A little more work done

I've got a nice clean and solid floor to work with now.  Still need to do my couple of little patches.














I spent last night trying to remove previous weatherstripping glue, something tells me I was a bit overzealous in it's application and I'm paying for it now :(  I got 2/3rds of the goo off of the driver's side in about an hour.

Interior Destruction (for the greater good)

 Saturday afternoon I started about here (I had the windshield and gauges out (well labelled I hope).

 In about 2.5 hours I was here.  The PO of my beauty for some inexplicable reason chose to put a heavy layer of Dynamat down ON TOP OF the [asphalt] factory sound deadening WTF?

So after I get both of those layers out (I have to weigh that big can of crap out of morbid curiousity) I find what I kinda figured I would, rust.  Thankfully it's 99% surface rust, nothing punched through except for 2 spots which I plan to patch and go on with life.

My poor baby did sit outside from what I can tell for 3-4 years so this wasn't a big shocker.

This is my little man helping Dad on Father's day vacuum out all the crud, he's got no hope but to be a car junky with me.

 I used up a couple of half used cans of POR-15 for the base-coat of surface correction.  I still need to do a top coat and I'll make it all one color just for the anal sake of it :D

Here you see the trim in it's rather gross state.  Someone along the way decided to "update" the look of my car by painting it all black.  It's wearing or chipping away in places, and furthermore I'd prefer it to be chrome or brushed as it was supposed to be like my bar and mirrors.

What you see here is one side of the vent windows mostly free of paint (the black mark on the upper right of the pretty one is a reflection by the way).  I still have a bit more to do on that one but you can see it looked pretty good under there.

I followed a suggestion and picked up a jug of Citrustrip gel from HD, this stuff is awesome!  Brush it on while inhaling the sweet flavors of creamesicle (we all have to die of something and they SAY it's safe) wait 15-30 min and wipe it off.  I'll be using the same stuff on the glues still resident in my interior before I begin re-installing sound deadening, carpet & vinyl.

Not bad for a total of about 8 hours of work so far, I've got lots of little improvements that are being dumped into this project but I'm hoping she's only off of the road about a month.

The front spoiler DOES matter!

Adding to the list of "read about it but needed to prove it to myself":

I've seen often mentioned that the brilliant engineers at Porsche designed the whale tail & front spoiler to be used in conjunction.  My car came with the former but not the latter.  After the first flight down the highway with my new addition I've seen just how smart they are.  [at least a large part of] what I had assumed to be worn out front suspension components making my car light and a little jittery above 60-70 mph I now attribute to lift.

The addition of the spoiler has planted that front end firmly to the ground, can't wait to refresh those bushings & tie rods and feel just how perfect this car can be.

Nose Job

Here is what I had after assembling most of the pile of parts I brought home some time ago.

And here is where I had gotten to until this last week.  I'd painted the valence with a silver that didn't really match but hated the holes left from some long gone fog-lights and a front license plate holder that I don't need and isn't going to be holding a license plate in my stewardship.  I also still had the primered side skirts and rear valences that inexplicably never got painted when the rest of the car was.

And here I am today.  There is no more primer and the silver is a close if not perfect match.  I'm not completely thrilled with the valence, I filled the holes, smoothed them and then re-applied rubber undercoat to try and match the texture that was on there before and then sprayed it.  It's a lot better but don't look too close :)

Also pictured here is my birthday present, I finally have a front spoiler to balance out the tail.

3 years later

3 years ago almost to the day I called my Dad and said "hey, you want to drive 1200 miles to Long Island, NY to pick up an old car and drag it back down here"  To which I got a big fat "sure".  That journey, including threading a car trailer back and forth through downtown Manhattan, will remain one of my favorite father/son bonding adventures and will forever be welded to this lovely beast of mine. 

Loaded up on a cool, rainy Saturday morning ready to start the long trek back to the south.

Passing through the Mid-town Tunnel into Manhattan

 Threading through Mid-Town (with a big ass car trailer) was.....interesting

And this is what we delivered home and where I started.

Thanks again Dad, I'll have to find space for more old cars in the far reaches of this great country.

Finally resolving an eyesore

On the list of things I'm a bit embarrassed to still be undone....I present to you side skirts and rear behind the wheel valences (Trav's technical term, not Ferry's) that were inexplicably left in primer when the rest of the car was painted.

I have plans to repaint the whole car but that won't come until at least next year and maybe longer (later post).

 Behold what I did today :)  It's not a half bad match for a rattle-can & clear job.

I'll do the skirts next.

Ok, so I had to doctor my magnaflow

 I mentioned I got my new muffler pretty darn cheap, that's partly because it's pipes are shall we say...compromised.  I took it to a muffler shop and just like the local auto parts store, and the alignment shop and.... I get a young gentleman that doesn't seem capable of thinking outside of his muddy monster truck shaped box.

I went to a muffler shop in town, after he agreed the muffler itself was in fine shape and the overall fit of it lookd good I asked him if they could recreate what was already there with new tubing.  "Uhhh, maeuhn, I don't know how I'd do thaut.  Maybe I could take a Camaro muffler and ........ but it'd be kinda big and may not fit so..... Maybe about $400".  To which I smiled and replied "Thanks buddy, I can get something on-line premade for this for that or less."

So I went to the autoparts store, found a muffler mending kit with metal mesh and some epoxy like substance.  I wire wheeled the whole set of pipes and then cleaned them with carb cleaner, then proceeded to patch up the holes and smooth the epoxy on.

Voila, little header/exhaust paint and it's not completely awful.  I no longer have several very loud exhaust leaks, only 2 actually where my flanges don't seem to form a tight seal even with the new gaskets I installed, need to work on that.

I'm going to take it somewhere to get the tip rerouted (had to take my rear valance at first)  And I'll not be surprised in the slightest if I humbly report back (a'la my speedo cable adventure) that my repair failed miserably but at the moment it seems to be holding.