Case Mod - In Progress Zombie Mods - The TVR Sagaris.

Its how its needs to be,prep is all.

Secretly,I hope you screw it up so I can paint it.




Did I say that out loud?.......

 

I'm prepping it as I would if I or you were painting it with pro gear.

I can't see me messing it up, I've got two ground up custom car builds under my belt haha.

Basically I'm going to shoot it with etch then black satin, then cover in vinyl. The only issue I can really see is that the vinyl is pretty thick as it has a film type layer on it. This may cause issues.

 

OK P400.



P600 wet.



P1000 wet.



And that should do it.



I may have to go over the filler once it's primed. Basically the filler got dirty so there's an odd looking swirl. It feels completely touch smooth but hey, sometimes fingers can be a bit misleading. Not an issue, I bought a large tub

 

Hit it with some hi build primer in that spot and go again with 1000 wet,it will find the iffy spots nicely.

 

Yeah I was thinking about that tbh. Filler primer IIRC?

Any way, the sun came out so I decided to drag my lady over to mum's where I can paint. Managed to shoot some primer and the results are good (I should hope so for four hours of prep lol).



Only two very minor issues.. First one is the filler has sunk a tiny bit so it needs another skim once it's all set up, and I have about four pin holes in the surface of the filler. So I just need to mix it really well when I hit it again. It's very hard to see tbh.

Once that's done I can pretty much start shooting black.

 

OK last update for the day as football is starting and my tummy is rumbling which means it's pizza day, yay !

Any way, I decided to go over to mum's. I'm kinda tired and it was all a bit spur of the moment but hey, gotta be done. Noticed a really nice old car parked in front of ours so I got a pic



Yes I live 150ft from the beach Any way, had to stop off at B&Q before we left..



Because I basically needed these...



These will be used later.. OK work time. Get out the front panel.



And hit the back with plenty of paint.



Remember these?



OK I'm not gonna lie I was lazy with these and didn't prep or sand them. This is really naughty, but, so long as the paint stuck they will never get knocked or abused so I did cut corners..



It's all good. No reactions and they covered nicely

In the interim I finished priming the front panel.



Then shot it with the first coat of black. Note, in most of the pics the paint will be wet !



Then the fan grills...



Wait to dry, flip repeat..Yawn.. OK, three coats later...



And it was time to box up and come home again



I really shouldn't have done this yet but this was my little treat for rushing around all morning..



And..



Right. I'm off to watch football and stuff my face with greasy pepperoni pizza !

 

you are really making something out of this dell case, love the reincarnation to a better life here.

 

Thanks man. I've decided to theme it on my dream car, as it kinda reminds me of that. I will change the name soon, once I can order the stuff.

I'm a huge, huge fan of Dell. People complain and grumble about them all the time but they really are lovely, solid computers. Shame that you don't see many mods other than the XPS ones.

 

Like the graduated/faded paint and no sign of the offending orifice, so what happened, it looked almost easy for a change

 

haha if only !

The graduated effect is not paint it's vinyl. It was bloody cheap too, £6.99 delivered for 1.5m x 30cm, enough to cover the front three times.. However, it's anything but easy. It is quite thick.. Think Dinoc but with a film of foil attached to the surface. It does not stretch or shape like Dinoc and it splits really easily if you go too hard with the heat gun. It took me about two hours to wrap that front panel last night

It's chameleon, so it shifts from like a goldy yellow colour to a red depending on the angle you view it. Amazing effect for the price really, doing it with cans would cost around £60.. Nuts !

All I need to do now is laquer the chit out of it. Five coats or so should do it

As I said to Abbas I have decided on a theme now. It took all of the work I've done so far to decide.. It will be incorporated when I get some cash next

 

That's the vinyl, cool, it's kind of flip flop finish, actually sounds harder to apply the vinyl than paint it as it's a very awkward shape, I have almost infinite patience with mechanics/engineering and building stuff but paint and filler, Ugh, drives me nuts, (I did six months of my mechanics apprenticeship in the paint/bodywork shop and hated every minute) I was thinking about using Dinoc on some simple flat surfaces but don't think I have the patience for a complicated shape like that front panel, Kudos for attempting that

You've probably considered this but it might be worth doing a test with the lacquer on a piece of scrap vinyl before spraying the cover in case there is any reaction between the two especially when the lacquer dries it might shrink a bit.

 

I'll do a test sample first yes. I've been told it will be fine though so hopefully it'll hold the clear OK.

 

brb..

 

The beast gets its bonnet at long last.....

OK guys so my sheet plastic arrived this morning. Here is the rig with the bonnet off...



As you can see there's clearly a lot going on under the hood that I don't want on view. So it was time to create a bonnet.. Two notes here -

1. The bonnet will be clear coated to make it shine.
2. I am going to hand paint the silver case parts that are visible.

OK, So I planned out my bonnet and took a pile of measurements, then I glued down some paper as the acrylic's sheet was clear so no good for mapping on..



Once it was mapped out properly I went to cut it..



Then drew out the dinoc I needed..



Then covered it.



Then I hit a snag. Basically the case has an intrusion switch that is mounted to a piece of metal that sticks out over my bonnet's mounting height. I wasn't happy about this so I cut it off...



And now my bonnet will mount flat. However, I then had the issue of this ****ing intrusion switch and how it would nag me every time I boot unless I wired it shut. So I took it out, cut it down and stripped the wires.



Then joined them up.



And put some heat shrink over them to cover the join.



And put it back in. Now I could mount my bonnet.



****in' killer..



More soon

 

OK H100 fun..

It's important that I use Dell fans. Otherwise if there is nothing plugged into the sockets on the mobo I get alarms every time I boot the PC that halt post. So, I simply took a 92mm Nidec and a 120mm Nidec and used the 120-92mm fan adapter I had. I can't use a 120 on the top because it hits the board. So mock up time..

First I had to remove the fan shroud.



Mock.



OK that works. In order to get it in I had to mod both the 120mm and the 92mm fans.



OK. So the stock Corsair screw system will not work and here is why.



The Corsair screws are female. The ends coming out of my board are female... The two won't work. So I removed all four of the stock cooler screws and springs. Then I hit a snag. They were too thick to go through the Corsair brackets FFS. So I got out the Dremel and ground out the slots in the spare set of Intel brackets I had..



Another angle on that..



Then I hit another snag. The springs were too long.. FFS back to the kitchen to cut them all down..



Fit my modded brackets.



And finally, after almost three hours.



OK so couple of things left to do before I fit it permanently. One, do this.



And the other one, paint all of the accessories.



And once they've had a couple of coats and have dried I can start working out the bracket that will hold it firmly in place.

 

OK. So today I fitted the H100 permanently First up was assembly of my radiator mod.



That's it there. 120-92mm duct converter with 92mm Nidec fan and a 120mm Nidec. I will be using Speedfan or something on these but TBH the basic Dell config is fine. They are very quiet..

So in went the rad.



And fit the pump/block.



And put the bonnet back on.



And then the acid test....



PMSL

 

Here are the plans for two of the covers I made this morning.



Which I duly went and cut.



OK as you can see one of them is a funny shape with a round part cut into it. Covering this is not quite as easy as covering a straight panel so it needs to be covered like this.



Then relief cuts.. You need a good few of these.



And then out with the heat gun to soften the dinoc and cover.



And fit.



OK so that's another one in. The bottom one needs some standoffs which I still need to make.

 

Thanks ! yeah I'm slowly dragging it there kicking and screaming