Restoration Part 3!, All fixed. For now... Options

[enderswift]

Halloween 2009 some douche got beyond drunk and bashed into my parked celi before speeding off . I found the damage a few hours later and aside from an internal cuss-fest I kept my cool and was really relieved to see that there was no mechanical damage. Pictures say a thousand words so observe:


this picture is from when it first happened and doesn't really convey the magnitude of the damage, I seriously thought the rear suspension was boned. I'll post fresh pictures soon, they'll show my sad looking (but effective) attempt at rust proofing.


After saving every penny from my summer job while scouring the world for parts, paint, good advice, and someone to trust my celi to, I finally have everything in order


(thats $300 in paint supplies right there, the majority of which was the insanely expensive toyota 3l2. That taillight was damn near impossible to find for a reasonable price)

I just cant be happier right now. Ill finally be able to wax my celi without wondering if I'm an idiot for waxing a ruined exterior (I figured a dent isn't an excuse to neglect the whole paint job!) also, I'll finally be able to pull up somewhere or go on a date w/o cringing every time my drivers side is displayed

So now the next order of business is to take a few things apart before delivery to my body guy. The rear bumper has to be removed together with the taillight, mirror, power antenna, front head light, sideskirt, and window trim. I'm paranoid about having someone else work on my car so I insisted on being as involved as possible. In fact, If I had the time I would learn body work and fix this on my own. Too bad university has to be so time intensive while body work is a skill that comes with lots and lots of experience..Either way until I graduate I'd rather have someone fix this thing rather than count on my rustproofing to hold up.

I'll post pics of the tear down soon

This post has been edited by enderswift: Jun 2, 2011 - 8:34 PM

[enderswift]

thanks guys, I get my car back today!

Not a moment too soon cuz cruising the kawi to school blows in stop and go traffic

I'll post updates soon!

[enderswift]

thanks guys, I get my car back today!

Not a moment too soon cuz cruising the kawi to school blows in stop and go traffic

I'll post updates soon!

^ HA!

I THOUGHT I was gonna get my car back. But it got pushed back to the next day, then the next, then another day. . . I was getting annoyed when today I finally got the call to come pick my car up. Whew, I can only handle riding a motorcycle in downtown Chicago for so long!

So off I went to pick up the celi with cash in hand. I was expecting another fantastic body restoration but it was not to be. As soon as I arrived the guy says he needs more paint to respray the bumper. I looked at him wondering "wtf? you've had the car for two weeks! Which is a week longer than during the first round of repairs, and the damage was much worse then! This new damage shoulda been cake... ". Confused, I walked up to my car and sure enough something went wrong. The hood was one shade of red, the bumper another, and the fenders yet another.

He said that the primer was giving him trouble but I dont know what to think. I knew he's been overloaded with cars and I could tell that this was a rushed job. There were defined lines on the hood where two separate coats were contrasting, as if the final coat was incompletely applied.

I was livid. Not only did I go out of my way to collect all of the necessary parts, buy the proper paints, TAKE THE CAR APART,accommodate his schedule, but I also gave him an extra week of time. With every other job he just gets the car and thats it. HE has to do all of the preparations. But I went ahead and did everything. And for what? However getting angry wasn't in my best interest so I held back my temper and we started to talk about what to do. We agreed that the car needed a respray and that tomorrow I would go to the paint supply store to get another pint of 3l2. After that I took the car home to change out the AC condenser and put the headlight back onto my freshly straightened out front end. Well, at least I thought it was straightened out when I tried to attach some parts, there were gaps all over the place. I didn't just spend a whole summers worth of paychecks and effort on this car just to ultimately end up with a jacked up front end

photos are worth more than anything I could ever type onto here so observe:



This picture does a good job of showing whats wrong with the paint. You can clearly see that all three panels are a different color, with the hood being the worst of the three. When I removed the bumper there were two runs in highly visible areas. Also, my bumper originally had a bunch of cracked paint that I think is called spider webbing? I was happy that it was gonna get fixed up with everything else. well... Instead of sanding the webbing down, he just painted over it.



heres the "pulled out" radiator support. This is what really pissed me off, I told the guy that I had a new support in the mail but he insisted that the original one could be pulled out no problem. By "no problem" I thought he meant that it would looks pretty close to factory... Seriously how can you look at this and say "I did a good job"? If this isn't evidence of a rushed job then I don't know what is. Welding in my spare support would have avoided this problem entirely.

Unfortunately I don't have any other decent photos but believe me when I say that the rest looked bad too. In fact after I installed the new condenser I had to pry various sections as hard as I could just to be able to bolt them together. It was at this point that I decided that I'm going to fix this radiator support on my own.



Heres an example of the gaps I mentioned earlier. The original damage from earlier this summer was fixed AMAZINGLY well and I was really impressed with this guy. Not to mention hes a family friend so I cant be too angry. Stuff happens and I guess he got too much on his plate at once. Now that I think about it I think his son mentioned something about him scrambling to fix a bmw that got hit while he was on his way to the paint booth with it. Still, this could have been handled a bit better. I would have given him more time.




After installing the condenser I pulled out my spare support and proceeded to prep it for paint with a cleaning and scuffing. The plan is to spray on a nice protective layer of flat black rustoleum before drilling out the old support and bolting this one on. Im not gonna mess with trying to weld the new one in since its only 2 spot welds on each side and I'm more than sure that some stainless steel bolts will do a good job of keeping things together.



This is a mid painting shot (sorry about the snow, there was still alot of paint in the air). After the silver rustoleum paint, I added 2 layers of flat back rust-tough enamel. I used this same combination on my friends cheapo ebay intake and it hasn't rusted a single bit after 3 salt infested winters. So I'm confident this will hold up.



Heres a mid assembly photo I took while removing the old AC condenser. Our very own mkernz is supplying me with the radiator support trim that will hopefully arrive soon and confirm whether or not the front end is nicely pulled out. C'mon dood you find a shipping box yet? I need to drive the celi!

Alright, well tomorrow is gonna suck. I have to rent out an ac vacuum pump and a set of guages to properly refill my ac. Then I have to drill out the old radiator support and bolt in the freshly painted one. After that I have to put some odds and ends back onto the car before going to the paint shop for more paint.

This post has been edited by enderswift: Aug 28, 2010 - 11:09 PM