Ger's 2003 Porsche Boxster S - Page 11 - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

geraintthomas · 05-31-2016, 01:42 PM

Awesome

Made a start on the headlights earlier. Bought a dremel and a metal mill bit, and got to work. Didn't have much time to work on it but I got over half way through the first headlight at least.

I'll finish it tomorrow, and will sand & polish it back up to a shine. Should look identical to a facelift headlight then.

The plan after that is the same - to open them up, fit a projector lens inside, and to seal them again. They'd then look like facelift litronics, but made for a fraction of the price.

And then I thought, while I've got them open, what if I change the colour to the inserts? Now this is what I was thinking. The Carrera GT has black inserts with projector lenses. Many cars have black inserts with projectors as the inserts are obsolete and don't need to reflect anything while a projector lens is present. Even the new 991 GT3 RS has black inserts.

As you can see:

And this is someone's retrofit, like I'm going to do (minus the yellow indicator), but with black inserts:

I quite like that. Here's what they look like on black Boxsters:

So that's what I'll be doing. They'll be turned from pre-facelift egg yolk reflector headlights, to facelift modern black insert projector headlights. Very cool!

TrumpyAl · 05-31-2016, 02:59 PM

Yes, dead sexy IMO.
And flat black reflectors help to absorb any stray light splashing around from the projector - they have quite a lot of leakage.

geraintthomas · 05-31-2016, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TrumpyAl

Yes, dead sexy IMO.
And flat black reflectors help to absorb any stray light splashing around from the projector - they have quite a lot of leakage.

A very good point

geraintthomas · 06-01-2016, 01:13 PM

It's not good.

I've finished dremelling, sanding and polishing, and it looks like this:

Not good at all. I didn't have a depth guide so I did it all by hand, and this has made the surface uneven. I can't seem to sand and polish it to a reflective shine at all. So there we are, it's fit for the bin.

At least it was a spare that I bought for this very reason. If I want the projectors, I'll have to do it to my main headlights. Good thing about that is the indicators are already clear. Bad thing is that they're very expensive, and I don't think I'm brave enough to split them open. So it looks like this headlight project may have to be sacked off. I'm gutted

BruceH · 06-01-2016, 01:17 PM

Keep an eye out for nice used, clear indicators. I ended up finding a good deal on new ones(close to used price) and used those for my projectors.

geraintthomas · 06-01-2016, 01:19 PM

Huh?

The indicators are part of the lens, it's all one piece. The clear facelift lights like I've already got on the car are £250 minimum a headlight used price so certainly not cheap.

BruceH · 06-01-2016, 01:23 PM

I know they are not cheap, but in the end, they look great with the projectors installed. I meant the clear 2003-2004 lights, no amber.

geraintthomas · 06-01-2016, 01:28 PM

Yeah, that's kind of why I bought the amber lights to dremel them off as they're only £120 for the pair, as opposed to £500+.

If I get it wrong on an amber light, it's £60 wasted. If I get it wrong on a facelift, it's £250. It's too much of a risk.

I could practice on the amber one I've got now and get it open, then do it to my facelift ones, but it still may not work. I'll give it some thought and I may open the amber one just to see what's involved, but don't forget I'm in the UK - we don't have ovens that are large enough so I'll need to use a heat gun. It can be done with one and it has been done before - I remember reading up on someone doing it just fine with a heat gun, but it's yet more risk doing it with one of those.

Who the f**k knows.

TrumpyAl · 06-01-2016, 03:12 PM

Might be worth trying to clear coat the sanded section? Re-sand the polish off first obviously. Nothing to lose right?

Actually, if you have smoke quadrants then you could even try a matching (slightly) tinted clear.

itsnotanova · 06-01-2016, 05:29 PM

I'd block sand and try a clear coat like Trumpyal suggested.

geraintthomas · 06-02-2016, 12:05 PM

Good idea. I'll try but I'm not sure if I can get those divets I've made out. The clear coat is a good shout though.

geraintthomas · 06-04-2016, 11:47 AM

Interestingly, the headlights may be okay.

I didn't think I could do much to them as I thought the plastic would be way too thin after already dremeling it, but look at the thickness that's left:

Loads. So knowing this, I took a file to it and spent just two minutes on one area. Here's the result:

Before

After

Far smoother. I'll sit there for a good half hour and it should be nice and smooth. After this I'll wet sand it again, and then use a machine to polish it back up. May be able to use these lights after all!

Aside from this, I replaced the rear O/S inner driveshaft boot. It must have passed the MOT but I have absolutely no idea how, it was in half! Unless it's split after it.

Interestingly though, I didn't go for a normal boot. I went for a bailcast split one. Like this:

Yes I know, they're rubbish and they'll split, etc. But look online and you'll find people who have spent time doing them, they've turned out to be fine. And for £10, it's worth a punt. If it splits, I'll just buy a proper one and spend the time doing it properly. The reason I went for the universal one is because I've never taken a driveshaft off a car before, so I was a little skeptical. I'd be able to do it but, for £10, I'll try this one first.

Installation was great. Cut it to size and it fit fine. You get special adhesive with it and the boot has a tongue on one edge and a groove on another, which slot together to make a perfect seam. I made sure it was perfectly clean, wore gloves, then glued it. I can't tell you how strong that glue is. Put it this way, I trimmed a little more off the boot while it was on the driveshaft and after it was glued, and I thought "I'll just pull it at the glued seam to take it off the driveshaft". Using both of my hands, I couldn't pull it apart. I had to cut it with a scalpel.

So yeah, this boot isn't going anywhere. Quite happy with the result, you can see the glued seam at the bottom:

I'll just see how it goes but so far so good - have driven quite a bit with it and it's still perfect.

geraintthomas · 06-04-2016, 02:16 PM

Here you go guys, decided to demonstrate how strong this is on a cut off piece from the CV boot.

Here's a piece from the actual boot

The groove

And the tongue

The glue. No idea what this is, but some sort of crazy glue.

Plenty of glue in the groove

20 minutes after gluing

And to show how strong it is, check this video out. I couldn't pull it apart:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pr3hFfvfVo

So there we are. There's is absolutely no way this CV boot is going to split.

FauxDiablo · 08-06-2016, 08:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by geraintthomas

Here you go guys, decided to demonstrate how strong this is on a cut off piece from the CV boot.

Here's a piece from the actual boot

The groove

And the tongue

The glue. No idea what this is, but some sort of crazy glue.

Plenty of glue in the groove

20 minutes after gluing

And to show how strong it is, check this video out. I couldn't pull it apart:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pr3hFfvfVo

So there we are. There's is absolutely no way this CV boot is going to split.

The boot is probably neoprene, and the glue IS more-than-likely regular "super glue" which is cyanoacrylate... Super glue + neoprene makes an incredibly strong bond.

geraintthomas · 06-16-2016, 03:19 AM

Another little thing I'm going to do is to re-trim some interior pieces in black alcantara - to that of a Cayman GT4, etc. Well, either alcantara or faux suede.

I've highlighted the pieces I'll be trimming:

And it'll look roughly like this:

So it's not a colour change. They were black plastic before, and now they'll be black alcantara. I'll do it myself, shouldn't be too tricky and is relatively cheap to do. Benefits, aside from the fact that it looks awesome, is that it won't scratch like plastic - especially the 'soft touch' plastic that's in there at the moment.

If I really like it, I'll do the whole centre column where the gearstick is on. All of that black plastic. But we'll wait and see

In the future though, I'll most likely get a black 986 wheel and re-trim the outside of it in black alcantara, with a yellow centre-line at the top. I'll also grab a black 997 gearstick to match.

TrumpyAl · 06-16-2016, 03:23 AM

Nice touch. I'm keen to hear how you go with that's. And thanks for sharing the driveshaft boot repair, it's very good to know the option is there.

geraintthomas · 06-16-2016, 03:24 AM

Thanks

checked the boot and it's still going strong.

geraintthomas · 06-16-2016, 03:40 AM

And this is how it would look with the alcantara trim, and a new black re-trimmed wheel:

Or, by simply re-trimming mine (and leaving my airbag)

geraintthomas · 06-22-2016, 03:02 PM

Made a start on the alcantara trimming. Bought a sample piece to make sure it was the correct texture and colour, and it was. Luckily the piece was enough to cover the ignition surround!

Just realised that I took the photos in square mode. Oops...

Anyway. The shop that I bought the material from does 150cm x 100cm pieces of this for £8.50 delivered. That's about $12 for you guys. Not bad at all, considering that'll do everything I need

geraintthomas · 07-09-2016, 10:48 AM

Not much has happened on the car due to a lot of things happening at home. Neighbours sending death threats (they're completely mental), police involved, and we have to move house. Lovely. Just as well as we were looking for a new place anyway, so it was just the push we needed, but unfortunately my girlfriend got made redundant just after we signed the contract for the new house, so all schmit hit the fan. Thankfully though, the crazy neighbours have moved out already (think they were kicked out) and my girlfriend's got another job that's better than the last. So now that things are back on track, I can start toying with the car again!

So it's been a while with the alcantara wrapped ignition surround, I think it looks great. It may be a little too dark - popped into the official Porsche centre that's close to me where they had a Boxster GTS, Cayman GT4, 911 GT3 RS, and a 918 - all of them had alcantara and it seemed a very dark grey instead of a black. I'll order another sample of grey and as soon as I make a decision, I'll go ahead and wrap the interior parts.