Turbo Hood Ready

Finally!! I have the Turbo Hood ready to go on the car. All the hardware is back mounted onto the hood, all cleaned up, repainted, new lift supports added that I picked up from eBay. I'm just going to let it sit for a day or so to let the paint fully cure and then I'm going to wrap bubble wrap around the edges with masking tape and cover the hood with a tarp and more bubble wrap for when it's transported to the garage. I just want to take a few precautions in order to help protect it from any potential mishaps along the way.

I'll be so happy when this is finally on the car. K.I.T.T. needs his hood in order to make him look more the part. ;) I still have a little polishing to do on the hood here and there, but that will be just as easy, if not easier on the car and out in the garage, hopefully better lighting too with the main garage door open. Dying to see how this looks now that the scanner is installed. I'm hoping it all fits well otherwise I'll have some tweaking to do.

Marine Speakers Enclosure W.I.P.

This is a work in progress of my enclosure for my 100 W Marine speakers that I'm planning to use with Brenon's LED scanner for the sound effects. So far I have just drilled a hole in the back of the PVC pipe and thread through 3 18 gauge wires for the speakers. I believe they are a mono setup but just in case I have a 3rd wire I can use for either a right or left channel. Once the speakers arrive I can.... or I should say, I should be able to mount them onto the ends of the pipe after wiring them up. If all goes well I'll work out a mounting bracket and mount this assembly under the front nose support plate.

My other thought is that this speaker arrangement could work very well for K.I.T.T.'s "Voice Projection" unit... just a thought depending on how they work out. Once the speakers are mounted my plan is to re hook up the battery and test out all of my wiring.... I'm hoping I have everything wired up correctly.... maybe I should have a water hose close by just in case lol ;)

Air cleaner Sensor Hookup Issues

I have been having some troubles lately trying to find out what order the hoses get attached to the air cleaner sensor. Both my Haynes and Pontiac Service manual simply say to just replace it in the same order as the previous one.... well I never took that into account when I took it off... I mean I kinda did as in I had that 30 second thought of;

"Maybe I should take a picture of this before I take all of the hoses off?"

But then thought;

"Naw... there should be plenty of info on how these things are hooked up properly."

lol Silly me to actually think that I guess huh? Anyways, I still need the 10" "O" ring seal and I also discovered that the post that the large locking nut goes onto that holds the Air Cleaner assembly on is a tiny bit short for this nice shiny Air Cleaner.... so I'm not sure if there are longer ones available out there or not??

Marine Speakers For the Scanner

I bought a set of these Marine Speakers from eBay to be attached to K.I.T.T.'s scanner that I got from Lectric Enterprises. I just need to figure out how to wire them along with Brenon's scanner. I have a cool way I want to mount them into the nose of the car and I'll go into that more in a future post. ;)

Air Ventilation Duct Re-routing

I picked up some one inch diameter flex hose in order to do some duct re-routing in my K.I.T.T. for the new Knight Rider 2 TV dash. Oddly enough Canadian Tire sells the one inch flex tubing but none of the accessories like couplers or dash vents so I had to get a little creative with some plumbing pieces and a piece of plastic from an old broken DVD player's casing.

I Had to cut a square 4 3/4" in diameter and cut a hole in the middle big enough to screw in the plumbing pipe elbow that I would attach my flex hose onto using a Zip Tie. I screwed the plastic cover I made onto the original OEM dash with some automotive screws, the kind with the washer already attached at the head of the screw. I thought that perhaps I might need to add some thin high density foam rubber onto the back of my mounting plate but as it turned out the fit was more than good enough to not need to. You can if you find your fit is not flush with the dash, but in my case it was a perfect fit so it will re direct the air flow really well into the flex hose that I will re-route to a coupler I will attach to after market dash vents I can pick up from Classics Auto.

Below is a couple of pictures of the plumbing parts I picked up and my custom mounting plate I made from plastic from a broken DVD player's casing.

June General Updates

Some general updates for stuff I have been working on over the last several weeks just in case you were beginning to think that I have been slacking.  I patched up the antenna hole in the fender with some metal screen patch and some Bondo. I accidentally stuck my finger in it before it had a chance to fully cure so I had to skim it over with a little extra Bondo once the first application had fully cured. Primed and painted it. It just need some wet sanding when the paint has had a chance to cure. Maybe another light coat of paint after the wet sanding, I'll see where I'm at when that is done. Once wet sanded and eventually clear coated you will never know that there ever was an antenna hole in the fender.

I have decided that the whole car does not need to be painted just re-touched up here and there. I have found that the Duplicolor Universal Black seems to be a perfect match for the nice deep rich black currently on the car so I might as well just touch up where needed as it's mostly a few minor rust spots along weather stripping and a few paint chips here and there. I did have to re-do most of the rear spoiler, mostly just a few paint chips along the edges but I did discover that the underside of the spoiler was given the same kind of paint job treatment as the rear taillights compartment, just not cleaned up very well so the paint did not adhere very well to the original paint surface.

I have finally started to get the first few coats of paint on the front nose. I'm doing it with Duplicolor Universal Black in the spray cans and just wet sanding out any paint runs with 1000 grit wet dry sandpaper. .. So far it's turning out very well considering the use of spray cans... I wish Duplicolor made the Universal Black in a spray gun for but for some twisted reason they don't. .. Oh well.... I can use spray cans pretty good and I do have the clear coat for my spray guns so that is what really maters.... heck half the time you still end up doing a little wet sanding and polishing out rough spots anyways. 

I gave the nose a second coat of paint after wet sanding some of the paint runs and rough spots off tomorrow if all goes well after some more wet sanding I may be able to clear coat it and then let it sit for a full day before doing any wet sanding and polishing of the clear coat layer... if that goes well then I should be able to put the front nose on the car.

I got word From Brenon Fullbright that my scanner is done and has been shipped so the timing could not have been any more perfect. Can't wait to see Brenon's awesome work. I have seen other scanners he has done for other Knight Rider builders and they look just absolutely AMAZING!! I'm so stoked.