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Gordo's Banana: The Build Begins

49K views 654 replies 42 participants last post by  The Scifi Guy 
#1 · (Edited)
Some Assembly Required

Woop! Woop! The body shop is done with my car and it's painted and ready to come home. I'm typing this after seeing it, taking some of the loose items home in my SUV, and arranging for a tow truck to pick it. Best paint job I've ever gotten in the 40 years and 20 paint jobs I've given this Maaco shop. No specks and smooth as glass! It took them a whole day to paint. They ran out of yellow paint and had to call another shop to get more. It's C4 Corvette yellow with a coat of clear. This car and it's body kit are a remake of my beloved Ole Yeller GT that I drove for 18 years and 225,000 miles. My heart swelled with joy seeing it painted the same milky yellow that I spent so many years enjoying looking at.

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#212 ·
The KYBs on my GTX car are 15 years old. They still work great.

All 4 yellow Koni's that were on my Banana car when it came to me were dead as door nails. And they were really never driven on, they were installed 25 years ago when the car was gullwinged, but the car just sat in OU's showroom for most of that time. Fresh out of the box new when installed.
 
#213 ·
When you said the Koni’s were as dead as door nails, they are not gas pressurized and will not spring back to an extended position. Are you saying they wouldn’t extend and contract? Or were they leaking?
 
#223 ·
Aren't words fun?! All shocks are hydraulic. The gas shocks are technically 'gas charged hydraulic shocks'.
wiki:
a low-pressure charge of nitrogen gas is added to the reserve tube. The result of this alteration is a dramatic reduction in "foaming" or "aeration"
 
#227 ·
Headliner Nearing Completion

Man, what a lousy time of year to do a headliner in a basically unheated tiny garage. I only have small windows of time when the temps are in a decent range. Also, trying to make a video of it all is very time consuming and breaks my rhythm. I can only do small areas and then I have to wait until the next day.......if the weather is warm enough the next day. Keep in mind that this car had it's gullwing roof chopped off and a normal roof welded on with extra welding and gussets on the inside, so it will never be perfect at the pillars and lumps and bumps will be seen. Yeah, I could have added padding to the pillars to maybe hide the lumps, but it's hard enough to do the pillars without that extra wrench thrown into the works. It'll be almost freezing this weekend, so not much work will get done, but M-T-Wednesday looks to be about 60*, so I might get it finished.

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#229 ·
The Last Pics of Gordo's Stupid Headliner
Tired of looking at my headliner? Me, too! Well, it's essentially done and I'm moving onto other things. There's still some wrinkles where it was folded for packaging and shipment, hopefully Summer heat will bake those out. There's a few minor puckers or seemingly loose spots, but the install of the window and door rubber should tighten those. These pics show the tricky fastening of the headliner at the difficult to do C-pillar, window deck, rear window flow-through ventilation inlets, and rear of the side rear windows.
That's it, NO MORE HEADLINER PICS!

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#232 ·
Right now, as I type, I have the extra vinyl that comes with the headliner tumbling in the dryer. I'm working out the upholstery in the back and the headliner came with a 2'x5' length of matching extra material for jobs like this. It was folded into an 8" square and when I just spread it all out it looked like a chess board of wrinkles.

Tick...tock....tick.....okay, 10 minutes in the dryer and........HOLY COW!.........all the wrinkles are gone! I'm astounded! Honest to gosh, just 15 minutes ago it was virtually unusable because of the checker board of wrinkles. Now it's as flat as glass. Gosh, if only I had known this trick before and tumbled the headliner in the dryer for 10 minutes!


Brown Cloud Rectangle Wood Textile
 
#236 ·
I have an electric portable household heater out there that I have to turn on about 3-4 hours before I go in there to work, sometimes I leave it on over night. It can barely keep the temp out there 10 degrees above the outside ambient temp. So, a few months back I bought a nice little propane heater to supplement it. That does the trick, but the fuel in the big 3 or whatever gallon tank would maybe last 24 hours at the most if I left it on non-stop. It will get me through the Winter for the next month or so just working out there a few hours a day.

I have a 100 year old, old fashioned cinder block, difficult to insulate, shared garage that the township won't let me tear down and rebuild bigger and better because it's built on the property line. New codes would demand that it be 4'-6' away. That would put it right in the middle of my tiny back yard and be difficult to drive into, plus I would lose the area where I park my other 2 cars. The dense older style cinder blocks, which weigh about 50lbs each, don't insulate at all, they soak up the cold like an ice box and suck all the heat out of the room. So, I have to live with what I've got. In another month or so the cold weather will depart and things will get much better out there. Then Summer will come and I'll have to do battle with 100 degree heat. Wheeeeee!
 
#238 ·
I have a 100 year old, old fashioned cinder block, difficult to insulate, shared garage that the township won't let me tear down and rebuild bigger and better because it's built on the property line. New codes would demand that it be 4'-6' away. That would put it right in the middle of my tiny back yard and be difficult to drive into, plus I would lose the area where I park my other 2 cars. The dense older style cinder blocks, which weigh about 50lbs each, don't insulate at all, they soak up the cold like an ice box and suck all the heat out of the room. So, I have to live with what I've got. In another month or so the cold weather will depart and things will get much better out there. Then Summer will come and I'll have to do battle with 100 degree heat. Wheeeeee!
Will your township allow you to seal these porous cinder blocks with a paint or a stucco with water proof membrane? Do they allow repair/ replacment of those cracked blocks?
 
#237 ·
I'll say it again...500watt halogen work light and black shop clothes! You will warm up more than you think. And if you are working on metal parts, lay them within 3-4 feet of it for 15 min.
All of this helps someone with arthritis, like those of us suffering advanced decrepitude.
 
#239 ·
In the 90s in Canada in the Ottawa area they had similar limitations on renovating old “historic” homes. I worked with a couple of guys who were affected by that. Apparently what people were doing was to first rebuild half the house. When that was complete they would then rebuild the other half.
Maybe doing something like that would work with your garage.

At a minimum you need to stop air leakage. On those cinder blocks you might try rolling on a coat or two of basement water seal, inside and out, then repaint. Caulk every single spot where light shines through. It will make a huge difference.

Here in the PNW we had a 2900 sf house built to code in 93. Our heating bills were approaching $400/month in the winter and we were still cold.

We built a new house and heated shop two years ago, with a combined area of 5000 sf, built to current code. During construction I spent $1600 on caulk and sealed every single stud bay in both buildings. Air leakage tests on the house were half the code requirements (2.56 air changes/hour vs 5) and this was normal stick construction with caulked stud bays, nothing fancy. Winter heating bills for both house and shop are now around $200/monthand we are toasty warm.
 
#241 ·
Rear upholstery progress......
Woo-hoo! A 70 degree day in February! I can work work in the garage with the curtain up! Yesterday and today's progress includes: Installing pre-made panels and making and upholstering new panels below the headliner, side windows, and the former spare tire area, and sound/insulation stuff applied to the area that will be behind the speakers. Gosh I hate those wheel arches! The upholstery on them looked half-azz when these cars were new and the pre-made arch covers look even worse. Maybe I can make them look better at a later date.......
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#244 ·
I just ordered some 6x9's and a Blaupunkt subwoofer. Sheesh, it's crazy to look through all the reviews seeking the best speakers, your head will spin in no time. Dozens of reviews and none agree with each other. Mainly I look for good bass response and longevity. In the end I ended up choosing ones that I had seen favorably high rated a couple of times in a few of the reviews, but I really think I chose these because I liked the grills and they'll go with the interior:


I bought a Blaupunkt subwoofer. Why? 'Cuz it's German. And it had a favorable size with less than the 10" of depth space I have to work with.


These choices were cheap through Amazon. Less than $200 for both items. The head unit and door speakers were already purchased. You can blow HUGE amounts of money on stereo stuff and imagine that they sound better. It's a small noisy car, I just need to rock my socks off and drown out the car noise.
 
#246 ·
Today's picture that looks a lot like my other pictures. I finished the side, over the wheel arches, panels and made the below the tire ledge piece. Aarrgghh, look at the wrinkles on the bottom piece! It was decently tight after I used the spray glue that came with my headliner to stick it to the face, then staples behind. I guess out-gassing caused the vinyl to stretch and wrinkle. I don't like that spray glue that OGTS includes with the headliner. Terrible stuff, nothing I've used it on has stuck properly. I strongly suggest using 3M Super 77 instead, for flat stuff, and Goop to attach the headliner. I'm going to have to peel that vinyl off, stretch it over the wood good and tight and just staple it, no glue. Anyway, I was anxious to see what my vision of the interior would look like, so the pics just show the 3 pieces loosely fitted, they'll get screwed in place with decorative screws. Tomorrow I can permanently install the side pop-outs and maybe get the linear actuators mounted. I ordered speakers and a subwoofer, so I'll have to wait for those to arrive before I can do the speaker panels.

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#247 ·
Rear Side Windows Installed

I mounted the side windows. The rubber was still unacceptably loose on the glass and louvers and I needed to do something to tighten it all up. I had tried sheet metal inserts in several places to mimic larger glass, but that made the rubber not fit the openings. I squirted seam sealer between the glass and the rubber, but that didn't hold, everything was still loose, and it was a yucky mess. The solution all along was to have the window rubber be smaller, but how to do that? If I cut a chunk out somewhere, how would I glue or bond it back together? Well, I needed to prove that removing a chunk would fix all my looseness and fitment problems, so I chopped an inch out of the rubber at the apex of the curve at the back of the glass and squeezed the rubber together, plus I had to remove the last louver. Success! A tight fit, problem solved. Now, how to reconnect the two chopped off ends? I opted for a drill and a piece of wire and tapered the rubber to come to a fashionable, badass, point. Yes! That worked also! I may replace the piece of wire with some sort of heavy duty black thread or black insulated wire. And I fixed the wrinkly lower panel. Next job is to make mounting brackets for the linear actuators.

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#248 ·
Rear Side Windows Installed

I mounted the side windows. The rubber was still unacceptably loose on the glass and louvers and I needed to do something to tighten it all up. I had tried sheet metal inserts in several places to mimic larger glass, but that made the rubber not fit the openings. I squirted seam sealer between the glass and the rubber, but that didn't hold, everything was still loose, and it was a yucky mess. The solution all along was to have the window rubber be smaller, but how to do that? If I cut a chunk out somewhere, how would I glue or bond it back together? Well, I needed to prove that removing a chunk would fix all my looseness and fitment problems, so I chopped an inch out of the rubber at the apex of the curve at the back of the glass and squeezed the rubber together, plus I had to remove the last louver. Success! A tight fit, problem solved. Now, how to reconnect the two chopped off ends? I opted for a drill and a piece of wire and tapered the rubber to come to a fashionable, badass, point. Yes! That worked also! I may replace the piece of wire with some sort of heavy duty black thread or black insulated wire. And I fixed the wrinkly lower panel. Next job is to make mounting brackets for the linear actuators.

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Really coming together! You are in the home stretch (pun intended :D) for the interior. I had a similar issue with the vent window rubber in my corvair. I found that cyanoacrylate glue (aka "crazy" glue) made a really strong and seamless bond in my case. I think the rubber would tear in an unfastened area before it would come undone at the join.
 
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