Body & Paint
After stripping the car down, I took the car in to have a complete media blasting. I'm glad I did, as I discovered lots of hidden secrets. It turns out the car was involved in a rear end collision that distorted some body panels and was poorly repaired with a lot of Bondo. The driver's side door was so damaged from a side collision that I had to scrap it and get another. The rocker on that side was replaced and while the welds were poor, they at least got it in straight. We blasted around the Bondo and then I had the whole thing sprayed with epoxy primer. Then I picked out the old dried out body sealer and re-sealed the car, inside and out. I also applied POR15 over the entire underside of the car and put rubberized undercoating in the wheel wells. Next it was off to the paint shop.
Paint is really expensive these days, so I started asking around and eventually found a body man by word of mouth who does work on the side from a shop at his house. He gave me a quote I could afford and did a great job. He also removed all the Bondo and properly straightened all the metal. I feel good about the fact that the only Bondo left on the car is skim coated over the now straight sheet metal.
Hard to believe its been almost 10 years since I did the first paint job and it shows. So, I went for a respray this year. I also took the opportunity to make a few modifications. I opened up the air intake to the full width of my radiator box and got rid of the air dam. Never really liked the look of that thing. Next I got rid of the front turn signals and replaced them with HID lights and halo turn signals. I really like the new look. The eye is drawn away from anything under the bumper, so my much larger air intake is less noticeable.
After stripping the car down, I took the car in to have a complete media blasting. I'm glad I did, as I discovered lots of hidden secrets. It turns out the car was involved in a rear end collision that distorted some body panels and was poorly repaired with a lot of Bondo. The driver's side door was so damaged from a side collision that I had to scrap it and get another. The rocker on that side was replaced and while the welds were poor, they at least got it in straight. We blasted around the Bondo and then I had the whole thing sprayed with epoxy primer. Then I picked out the old dried out body sealer and re-sealed the car, inside and out. I also applied POR15 over the entire underside of the car and put rubberized undercoating in the wheel wells. Next it was off to the paint shop.
Paint is really expensive these days, so I started asking around and eventually found a body man by word of mouth who does work on the side from a shop at his house. He gave me a quote I could afford and did a great job. He also removed all the Bondo and properly straightened all the metal. I feel good about the fact that the only Bondo left on the car is skim coated over the now straight sheet metal.
Hard to believe its been almost 10 years since I did the first paint job and it shows. So, I went for a respray this year. I also took the opportunity to make a few modifications. I opened up the air intake to the full width of my radiator box and got rid of the air dam. Never really liked the look of that thing. Next I got rid of the front turn signals and replaced them with HID lights and halo turn signals. I really like the new look. The eye is drawn away from anything under the bumper, so my much larger air intake is less noticeable.
