billybunters - from a bmw z4 to a mx5 se

[Cus]

Swinging in late (as usual) - What an epic drive, I just spent an hour and a bit reading, and that was only the last few pages!

As far as the po-po go, they're everywhere, all the time, and it's everybody else's fault!

I found on my recent trip up and down the Hume the closer I got to sydney, the further the other cars were from the speed limit (faster or slower, made no difference, nobody was doing what the signs said) easily 50% of the highway patrol I saw in NSW had someone pulled over.
Last month a mate and I drove from WA to NSW, both WA and SA seem to have drivers that stick to the posted limit (on the highways at least), and aside from a pair of cars setting up spikes on the WA/SA border, we didn't see one patrol car across two entire states.
Victorians have taken the "wipe off five" to heart and only ever do the speed limit by accident, downhill with a tail wind, I think that's because vicpol seem to have spent all their money on unmarked cars... ...well, that's my observation on the matter.

Having a UHF On 40 in most places, or 29 in the top half of NSW means you can listen to the truckies, and they know where the police are with surprising accuracy, if you can decipher what they're on about, sometimes they are legitimately dribbling crap lol - but going faster uses more fuel, and when you're on a multi-day drive, any time gained speeding quickly gets lost in traffic and toilet breaks or u-turns because the friend's daughter SWEARS she saw a camel and we HAVE to go and look at it.... (there was no camel)

[billybunter]

I've been a bit busy since my return home from the northern territory. car's still sitting there and covered in red dirt but I've been chasing up another mode of transport to add to the collection for the up coming warm season.

these couple of photos arrived from the dealer today so I think -this could be my next move as the SE hits it's retirement period just have to sort out the idle issue and all good to retire it to 2017 or longer

[ManiacLachy]

Mate, it looks like you got your run with 300whp just in time! New Labour NT government is bringing back 130kph limits
http://www.drive.com.au/motor-news/northern-territory-to-drop-open-speed-limits-20160830-gr4d5c.html

[billybunter]

yeah I agree . I was told when I was up there if the gov lost the election the open speed limit would go. around the alice way they wanted it to stay but i'd say up near Darwin -they probably couldn't care less. too far down the road to think about it

lucky I got in early and got my run out of the way over two trips. but saying that due to the vast distance the exercise wasn't cheap either. to prepare the car and do the trip twice it swallowed almost $40k in funds plus I was seriously thinking about taking the Z3 back next year as a new challenge....but that idea is now shot!

anyway I still have the memories plus I enjoyed it while it lasted

[KevGoat]

Well ... at least I won't feel quite so bad now when we're cruising through there at 90/95 in our little RV next year or year after

[billybunter]

well after a month i'd decided to look over the SE after-all I am trying to sell it well last years paint job on the front bar was a mis-match of paint. no codes to work on with this as it was just the straight white prior to any tint being added to mix to different shades.

whatever went wrong I got the wrong one last year and told them about it. no replacement but they did say the correct paint was in stock. so I had a look over the front bar and decided apart from the mis-match of colour it had pick up a few small stone chips for the territory run - no doubt while I was high speed mobile

anyway I really hate working on cars especially rubbing back and painting them but again I have no choice but to get into this front bar and try and improve it a bit on what it is now. well even I should be able to improve on that

one thing I will say if or when this car goes and I decide later on to buy the ND I will stay away from any car which is not the correct colour because I surely don't want a built thread on a colour change on a ND

[billybunter]

bit of progress today. out with the 320 wet and dry and into it. hopefully I can make something of it within a day or two. it had picked up fair few stone chips from the top end run so I had do go a bit deeper on the rubbing side of things.

cutting deeper into the white base you can see the original colour - sunlight silver. I guess I could rub back the whole car and do a complete turn-a-round and go back to the original silver probably not going to happen but I will do the tidy up on the car prior to hitting carsales on completion of the work

anyway this ruined a good day riding the new bike or should I say afternoon but some-one has to do it and it back to it again tomorrow

[StanTheMan]

are you using 2 pack paint for this?

[billybunter]

just acrylic -like I did 6 years ago plus the other 20 odd cars

[billybunter]

look at this mgf I painted 8 years ago - not much of a car BUT when it goes out for a run it get more attention than any car I have ever owned and that's well over 100....bit disappointing really

prior to the paint job I think it was a dirty black colour in mgf's and only a 3 year old car looks good but not much of a car

[smy0003]

Where's that yellow from, looks a bit dark to be Malibu gold or the Ferrari yellow?
Yellows can look absolute mint or terrible depending on the shade, and you've nailed that one.

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

[billybunter]

let me think on that it was 8 years ago. I will see if I can find the paint tin and let you know

[billybunter]

well today was paint the front bar day so I got up about 9am and the weather was suppose to be good and 15 to 17 degrees but it was cloudy and windy but still 13c. good enough I though! quick breakfast and out to set up the spray booth to cut wind drift and keep the temp better or stable.

got that out of the way with a bit of help from the wife and then on with the masking of the car and then threw a part drop sheet over the screen. no cover over the paintwork as the car had not been washed since the 9000 klm northern territory road trip and it was covered in road grime so paint drift would wash right off

after the mask up it looked like it could put a damper on things with the possibility of rain but I thought stuff it I am this far so got into it. hit it with the plastic primer first allowing for about 3 coats in total ...maybe four. allowed about 5 or more minutes drying between coats.

after that mixed up my white acrylic paint with all purpose thinners and all into my $55 supercheap paint gun -best gun I've used to date ( tell you what if your reading this buy one. if I was unlucky and later on bought the wrong colour ND I will use this gun to re-paint it it is one good gun! half a dozen coats of the colour -if white is a colour and allowed 5 minutes dry off between coats.

followed lastly by the top or clear which as usual I mixed with premium thinners. really impressive results. nice glossy finish right off the gun and once dry silky smooth to the touch. several coats applied. in the end I decided to call it quits. reason being it was going all to well so I thought -quit while I was ahead

over-all the above exercise took about 2 hours from start to finish and cost me about $30 to do the job. yeah I know it was a bit on the expensive side but I like using good quality sandpaper gets better results....remember NORTON for sandpaper or NOTHING!

[billybunter]

final two

mazda looks really nice now and presents itself well

[ManiacLachy]

Man you work quick! If breeding birds doesn't work out, you could always open up a paint shop