It's been slow going most of the spring/summer for me as far as car projects go. The last action occurred back in April, with this stuff: http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=168432
In the last 2-3 weeks though, things have moved along very nicely.
A couple weekends ago I spent the night at a friends shop, where I changed the tranny fluid out for some Redline (highly recommended, it worked as well as they claim), finished polishing the lips on my new rear RSs and fully disassembled the last 2 wheels for powdercoating. All the wheels are now broken down and ready for a fresh coat of silver.
My car, which lived most of its life in the northeast portion of the country serving as a daily driver, has a few rust spots. While most of it was not structural or even cosmetically obvious, getting it taken care of has been high on my priority list. The more I drive the car and enjoy it, the harder it is for me to spend time and money making it run well and look pretty while there is rust that needs addressed. My sense of urgency was sped up by a recent floor jack incident, which resulted in an area of the floor directly inboard of the front passenger pinch weld being pushed up about a half inch.
So fast forward a bit, where I stopped by a local shop several friends have used with great results. I made an appointment to drop the car off, and then stopped by to remove the front bumper and fenders so the body guys wouldn't have to deal with getting it out of the way prior to getting down to business. I decided documenting the before and after would be fun, so here we go:
As you can see the main rust spots that needed address weren't terrible, but the rear valance especially bugged me since that was the most obvious. I supplied the shop with a matching, rust-free section of that corner of the valance to weld in.
Rear valance front corner, passenger side.
Rear valance, aft of the battery box, passenger side.
Bottom edge of driver's side front fender. I supplied the shop with a clean, used OEM fender to respray.
This shows the reason for the rust on the floor. Road debris, salt and moisture gathers in the bottoms of the front fenders and rots them from the inside out. The passenger side fender was a non-OEM replacement when I got the car, so I imagine the same thing that happened to the driver's side happened to the passenger side previously. The passenger side appeared to be further along in the rusting process as well. The rust worked its way inboard of the pinch rail and compromised a small spot of the floor. I also realized I shouldn't have been using that spot on the floor to jack the car up, noted. Whatever parts of this area that needed replacing were cut out, with new metal welded in, and the floor was pounded back into shape and reinforced.
The beginning of disassembly.
A bit further along.
As I left the car.
I got a call about a week later that the car was done, and I was pretty excited to finally see it, so I went with camera in hand to document some before/afters. It turned out even better than I had hoped. The floor looks fantastic, the only thing betraying the fact that it's ever been touched is the weld line and fresh undercoating. Everything was massaged back into place and it really looks great. Here are the after pics:
Both sides of the rear passenger valance/battery box area
Passenger pinch rail/outboard floor
I also ended up randomly getting a used OEM passenger fender and trunk lid that were freshly resprayed as part of a favor for a friend during the time the car was in the shop.
Once I got the car home the reassembly work began. I started with the trunk lid, which was a fairly easy swap.
After that I took some time prepping the car for its new fenders. There were a few spots of surface rust on the unibody that i sanded down and hit with POR-15, as well as the driver's side pinch weld area. I was concerned it might be in bad shape considering how rusty the fender was in that area, but I lucked out. Some scraping and sanding revealed it was fine, but i buried it in POR-15 to be safe anyway.
The factory sealant that bonds the fenders at the top by the cowl area had to be removed to get the fenders off, which left some areas of exposed metal. I took some time to tape things off and hit them with some paint and clear, then wet-sanded and compounded them. The goal wasn't hi-gloss, just an OEM type look, I'm happy how it turned out.
Finally, I ended up having to retexture the bottoms of both freshly painted fenders, both body shops painted them full gloss, which wouldn't match the rest of the car.
Both fenders are now most of the way bolted onto the car, but I'm waiting on a package from Tischer with some new hardware before they are fully installed.
The final stage was installation of the carpet.
This is pretty much exactly where I am right now, not a ton of big stuff left for this year, just some small odds and ends. I've got an iS rear lip I need to refinish and install, and I still need to throw some paint at the RSs.
My goal is H20 in Ocean City, MD at the end of next month, hopefully I can get it all done.
In the last 2-3 weeks though, things have moved along very nicely.
A couple weekends ago I spent the night at a friends shop, where I changed the tranny fluid out for some Redline (highly recommended, it worked as well as they claim), finished polishing the lips on my new rear RSs and fully disassembled the last 2 wheels for powdercoating. All the wheels are now broken down and ready for a fresh coat of silver.
My car, which lived most of its life in the northeast portion of the country serving as a daily driver, has a few rust spots. While most of it was not structural or even cosmetically obvious, getting it taken care of has been high on my priority list. The more I drive the car and enjoy it, the harder it is for me to spend time and money making it run well and look pretty while there is rust that needs addressed. My sense of urgency was sped up by a recent floor jack incident, which resulted in an area of the floor directly inboard of the front passenger pinch weld being pushed up about a half inch.
So fast forward a bit, where I stopped by a local shop several friends have used with great results. I made an appointment to drop the car off, and then stopped by to remove the front bumper and fenders so the body guys wouldn't have to deal with getting it out of the way prior to getting down to business. I decided documenting the before and after would be fun, so here we go:
As you can see the main rust spots that needed address weren't terrible, but the rear valance especially bugged me since that was the most obvious. I supplied the shop with a matching, rust-free section of that corner of the valance to weld in.
Rear valance front corner, passenger side.
Rear valance, aft of the battery box, passenger side.
Bottom edge of driver's side front fender. I supplied the shop with a clean, used OEM fender to respray.
This shows the reason for the rust on the floor. Road debris, salt and moisture gathers in the bottoms of the front fenders and rots them from the inside out. The passenger side fender was a non-OEM replacement when I got the car, so I imagine the same thing that happened to the driver's side happened to the passenger side previously. The passenger side appeared to be further along in the rusting process as well. The rust worked its way inboard of the pinch rail and compromised a small spot of the floor. I also realized I shouldn't have been using that spot on the floor to jack the car up, noted. Whatever parts of this area that needed replacing were cut out, with new metal welded in, and the floor was pounded back into shape and reinforced.
The beginning of disassembly.
A bit further along.
As I left the car.
I got a call about a week later that the car was done, and I was pretty excited to finally see it, so I went with camera in hand to document some before/afters. It turned out even better than I had hoped. The floor looks fantastic, the only thing betraying the fact that it's ever been touched is the weld line and fresh undercoating. Everything was massaged back into place and it really looks great. Here are the after pics:
Both sides of the rear passenger valance/battery box area
Passenger pinch rail/outboard floor
I also ended up randomly getting a used OEM passenger fender and trunk lid that were freshly resprayed as part of a favor for a friend during the time the car was in the shop.
Once I got the car home the reassembly work began. I started with the trunk lid, which was a fairly easy swap.
After that I took some time prepping the car for its new fenders. There were a few spots of surface rust on the unibody that i sanded down and hit with POR-15, as well as the driver's side pinch weld area. I was concerned it might be in bad shape considering how rusty the fender was in that area, but I lucked out. Some scraping and sanding revealed it was fine, but i buried it in POR-15 to be safe anyway.
The factory sealant that bonds the fenders at the top by the cowl area had to be removed to get the fenders off, which left some areas of exposed metal. I took some time to tape things off and hit them with some paint and clear, then wet-sanded and compounded them. The goal wasn't hi-gloss, just an OEM type look, I'm happy how it turned out.
Finally, I ended up having to retexture the bottoms of both freshly painted fenders, both body shops painted them full gloss, which wouldn't match the rest of the car.
Both fenders are now most of the way bolted onto the car, but I'm waiting on a package from Tischer with some new hardware before they are fully installed.
The final stage was installation of the carpet.
This is pretty much exactly where I am right now, not a ton of big stuff left for this year, just some small odds and ends. I've got an iS rear lip I need to refinish and install, and I still need to throw some paint at the RSs.
My goal is H20 in Ocean City, MD at the end of next month, hopefully I can get it all done.
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