Body work / Paint on the 'ole girl

[Jamos]

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Oh hi again!

Been one heck of a hiatus and one HECK of a guilty streak I've been living not getting back full time on this. Met a lady a few months ago and she's been offered most of my spare time

Point is I'm getting back slowly and over the past couple weeks put the doors back on, hood, trunk, just today did the diffuser again and placed the tips back in it and am I glad I did! Looks properly mean in person again. Incredible that for almost a year of sitting virtually NO rust has formed on the exposed metal!

There are quite a few things I need to take care of bodywork wise, but I've decided I'm going to pay someone to finish it for me. I can't be without this car much longer and I just need it done. The whole muscular dystrophy thing has really kicked my butt the past year and just walking out to the garage is enough of a chore.

Turned'r on a couple times in the past few months and cleared her throat, fires up like a brand new engine and idles oh so sweet.

Regardless, I took that picture on my father's cell and texted it to me so excuse the crap quality but hooooray!

[Hueristic]

Nice to see an update buddy, was wondering how you've been. Looking forward to the results.

[Jamos]

Thanks man! The person I'm hopefully getting to paint this offered to repair rust on my rear quarter by cutting out and replacing the metal and body work and painting the whole side of the car for $6-700 a few years ago. I stopped in to ask if he wanted to spray the whole car and finish up the body work and he said something along the lines of, "I'm so done with doing car work for people. So many people screwed me over, "oops I forgot I only have visa" etc.. and so I've stopped doing cars." But that eventually led to, "well give me a shout in July I usually will have down time from my landscaping work I do" and just yesterday said he was booked up for at least two more weeks.

SO two more weeks at least before anything happens. I've seen him doing legit and good work many times in the past though so I'm pretty excited.

Certainly going for that Mercedes Brilliant Blue Metallic paint though.

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[TxDarth]

Good luck on that Jamos...glad to see you back on line. Hang in there and hope your new painter works out for you.

[Jamos]

Thanks Darth, BTW this whole photobucket thing is pretty crazy. I still have your sig on my photobucket if you want to use the direct link to fix yours: http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...psn6zkw5id.jpg

Cheers!

[dannyzabolotny]

Good to see you back on here! I'm excited to see the car finished, I know you've put in countless hours over the years— it'll be awesome to see the car all back to its former glory (and then some).

[Jamos]

HI.

SO!

Between buying the new nav unit (8 core android dealy) and buying a new "birds eye view" system (front, sides, rear views merged to one 360 view) and having the car booked for paint at a local shop in just over 10 days. . . I just now pulled the trigger on a full set of Style 168 wheels - 20" jobbies from the X5.

Quite a lot to update but for now I'm just stoked about the wheels and will go back to looking at photos haha

They are replicates as well, not OEM and offered the guy $450cdn for the set of FOUR and he actually agreed which is WHY I pulled the trigger. Brand new and in the mail, hooah! ($75 shipped to me from Quebec)

I'll toss a bunch of photos up later, but for now this is how I expect to be rolling in a couple weeks:

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Also ordered a new dome light with the updated LEDs that face downward ('95 didn't have'm) and it arrived grey instead of sand beige as ordered. I was able to take my faceplate off of my original and drill a couple holes for the led's and presto, it fits!

[haynes740]

That's going to look very nice.


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[Hueristic]

Looking forward to the shots, got a link to the system you installed?

[Jamos]

Sure, here's a link!

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2017...06.4.10.p4GLeq

Hope that works. For the future it's basically just "3D birdview car camera"

There are five vehicles to choose from, and it engages when you turn on your blinker, or reverse or whenever you want. You can set how much of a delay it takes to come on, or turn off annd yeah, it's quite cool! ALL because I couldn't find one of the THREE reverse cameras I've bought over the years.

[Jamos]

Dropped her off at the body shop just now. $3k estimate with tax $3400 CDN.
Oh BOY am I excited =D

[haynes740]

Hey dropped mine off today as well. Mother backed into quarter panel that was repaired 1 month ago. Yours should come out nice. Post photos....


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[kulgan]

Way to go Jamos.
Looking forward to seeing this one back on the road with you behind the wheel.

[Jamos]

* cheers guys! I just dropped off some other tid bids (metal strips from under lights, bumper tow cover, etc..) and brought sand paper and plastic covering since I don' t need it, he gave me $75 for it! noice. Making money getting this car painted hahah.

My garage IS SO BIG I haven't seen it empty in years haha, there's an ECHO in there! It's just a normal size garage, but now I can walk across it :O

Got my 20" wheels in the other day but UPS had a field day with them, not very excited about that to say the least. Waiting on insurance to come through and get them repaired (one was clearly dropped and has a 3" flat spot on the edge, the other three have gouges in'm)

Once I get my bluetooth TPMS sensors in, I'll get tires mounted and they'll be sitting pretty waiting for the return!

Exciting times.

Oh and my starter died. That's nice. Been lousy since I bought the car, always kind of sticking on and last year it pinged the flex wheel quite hard a few times, and now every time I go to turn it on it just spins but doesn't engage the flex wheel until the second attempt. Uh yi yi!

[serious7series]

Dropped her off at the body shop just now. $3k estimate with tax $3400 CDN.
Oh BOY am I excited =D

How much prep work is your body shop doing? I'm curious just how thorough they're willing to be when it comes to removing as much of the peripheral trim, gaskets, weatherstrips, lights, moldings, etc etc etc, versus just masking around them all. What about the door/hood/trunk jambs?

[purplecty]

Im going to paint mine next summer. I will remove all trim and lighting. The Door jams dont need to be painted as it will be oe royalrot color...

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[Jamos]

I already did all the prep work for them, most of the body is down to metal.

They are taking off every panel, straightening everything, of course all gaskets etc. I said to leave the engine bay alone, just paint the supports that the fenders sit on.

So doors inside and out, trunk inside out, fenders, windshield is already out, etc.. Will be a very thorough job =)

My door jambs had rust coming from under the kick plates, the PO glued them in place and dirt/debris underneath just rubbed through to the paint.

I've purchased paint, sand paper, filler, plastic sheeting, etc.. and brought it to him to use and he gave me cash for it! That was a nice surprise.

[Hueristic]

Sounds like you have everything back on track, nice to see and nice to see you posting again.

[Jamos]

Thanks man, appreciate it!

Now that the car is out of the garage, I've had time to clean it up AND I got to work on some new vinyl covered trim! Bought this stuff a couple years ago I think, came across it and ripped off the old matte carbon fiber look:

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[Aitch]

I really like that wood vinyl finish, especially with the tan lowers. Since my doors are all black I did a reddish-brown version of that finish.

[purplecty]

Thanks man, appreciate it!

Now that the car is out of the garage, I've had time to clean it up AND I got to work on some new vinyl covered trim! Bought this stuff a couple years ago I think, came across it and ripped off the old matte carbon fiber look:

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That trim look great! Link to it?

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[dannyzabolotny]

I'm diggin that wood-grain vinyl wrap. Much better than the carbon fiber wannabe stuff I usually see.

[Jamos]

Yeah I got the matte carbon fiber and it actually looked pretty good imo:

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I quite liked the matte look, but this new wood grain looks much better imo too! Thanks.

Also the ebay link:

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/48-x60-BLACK-...-/130809574835

They are a big eBay seller I'm sure there's a US page.

Today I received my 25mm hub centric spacers (the ones that you mount to the car, then the wheels to them!) and a (fourth TIME) new "740i" badge because I keep losing mine before I even get them on the car.

Things is shaping up!

[Jamos]

Dropped in to check on the car today and they were just wetsanding/polishing the rear quarter. The car looks INCREDIBLE. The doors are SSSSSSSSSSSSTRAIGHT as an arrow, NO slightly crooked reflections at all.

House of Paint epoxy high build sealer primer, Valspar base, SPI clear - 3 thick coats. It's absolutely incredible in person. The only picture I got of it shows the "just polished" quarter, so it is hazy and needs to be final polished tomorrow with a stage 2 and 3 polish.

I filled in the jack points on the rockers and they look immaculate. I've always hated the wavy reflections on the facelift plastic rockers because of how they sit on the car, these things on mine look so beautiful!

Can't wait to see it in the sun in a couple days. The passenger rear door had quite the body work done on it before, and although they cleaned it all up he noticed it was still slightly wavy after clearing it and took it back down to finish it up correctly, so it gets new base and clear tomorrow.

Man am I excited about how this is going. Here are a few random, lousy, pictures I snapped while I was there today:

Shows lots of polish left over - and the stage 1 scratches of course:

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Then just the only other shots I had from today:

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[kulgan]

Wow. That looks so good. Cant get a finish like that from a can..lol
I can only speak for myself but I'm sure there are a lot of people on the forum looking forward to the day you get to drive this home and we all get to see the pics.