After doing the practice run with the interior it was time to move on to the engine bay. The 99 engine bay is not an easy thing to paint well. There are all sorts of nooks and crannies that are difficult to reach. Especially the “canyon” between the wheel well …
It looks like there is hope for my goal of getting the car painted this summer 😀 The prep work is finally done so I can move on to laying some Cardinal Red on the Turbo. Unfortunately the recipe for the Cardinal Red was not available anymore in the paint …
Paint prep is the stage in a restoration that I personally find the most tedious. It’s basically just doing the same thing over and over again until you finally get something acceptable. But at the same time it’s also probably the most important thing to get right. Imperfections and errors …
Before moving on with the paint prep I decided to do a test fitting on all the components. The doors, hatch and bonnet were all installed and fitted correctly to check that they sit correctly and all the gaps are even. Or as even as they are on an old …
There was some corrosion issues with the “good” trunk hatch also. After removing all the accessories it was clear some welding needed to be done around the window frame. It’s one of the usual spots to rust. The shrinker/stetcher tool was used to make the repair pieces curve a little …
We are finally at the Metal prep & Primer stage with the Turbo. We used a standard 2k Epoxy primer. Basecoat will be water based color and over that some clearcoat. This will be the first time for me spraying metallics or water base color so I’m looking forward to …
The corrosion issues on this car are everywhere. Both of the doors were basically not salvageable. Just rotten. I did get a few spare doors that looked pretty good. Unfortunately they were not that good after the paint was stripped… The passenger side door didn’t need that much work but …
A few photos on getting some primer on some of the suspension components and other stuff. We needed to make new fuel tank belts since the old ones were rotten and decided to use slightly thicker material for them. All the components were thoroughly cleaned using electrolysis and mechanical cleaning …
I restored the alternator and starter motor. Pretty straightforward job other than the pulley and fan on the alternator being pretty stuck. Mostly just a bit of cleanup, glass bead blasting and new paint. I also replaced the old nuts and washers with new shiny ones. I still need to …
I have seen body solder used in some custom car shows over the years, but have not tried it myself. It’s sometimes also called “lead loading” since in the golden age of Hot Rodding lead was used to fill and shape body panels. Epoxy fillers (“bondo”) were not really available …
