any pictures of the process of taping off the car and painting. 

I started by wiping down all of the fiberglass with acetone to get as much black and dirt off. I then lightly sanded everywhere with 400 grit sandpaper before wiping it all down with acetone again.

After taping off the windows, quarter panels, rear fascia, motor, coil assembly, hoses, and nuts & bolts I wanted to retain in the color silver, I put on a few coats of SEM Trim Black. It was really hard to get the paint into the corners where the rear quarter panels meet the fiberglass body. I could have done a much better job with the panels off the car, but I didn't want to take the time to do that. 

More to come as I assemble and fix up other components of the engine bay.