Well, after nearly a year, the car is almost done. All that's left is a final colorsand and buff out of the paint and painting the rims to match, but that's it. In the 11 months it has been off the road, I took the opportunity to pretty much restore everything non-mechanical, since I already did all the mechanical stuff last year. For clarity - everything outside of the body and paint was done by yours truly.
Recap: car was hit by a transit bus and took out the passenger side from the rear of the back door to the rear bumper. Had the panel replaced and had the roof rack removed and the areas filled with steel. The car was entirely disassembled and stripped to steel. Doors, windows and fenders were all removed. Body shop destroyed both rear cargo windows in the process - replacing them was a real treat. Also replaced the windshield because it was dotted with specks.
This picture makes me want to remove the side marker lights and scuff/paint the chrome trim on them. I have been contemplating making some Xenon projector units. This may be the next project. I've got a spare set of stock buckets in the basement to build off of. Hrmmmm....
Anyway, here's the good stuff: The color is Watkins Glen Gray.
Close up of the color
All of the trim was stripped and resprayed satin black
Roof detail. It looks factory.
Rear duckbill panel was the most challenging for the body shop. I ditched the wiper in the process to give it a smoother profile.
Dash was completely redone. Dashboard was shown in another thread. Dakota Digital gauges with GPS, and loads of additional VHX modules were added to provide lots of additional capability. Momo wheel was installed. I selected this one because I felt it really meshed well with the contours of the dash as well as the materials I selected everywhere else.
Column was removed, stripped and resprayed.
Side view
All of the sheetmetal inside the car was covered with Killmat. All of it.
Doors received two layers. One on the outside sheetmetal, one on the inner door. The doors now shut with a dead "thunk".
All of the plastics were stripped, sanded/scuffed, and resprayed with three-stage SEM paint. Black on top, and gray on the bottom. New carpet from ACC ("Essex" grade) was installed on the sides and door panels. It looks a bit wonky because the floor is a slightly different color. That carpet is on backorder but all of it will be changed out as soon as it arrives. NOTE: the black paint over gray is not as durable as I'd like - even with the SEM 3 step process. I am glad that most of those surfaces are 'no touch' anyway, but wanted to let people know in case a similar color change was being considered. In hindsight, I would have used some 1000 grit on the surface of the plastics to really give the paint something to dig into. The 2000 grit just was not enough. If it proves to be bothersome, I'll pull it all back out, hit it with 1000 and re-do it.
Here's a shot of the entire inner profile, showing the suede headliner as well as the two-tone plastics.
Wherever plastic had a contact point between plastic and/or sheetmetal, I installed moleskin tape. There are no annoying creaks anymore.
Arm-rest savers and new die-cut labels on the switches. All of the switchpanels and handle-plates were torn out, sanded, wet-sanded, and painted. Armrests were degreased, scuffed, primed and painted SEM gray to match everything else.
NOT shown: pretty much the entire accessory system was re-wired. The body shop did a lot of damage (they CUT the door harnesses, as an example) so I ended up going through everything and either re-running or re-soldering just about every connection. I also installed a huge stereo upgrade. The car now has two Alpine amps, JBL speakers fore and aft, and a Sundown 10" sub. New HD and IR backup camera was installed and run to the head unit.
Up next is installing the 3.73 gearset and reluctor that I've got in the basement.
It was a hell of a journey and a lot of work. There will always be work to do on this car so I don't think I'll ever stop screwing with things, but for now - I'll call it "good enough"
Recap: car was hit by a transit bus and took out the passenger side from the rear of the back door to the rear bumper. Had the panel replaced and had the roof rack removed and the areas filled with steel. The car was entirely disassembled and stripped to steel. Doors, windows and fenders were all removed. Body shop destroyed both rear cargo windows in the process - replacing them was a real treat. Also replaced the windshield because it was dotted with specks.
This picture makes me want to remove the side marker lights and scuff/paint the chrome trim on them. I have been contemplating making some Xenon projector units. This may be the next project. I've got a spare set of stock buckets in the basement to build off of. Hrmmmm....
Anyway, here's the good stuff: The color is Watkins Glen Gray.
Close up of the color
All of the trim was stripped and resprayed satin black
Roof detail. It looks factory.
Rear duckbill panel was the most challenging for the body shop. I ditched the wiper in the process to give it a smoother profile.
Dash was completely redone. Dashboard was shown in another thread. Dakota Digital gauges with GPS, and loads of additional VHX modules were added to provide lots of additional capability. Momo wheel was installed. I selected this one because I felt it really meshed well with the contours of the dash as well as the materials I selected everywhere else.
Column was removed, stripped and resprayed.
Side view
All of the sheetmetal inside the car was covered with Killmat. All of it.
Doors received two layers. One on the outside sheetmetal, one on the inner door. The doors now shut with a dead "thunk".
All of the plastics were stripped, sanded/scuffed, and resprayed with three-stage SEM paint. Black on top, and gray on the bottom. New carpet from ACC ("Essex" grade) was installed on the sides and door panels. It looks a bit wonky because the floor is a slightly different color. That carpet is on backorder but all of it will be changed out as soon as it arrives. NOTE: the black paint over gray is not as durable as I'd like - even with the SEM 3 step process. I am glad that most of those surfaces are 'no touch' anyway, but wanted to let people know in case a similar color change was being considered. In hindsight, I would have used some 1000 grit on the surface of the plastics to really give the paint something to dig into. The 2000 grit just was not enough. If it proves to be bothersome, I'll pull it all back out, hit it with 1000 and re-do it.
Here's a shot of the entire inner profile, showing the suede headliner as well as the two-tone plastics.
Wherever plastic had a contact point between plastic and/or sheetmetal, I installed moleskin tape. There are no annoying creaks anymore.
Arm-rest savers and new die-cut labels on the switches. All of the switchpanels and handle-plates were torn out, sanded, wet-sanded, and painted. Armrests were degreased, scuffed, primed and painted SEM gray to match everything else.
NOT shown: pretty much the entire accessory system was re-wired. The body shop did a lot of damage (they CUT the door harnesses, as an example) so I ended up going through everything and either re-running or re-soldering just about every connection. I also installed a huge stereo upgrade. The car now has two Alpine amps, JBL speakers fore and aft, and a Sundown 10" sub. New HD and IR backup camera was installed and run to the head unit.
Up next is installing the 3.73 gearset and reluctor that I've got in the basement.
It was a hell of a journey and a lot of work. There will always be work to do on this car so I don't think I'll ever stop screwing with things, but for now - I'll call it "good enough"