Loud & Low 8th Gen Civic - UBL #3 - The Final Chapter - Up to date

[scooter99]

Got some goodies in the other day.

First some sexy Sky High Car Audio 1/0 ga heat shrink

Also got the first two of four of these beauties! I still have to buy the second two but I was just waiting for paypal to clear my bank account to pay a credit card bill. Should be buying this week or next. Not in a huge hurry at this point.

This is the placement I'm looking at for the batteries. Two on each side. Plenty of space for them and stay out of the space between the wheel wells for the enclosure etc. Also plenty to put a front cover on them and dress them up!

I am trying to decide, however, if I want to straight stack them, or leave them staggered stacked like this. If I straight stack them, I need to cut a wing off the wheel well, to straighten them up. If I leave them staggered stacked, then I can just do a fiberglass back and then do a front cover. If straight stacked, they'll get buss bars, if they get staggered stacked then one cable off each post and they'll be dressed up nicely. I have a big plan for a fuse block down on the floor. Open to discussion on this.

So I took some measurements this weekend on the new batts. These are right out of the box floating measurements.

Battery 1

Battery 2

So after that I put them on the charger for full days, Batt 1 on Saturday, and it charged up to 14.5v. Took it off the charger and put the charger on the second battery and again charged up to 14.5v. Checked the first battery after a full day of rest and it was sitting at 13.3v FTMFW!! Checked the second battery this morning and it was resting at 13.2v. That's bad ass!!!

Didn't get pics, but I will. Not sure it'll stay that high, but that's nice for resting voltage. I should be able to buy the second two this week, and I've also designed a nice way to hold them in place. But I'll reveal that when it's time. Thanks Wicks!!

Nothing big, just thought I'd share the floating voltage on my XP950's.

Battery #1, sitting for 12 hours off the charger. 13.18v

Battery #2, sitting for about 24 hours off the charger. 13.15v

I ordered the second 2 XP950's but it's gonna be a couple weeks before they get here. Jon had one, but the second has to be ordered. I'm in no rush, I'm not going to be at that point for a while. Things are coming together.

[scooter99]

Ok so I did a little bit of work tonight. This is the way it's going to be for a while. Probably always until this is done unless I get some time off days. But I'm trying to keep myself happy by doing work, as well as, keep the wifey happy by taking care of business at home with the kids and the house too. So it'll be an hour here an hour there during the weekdays, and then probably a few hours here and there on the weekends. Hopefully that will translate into good progress to keep us all happy.

Let's get on with it.

So last time I left you I was very happy with the start of the amp rack. I still like it but I think it could use more. I didn't like the amp panels only in there, and I wanted something to fill in the empty voids. So I came up with an idea. That's what I'm doing now. Let's take a look!

Stripped the amp panels off the mounts. Then put it back in it's place in the trunk.

Then, thankfully I just moved so I have a lot of these laying around. A L O T of them. I saved them on purpose!

Next I had to start making the templates.

mocking up the driver side panel. This is just for the contours of the spare well.

mocking up the passenger side, same thing.

Next I had to make a one piece template. I did this for a couple of reasons. First to make sure I have a nice fit all the way around. Hard to do that with a bunch of pieces taped together. Next so that I have one piece to trace off of and make my wooden template. So that's what I'm doing here.

One side done

Time for the other side.

Then I got them put back in, did some trimming, and actually had to add some to one side, but then cut another full piece, and we're all good. This is what it looks like.

So that's it for tonight. This was about an hours worth of work. Maybe an hour and a half. Tomorrow, hopefully, I'll be able to transfer the cardboard to 1/4" ply and get those ready to go. I won't be using the 1/2" birch anymore, I have different plans. So the 1/4" is going to be a starting point, and I'll go from there.

On another note, I went out and got some fleece this weekend, and last week, from Joann Fabric. They had a 50% off sale, and their fleece was $4.99 instead of 8.99 or whatever it normally is. So I got quite a few yards of that for these projects. Not sure if I have enough for it all, but it'll be enough to get me going.

Thanks all for checking in. More progress in the next day or so.

Don't forget to check out my facebook page, Loud & Low 8th Gen and like it for updates and info before it hits here.

Also for behind the scenes chatter and for comments or suggestions, check out my build log which is linked in my signature. Thanks!

[scooter99]

So I worked on the amp rack tonight. I wanted to extend the panels out to meet the spare well walls. I was able to do that. But it's not working out the way I want it to and I'm getting frustrated.

On with the pics. Only about an hours worth of work tonight.

I used my cardboard templates from last time I worked on the rack, and drew out the wood to cut. This is just 1/4" ply.

This is the piece that goes on the back flat side of the well. This is going to come back into play later.

Other side

Broke out my old trusty jig saw and got to work!

So I got the base back in, and was ready to test fit the panels.

Not bad right? Actually pretty good. Even cut a piece to go in the middle to fill that void. Now my issue here is the wood I have is old, so it's a little warped, and cause of that, it's not sitting very level. But I can fix that.

This is my issue. I wasn't thinking about this when laid all this out. Using that flat panel on the back of the wall, I thought was a good idea, to give me a flat piece to work with. However after looking at this picture, I realized I'm going to loose about an inch to inch and a half of space I need for the length of the amps and the cable. So I'm frustrated at that. Why? Well because, and I was too frustrated to think about taking a picture, but in taking it out, it leaves my panels severely short. So I had to get the cardboard back out, extend those panels and get them ready to cut for tomorrow night.

The other thing that I was getting frustrated about, and this is just my lack of experience with glassing, is the ridges, that I had to cut the panels around. In the picture above, you can see there on the bottom next to the tape, there are 3 there, and then 3 on the other side as well. I was trying to figure out how to get those glassed and looking right, but not thinking about it, i will be taping over it, so instead of 3 ridges, there will be one solid ridge. I'd love to cut them out, but I don't think that's very realistic. The problem with that is that I think the ridge is going to bother me aesthetically. But I'll have to deal with that later I guess. I'll have a trim panel over the top of the whole thing so maybe it won't be seen.

The part that's hard to deal with is the frustration of having to think about these things, taking time for it, and not having much time to do productive work. But it is what it is I guess.

So that's all for tonight, I'll see about more tomorrow night.

Thanks for checking in!

[scooter99]

Ok I got a couple hours today of working time. So I did what I could, and actually I'm pretty close to where I wanted to be. I was hoping to get a coat of resin on this tonight, but I'm not sure it's going to happen. We'll see what the rest of the night holds. On to the pics!

Time to get these panels down. Screws, Glue, and some other stuff.

Brushed some glue on the bottom and put some on the panel.

brushed and ready to lay.

screws to secure it.

glue on the braces

Screwed to hold

Time for the other side. Glued

and screwed

Removed it and laid it out to dry.

Empty and ready for some lovin.

marked it out where the rack will sit.

[scooter99]

Tape for glassing. I had to pull this back a bit, and then cut some deadener out for a lip for this to sit on top.

test fit.

Some orange love!! Bought from Joann fabrics at 50% off.

Follow along as I learn on the fly! Never done anything like this so I'm kind of making this up as I go. It's a bit of a guessing game.

stapled all the bottom and pulled it up the sides, and stapled the sides.

Ready to get spread out in the trunk.

Yes I used spray glue. I used a ton of it actually. I've spread it out beyond the line of where i"m going to cut the edges. SO hopefully doing that will allow it to stick out there, while I resin in below the line. Crossing fingers. LOL

Spread out and ready for the center

The back wall. you can kind of see that it's about a half inch short. but I'm hoping I can use this fleece to extend it out.

Spread out, no glue this time.

Stapled down, trimmed up and ready to go.

my edge line, and where the two amps are going marked out. Now it's ready for some resin! That will be tomorrow.

So that's it for tonight. I may be able to get out and get a layer of resin on it later, but it's going to depend on how I feel. My goal is to get a layer of resin on this, and get a layer of mat on it, and see where I'm at at the end of the weekend. Doesn't have to be very strong, it's mostly for cosmetics.

Thanks for checking in! More soon!

[scooter99]

Ok so I got quite a bit done today. Well not a ton done, but enough to make myself happy. Won't look like much cause there aren't many pics but for me, it's good progress.

So when I left off yesterday, I had gotten all the fleece on and was ready to get resin on. I had a goal today of getting the fleece resined, as well as a couple layers of glass on. Along with that it was a pretty busy day. We went to a western festival this morning, really just a parade we watched, then came home and worked in our front planter to get it cleaned up and ready for mulch, mowed the lawns, and then also did other things. SO my day was jam packed.

Let's get on with it.

First layer of resin went on the fleece. I had NO IDEA how much resin this would soak in. After all was said and done, I did 16oz increments and it took 4 mixes to get it done. Wow! Learn something new every day!

While I was pretty impressed with how all the other spots held on, I was not by the back wall. It did let go a little bit, as you can see here. But I semi expected that to happen. I'll have quite a bit of sanding to do to get this right. But I guess it's the nature of the beast.

So after asking around I decided to go ahead and sand a little bit of the resined fleece. Just to knock it down a bit, and because I'm not using real quality resin, 3M from lowes/home depot, it sometimes has a waxy feel to the top and won't adhere the second layer very well. So I thought why take chances on it. So I got out my Ridgid palm sander and some higher grit paper and went to town!

Got it all knocked down

Then grabbed the vacuum and got most of the dust up. I didn't take a pic, but I got a damp cloth and wiped it down to get whatever the vacuum did not.

Then time for some strength. Ran all over to get some chop mat but neither lowes or depot carry it, and wal mart does but just my luck they were out. Well cloth is better than nothing I guess, so I grabbed some of that.

Drew up some lines just for some guidance on where the center panel is at.

Then got to resining. I actually was pretty slow with this batch, and it started flashing on me. So I stopped and mixed some more. That's how far I got.

Finished it up. I got that back part too, but apparently I forgot to take pictures of it. I'll try to do that tomorrow. It's all set up now, and feels pretty good. So I may not put a second layer of cloth on like I planned to. At this point it's ready to pull and then I can work on it outside of the car. Smells pretty bad in there right now. I'll pull it in the morning and open the car up completely and let it vent out.

So that's the progress from today. More tomorrow, and I'll get those final pics too. Thanks for checking in!

[scooter99]

I went ahead and removed the amp rack yesterday. No time to sand it or do anything with it, but hopefully sometime this week. Not much to describe, so here are some pics.

This back wall is going to take some work to get looking right. But I kind of expected that as I said.

SO that's about it. Not much to show like I said. I may put one more layer of mat on, after I sand it, and that will be final. Then I'll sand it and smooth it out and get it ready for finishing. I have to figure out how to get cooling fans in here, and exhaust fans in here. But that will come later. I have ideas about that.

Thanks for checking it out.

[scooter99]

Ok guys, I was able to get some stuff done tonight. I'm fighting some health issues but I plugged along anyway.

Last I left you guys the mold was out, and that's where we're at now. Let's see some pics.

It was time to sand down the high spots and get this thing ready to finish up. Again it's not a structural piece, but more a cosmetic piece. The structure is built in and is strong enough on it's own. So there's not a lot of layers needed on this.

Got out the orbital sander and some 40 grit paper and went to work!

Progress pics

Started knocking down the back. This is gonna be a pain to get to look good.

Now that got most of it, but the sharp corners are just not reachable for the orbital.

What can we do about that? I KNOW!! GO BUY A NEW TOY!!!!

I love my Ridgid tools!!!

That got those corners and did a great number on the rest. Best $50 I've spent so far!!

Obviously I have some low spots. That's what filler is for! But I have to trim it up now. Couldn't find my grinder, I'm guessing it's buried somewhere in the shop.

So I had to improvise!! Ridgid jigsaw ftmfw!!!

[scooter99]

Now before I go any further, I openly admit alot of this is learning on the fly! Body filler is one of those things! I don't know much about it, I really just guess at it, and most of the time it works. I don't have any special scales, or measuring tools or anything like that. But sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I'll readdress why I said this at the end. Let's move on!

So as I said before the back is going to be a pain to get looking good. SO, I thought that would be the best place to start, and at least get a layer on there.

YES, it's 3M. It's what I can afford right now, It's what I have on hand, and it'll do the job.

So I got that layer done. That took a lot of filler to do.

After that, I kind of stopped taking pics. Had to get done and get inside to help with my daughters and routines and stuff. HOWEVER, I did get the rest filled. Now there isn't much on there. It's not a very thick layer at all. I spread and spread and spread so it's not very thick. BUT, that being said, I ended up when all was said and done, going through an entire brand new can, the one you saw above, of filler. Even scrapped out the sides and bottom. I used it all! Maybe it's just me, but that seemed like a lot of filler to use on this.

What do you guys see? I'm open to some suggestions.

The rest of the pics.

So there it is. That's it for tonight. In the next couple days I'll try and get over for some more filler, and some filler primer, and also sand this down and see how close I am. I'm sure I'll have quite a bit more touch up to do.

Thanks for checking it out. More to come soon!

For comments, suggestions, or just to shoot the bull, check out my build log which is linked in my signature below. Also check out and like my facebook page for quicker updates!

[scooter99]

Ok here we go! I see Jamie already has his popcorn ready! So let's get to it!

Went to Home Depot yesterday (5/23/13) to get some more body filler. I would love to buy some Rage or Rage Gold but money just isn't there for that right now. I'm using so much I'm afraid to spend that much on it and use it all up at once. Anyway, my toy store!

Picked up some filler primer, 3 cans of it.

and also picked up some filler and some fiberglass mat. They have been out the last 4 times i was there, and this time they had 3 bags of it and no stock left, so I grabbed them.

So I had every intention to continue working on the amp rack today. That's why I bought all that stuff last night. But knowing I had today off, and I've been playing with an idea on a sub enclosure, I decided that I would get to work on it. I can sand and fill during the weeknights. I have very limited time to work on an enclosure during the weeknights. By the time i get rolled out, and wood up and ready to cut on, I may only get an hour or so to work. So I decided to take advantage.

That was my change of direction. Let's get to it!

So I'm not sure how many people have followed all my builds, but the last build I had started, I made this for a component rack. I was going to house all my components, relays, wiring, etc on this. From the front side, you'll see later, it folds down and is accessible. Not going to work for this, so it's out!

HOWEVER, in order to take that out, I have to take the seat out. I have kids! The back seat is a freaking mess! Time to get it cleaned up!

That's much better!

Every worker has to have a supervisor!

Ok seat out! Rack exposed! You can see where it folds out now.

Remember my broken rear window. Well I guess there's still some left over! GRRRRR! Nice clean up job jackass!

More glass!!!

And it's out!

Here it is ready for the junk pile

opened up!

Oh I salvaged the hing off it, I have plans for that on this build, but there it is in the junk pile.