Building my K.I.T.T.

Today, I brought my car to the paint shop. To show, that the cars often look great on pictures, but having a lot of bugs in reality, I'm presenting some detailled pictures now. All bugs will of course be removed before the car will be repainted. After the paint-job the car will be like new.

» 28 images

The paint shop already did some first deconstructions. They removed the rearbumper, the weatherstripping, the tailgate, the side mirrors and door locks.

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Over the last days, the paint shop completely stripped the old paint from the middle and rear areas of the car. There also are some problems: The cowl induction hood has worse rust problems than they first thought and the front will not be fitting perfectly, too. But I'm sure, they'll find solutions for that.

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Now the paint shop also stripped the hood and fitted the front to the fenders.

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Over the last 2 days the car has been primed. Additionally, they closed the holes in the fenders and filled the dents broadly.

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Over the last days the filled areas have been sanded and primed.

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The car is back in black. All parts have been painted. Now the car has to be resambled again to get its "finish".

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Over the last days the car has been partly assembled. Additionally the new weatherstripping has been inserted.

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Over the last days the car has been more assembled.

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Today, I got my car back from the paint shop. It looks fantastic.

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Today, I got my hubcaps back from the paint-shop. They have been painted the same color as the car. Just in case, one of them could be damaged in the future, I added two fiberglass hubcaps, which have been painted, too. They can be used as spare parts. Additionally, I have a new gas cap, which has been painted, too. My existing cap is not as good as it should be. So I will replace it with this one.

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Today, I got my Dashboard, the gullwing steering wheel, the speaker covers and the TV frame back from the paint shop. All parts have been painted in silk-matt black.

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To finalize my replica of K.I.T.T., we just installed the new frontnose by Knight Passions. This frontnose has always been my first choice, but my donor car already included a frontnose by Custom Projects, so I first kept it. But now I finally decided to exchange the frontnose. The front openings contain some metal grills, so the complete light section had to be changed.

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Today, I got K.I.T.T. back from the paint shop, where the new Knight Passions frontnose has been fitted and painted.

» 11 images, 1 video

Also new: A comparision of the original K.I.T.T. and my replica:

» photo comparision

6 years after the first paint-job, some old rust started to break trough again. There already were some tiny bubbles under the paint and I also had a break in the paint for some years now. The rust now has been completely removed and the hood has been galvanized and re-painted.

» 16 images