Knight's Rest-Knight Rider 30th Anniversary PC

So, I'm back, like I said I would be.

Fair bit of progress so far...

Heating up primer/surfacer to spray this piece to show mw where i need to apply glazing putty...

Looks straighter here than it is. A good bit of time will have to be spent with this.

What am I doing with this? Mostly, it'll be my wife's new case, but I'm cutting a piece or two for myself...

Just because I can.

The initial form of the cowl induction scoop...

Shaped roughly and ready for bondo...

During the application...

What's this? You'll see...

Kevlar cloth laid out. I have a piece 36" by 70", and it took me over an hour to cut it in half down the middle. This stuff is extremely tough.

Why isn't there more progress? This.

That's a size 13 shoe for a concept of scale. Really nasty hailstorm, damaged cars and our house. We've got hailstones in the freezer nearly the size of baseballs.

A little preview of the progress I've made since then...

Collected work, again...

Working on test fitting parts. Looking to see how routing will have to go.

Case is wide, but not especially tall. Makes some stuff very interesting.

You can see two of the Dallas one-wire sensors there in the front, I'm thinking about moving one to the lower side intake.

As you can see, lots of wires to figure out how to rout.

Even with the stiffening rail at the top of the card, it's still flexing. Gonna have to engineer something to fix that.

More cutting work on the Bondo. It's gonna take a long time to get this built up from nothing, but it's all worth it. It's doing quite a bit better already.

Just a single coat more of primer/surfacer and it already looks so much better.

Friend of mine had "leak tested" this rad with a garden hose and a plug.

This is after I hammered the bung back down.

And after silver soldering it back on.

I think my help is all tired out, what do you think?

And a coat of primer/surfacer, getting it ready for a nice paint job. Black, but better than it came with.

Stuff's drying, I need new Bondo spreaders, and my hands are shaking again, so I'll be back with more when one of the abovementioned issues is dealt with.

These are the sides to the front. They're vacuum metalized (very well I might add) but they need to be black. They also need those holes filled in. As filler doesn't adhere well to vacuum metalized parts, I'll hit them with some primer/surfacer.

Like so.

Since I'm out here, I sanded and sprayed more filler on the hood scoop. It's getting there, really needs just a bit more filler and some glazing putty. Thinking about swapping fillers, though with proper sandpaper (like when I found my stash that I had put away) even the junk I have isn't too bad. It's more a functionality of doing it right than doing it fast. Slow down, enjoy the work, realize that the end result is worth it and relax.

It's cleaning up, though I still need to drop filler in those two gouges.

Where it stood when I stopped working today. Weather was a bit cool to get primer to dry.

These are the lower panels to the case. They're being reshaped with the foam to change the lines of the case and add a bit more "carlike" feel to it.

First they're roughed out, as above. Next I paint it with a water-based paint (I used Polycrylic, you can even use latex house paint) because I learned my lesson with both filler and primer on the hood scoop. After that, I primed both panels before filler, so as to add another layer of protection in.

I know they're rough. They have no filler at all yet. This is all prep, to make it easier when I start to put filler down. The snafu with the scoop showed me that this stuff is very unforgiving.

Here's where I am now. I may pick up some more spreaders tomorrow when the little one goes to the doctor and I pick up more pills. If so, I'll probably lay down some filler and start shaping them.

Back with more updates, though these are of a more... indoor variety.

So what's with filling the holes where the screws go? Well, at the bottom of each of those holes is a powerful neodymium magnet. The filler is to keep the magnet from skittering away, as well as to even the surface for epoxy and CF cloth. When finished, this will hopefully have no holes where the screws once were. Still need to fit lenses for the hard drive lights.

You can see just how small they are, yet they hold just fine. These are for the side trim pieces that cover the sides of the top louvers.

Just keep this view in mind, it'll change in a second. Also, apologies, my camera is starting to give out.

The ESA's bluetooth module, however, it's very dead. Didn't know till I tried to pair my new mouse.

Wire clips, in original whitish and new and improved black. I tossed them in a dye bath. Works real good.

This horribly crappy picture show's KITT's alpha circuit, or the ESA board. They perform the same role-they allow KITT to control the car (or computer.) Right now it can ramp up and down fans, pumps, lighting, and open and close the top automatically depending on the conditions in effect.

Can you spot the difference?

The difference is subtle in the last picture, but you'll notice the purple-black coloration of these metal pieces? I created my own MBS formula for galvanized steel. Doesn't rub or wash off. Also, it shows the Widmaenstatten lines in steel just like an acid etch. This shot shows the lining on this piece.

A much better shot, showing the trays with the MBS applied and installed. Don't worry, when the sun comes back out I'm gonna reshoot all this.

Rewiring the beast after polishing the chassis and installing a multitude of sensors. This was a real pain.

A trim piece, with its magnetic fasteners visible during mock-up.

Wiring the back bays to the front for HDD access.

And she lives, though I'm far from content with some things. The VGA power connection is temporary, for one. The ESA interface with the cooling system beside the motherboard needs more holes drilled and tapped, and I have to put some ties down for some of the wiring. But, I'm now able to start focusing on the aesthetics of the inside, as well as creating the front panel setup.

Very little of this besides my proprietary MBS colorant formula is groundbreaking. From here on out, I intend to change that. I'm sure none of you have a complaint with that.

Good stuff so far. :up:

We remember leaving off here...

Looks worse, feels smoother. It's getting there (found my bondo damaged the foam chemically, though I've now sorted a solution for that and I shouldn't have any more collapses.)

Moving forward with reshaping the lower panels...

It'll take some shaping yet, but I think another skim coat is in order...

Same with its twin.

Should be the last run of glazing putty, one more prime and it'll need to be sprayed. Then comes the fun of wetsanding.

That skim coat I mentioned...

Other side as well...

Started using an orbital sander (hands can't take manual much any more) as well as working on the gap that used to exist between paint and vacuum metalization. Plan for that is that it disappears completely when I'm done.

Other side is prepped like this as well. You can see that there's less and less to fill each time-exactly what we want.

While it looks a horrid hodgepodge of colors, they help me to determine what's not right yet. Also, we're getting ever closer.

A bit shaky (as was I) but the primer smoothed out a LOT of that.

And both sides are now missing that gap around the edge of the panel.

Tomorrow should see me bring out the unmodded side panel and fix a long, annoying seam on it. Should be just a bit of glazing putty and a coat or two of primer, a bit of a sand to knock down the roughness, and I'll start getting the interior of the panel prepped for paint as well as upholstery.

It's slow, but I like the progress. It's very fun, to be back working like I did with my father. I still need to get my rad out and spray it, now that I think of it.

she's coming along nicely!

The flat case panel, coated in high-build red oxide primer. Still needs gaps filled and the armor sealed into the back. But they're coming along.

$14 dollar Harbor Freight sander, primer, sandpaper and... Polycrylic? What gives? Well, it's a great sealer for the pink insulation foam. Otherwise, paint and bondo eat it and it collapses. Hence the holes I fought with the hood scoop earlier.

There's a coat of it drying on that parti-colored hood scoop. It doesn't look it, but it's almost done. Another run of primer and a bit of sanding on spot putty and I should be ready for paint. More on that in a bit.

That's the back bezel of the case. It's in its last primer coat, and I resculpted a fair few of the lines with the sander and a rasp. Too many straight edges, KITT had some but not that many. Looks better to me this way.

Everything in primer, waiting for sanding with 150 to remove orange peel from the primer before proceeding. The lower panels are MUCH straighter than before, but they're not 100% finished yet. Another run of putty and primer, and they'll be there.

First paint applied, and I'm gonna choke someone. I wanted the deep, deep black that KITT was, instead I got black metallic. This will have to be sanded off and redone.

The hood scoop is finally hole-free and almost 100% level. Gonna have to find a can of REAL black to test that with though. Once I'm content with the primer coat.

I'm looking around at what my options are. Right now, I'm honestly thinking of brushing on a self-leveling paint and then wetsanding that out like a regular finish. It would have the added bonus effect of not choking me with fumes since my lung function continues to fall (my chest deformity is now visible with the naked eye, fun.) I'm looking at paints, we'll see what happens. I do know I'm not gonna get all this way and then paint with the wrong color. Saw an old show car that was brush painted, it was indistinguishable from a sprayed finish. Foam brush for no brush strokes and I might be on to something.

Wave goodbye to the 6950, it's going across the room to my wife's PC. She's sold her pair of 5770s, and I need to go back to the green team for the ESA integration. Whatever I get has to be able to max out GW2 on a 1900x1200 screen, and possibly higher if I replace this monitor. I may also be replacing my board and processor with a Z77 Sabertooth and some undecided 1155 processor, possibly a 3570K. I've even got a pair of hexacore processors sat here on my desk, but it's a radical change to move to that. Not that I don't know how to make duallies work, and they're Phenom II class processors. Basically a pair of downclocked Thubans.

When the outside is done, then I'll turn my attention to the inside and start stealthing components, as well as adding KITT's power source and working on the permanent cooling system. Lots to do, but I'm about to be over a major hurdle.

Yeah! Looking nice. Now it starts getting down to the detailed bits!