Nihil's '97 ST slowly getting somewhere Options

[Nihil]

Hi,
this is my Toyota Celica ST, year 1997 (first i believed it's a 1998, but later realized it's a 1997...), with an 1.8 l 7A-FE engine. I bought it about 2 months ago (Edit: summer of 2012). It's current "mileage" is reading 177.000 km (approx. 110.000 miles). Entire car is completely stock, no mods were made by previous owners (supposed to be more than four owners).
Perhaps I'd rather own a GT with a 3S-GE engine, but I needed a car and no GTs were available at the time. And since I am on a student budget, ST might be more suitable for me.

Plans for the future (which I change every time I open my topic ):

Interior - very well preserved for it's age and all the owners:
- LED conversion
- Refurbishing/repainting most of the interior (plastic dash parts, plastic door panel parts, arm rest, headliner and carpet)
- Steering wheel replacement (7gen)
- Leather seats
- Shift knob, hand brake handle, pedals and such petty nonsense
- Leather shift and handbrake boots

Electronics are basic - AC, central door lock, cheap Kenwood stereo with stock speakers. So the plan is:
- Car alarm with remote lock - not keen on this alarm, I'll probably try and make my own
- Good sound system (currently got Pioneer head unit with stock speakers)
- LCD touchscreen with CarPC

As for the exterior, the car has no spoiler and no extra bodyparts. Also, very poor paint - cracked, bumped, scratched, peeled...
- bodywork repair and complete repaint (I love the idea of pearl white, perhaps dark grey might be nice too)
- either a GT4 spoiler with risers, or a DCW duckbill
- some nice wheels

Performance and handling:
- CAI
- better exhaust
- coilovers

This is all for now, here are some pics

EDIT: moved the pictures into the second post, so you don't have to scroll all the time.

This post has been edited by Nihil: Apr 8, 2014 - 11:22 AM

[Nihil]

Ok, today was a nice day to do some paintwork on the interior and I got a day off at work. So I decided to start with the door pannels, grabed some spray paint and plastic primer and I gave it a go.

First I took aparat the door pannels, then I sanded the parts to be painted with P1000 sand paper and then used a spray cleaner/degreaser to remove the dirt and other filth. Next I sprayed two coats of plastic primer and when it dried, I sprayed a few coats of white, until it looked shiny enough. I used a can of plastic primer and two cans of white spray paint.

I probably should sand it a bit more, maybe with even finer sand paper, but I have a feeling the paint will peel off and I don't know what went wrong. But considering it is a day's work and costs almost nothing (under $20/15€ for the paint) I'll give it another go if that happens.

Here are some pics of if:
Preparation


Sanding


First coat of plastic primer


A few coats of white paint



And the finish




I'm surprised how good it looks, but when the rest of interior is going to be painted, it'll be just awesome... Just hope it sticks.

As for the artificial leather refurbishment of that round center piece of door panels... I thought it is separated from the rest of the panel, but it is just one piece. Anybody got some ideas how can this be refurbished? Ok, it's simple to cut it out and refurbish it, but I have no idea how to put it back together... Need some ideas.