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Exterior......... First things first, RUST! When Jeremy sold me the car he pointed out some obvious rust spots. He hooked me up with his bodywork guy in a junkyard in the Sun Valley. When I arrived at his location he started to tap away at the rockers with a hammer……the hammer when right thru!! The rockers were practically dust! After making sure I didn’t faint we checked out the rest of the car. It was not too bad. It was defiantly worth saving. Apparently from what Jeremy told me the early 1600 shells like mine can be up to 200lbs lighter than later model shell as the newer one have double sheet metal in some areas to act like a crumple zone. So he proceeded to patch up the rust and then attacked the rockers. We ended up completely replacing BOTH rockers! Thankfully a green 2002 was around to make the donation of parts. In a couple of weeks my VISA had one more unhappy customer and my car was now structurally sound. He actually cut me a decent deal and I was happy with his work. Click here to see ALL of the rust repair.
Body Panels I replaced the Hood and the trunk lid with IE fiberglass panels. 
The car also came with IE Turbo Flares And IE front air dam When I got the cage I also went ahead and replaced the side glass windows with LEXAN
Click here to see some recent shots of the car at this stage in 2005. After much deliberation and some financial hardship...like usual! Pretty much determined that I would have to paint the car myself. The amount of work was incredible! I sanded the car down to bare metal.... with a makita 8" variable speed sander/buffer. I had velcro norton 80grit disks and it made short work of removing decades of paint, bondo and some rust! I elected to remove all the body trim holes, shaved the rear bumper holes and the gas cap opening. My miller 130xp got alot of use!
Click on the picture to see all of the paint preparation pictures! What followed was days of mixing bondo quicly laying it on, only to sand almost all of it off! repeat.... repeat.... repeat....ad nasuem.........AHHHHHH I was in bondo dust hell !!!!
Click on the picture to see all of the paint preparation pictures! The time came to start spraying! The plan was to paint the car in my brothers driveway you see pictured above. I selected the cheapest Dupont paint they had at the store, a line called NASON. Since the car was in bare metal we had to spray a Etching primer first to protect and adhere to the bare metal. SAND.Then we followed it with a Nason High build primer. SAND some more! sand, sand sand , dust, dust, dust ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!! just kill me!
Click on the picture to see all the Painting pictures ! Another day of spraying ahead of us we finnally got to spray some white! PROGRESS!! But wait .....more sanding before the clear coat! aaahhhh!!! But it was soo great to start seeing it come together....
Click on the picture to see all the Painting pictures ! The big moment.....Clear coat time! I did buy a bit better quality clear coat from dupont called Omni. I used 1 gallon but would of used another! At this point I did have some issues with tiny bugs getting stuck in the clear but all in all for painting outside in a driveway we did really well! We didn't even get any runs in the paint or the clear! To say I was surprised by the overall quality of our job is a massive understament! It really came out pretty choice!
Click on the picture to see all the Painting pictures ! In all I spent around $600 ! I think It would of coat me $2000-$5000 at a body shop. Remember I did welding on the sheetmetal, bare metal paint removal, etching primer,primer, base and clear! So I have to thank my friend Edward helping me all the way and reasurring me that it would come out okay. I have to say I lost faith a couple times along the way. I owe him big time! Thank dude! The last step was doing some .......you guessed it! MORE SANDING!!! "wet color sanding" this time.....it was fun in comparison. Using soapy water and high grit sandpaper we color sanded the clear coat. This dulled the shine a bit. The final step was the buffing with the special buffing coupounds of decreasing abrasivness. The result was a beautiful smooth finish that shines in the sun!
So here is the final list.... (mix 1:1) (mix 1:1)
.....and below is the final result !!!! Click on the picture to see all the pictures from the chritmas day shoot! Click below to watch the short promo we made that day....
Click above to watch Low Res Promo - 320x280-13mb or click here to download Click here to watch High Res Promo - 640x480-32.8mb or click here to download
Grafix/Stickers/Race numbers!! I ordered brand new roundels to grace the hood and the rear panel. A 2002faq.com board member graciously sent me a 1602 badge! Thanks! Stickers Bilstein stickers on the front fenders Race numbers - 34 C-Sedan I order them from www.izoomgraphics.com he was great and they arraived on time! Great quality, instructions and a plastic spatula!. I'll be racing with the Vintage Auto Racing Association as # 34 ! Right now I'm in C-Sedan modified because of my DCOE's. I'll be swapping them out for a downdraft 38/38 weber so I can join the CS class where all the 2002 are in! Grafix/Race paint No graphic for me at this time. I was toying with the idea of a race stripe or some motorsport colors....I origianlly wanted it to look like the lemans car in my inspiration page. But for now I'll leave it white.
Click on the pictures to see all the pictures from VARA Univeristy !
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