Comin' down the mountain

Today I finished with the paint stripper.  The weatherstrip glue is now mostly gone, and my vent windows and door top trim are both spaaarrrrkleeeyyy :)  I'm a magpie, sue me.  Moved her out in the sunshine for the first time in a few weeks so that I could thoroughly wash all the Citrustrip off and left her there to bake for a while to make sure I'd gotten all the water out.  The last thing I want to do is to re-boot the whole rust thing although I've taken some pretty long strides toward it's eradication.  The holes are now nicely plugged as well as 4 or 5 pretty huge ones left from the old aftermarket a/c.

I used fiberglass to fill these holes and found out I've developed an skin allergy to either the resin or hardener and broke out in itchy inflamed red bumps all over my face and arms (my hands were nicely protected by gloves....so I've got THAT goin' for me).  Between this and last week's chemical burn from being a complete dumbass and scratching my face with a gloved hand bathed in Citrustrip I looked pretty amusing......not so much to the lovely missus less than a week from her 20 year class reunion  (oops).  Fortunately, fastidious applications of ointment and nightly doses of benadryl had the whole mess mostly gone by Friday so I only looked like my standard issue goofy self :)

I've got to do the sound deadening work on the driver's door but otherwise reassembly begins tomorrow.

Slow progress for the greater good

 As there are daily steam & rain showers going on such that I don't particularly enjoy the walk from my office door to the air conditioned car.....I'm taking my time and trying to methodically address the small mountain of little things that were wrong inside.  I get a little bit done each night thanks to the installation of several more lights and a big ass fan in my garage.

I've irradicated the rust and been applying sound deadening to portions of all the remaining exposed metal.  The installation instructions say only 25-40% coverage is necessary so I've got about 90% of the floor and 98% of the rear deck covered :)  I also put a product called "heatwave" over that back deck sealed all around with alum. duct sealing tape.  Take that mini-me scorching rear compartment.

This picture may not look like much but it represents a whole host of improvements over what I had going on there. I've added enough sound deadening material (there is more on the inside) that I no longer have a giant gong.  Then I found the not attached little rubber isolators for the door pull and lock rods which will hopefully stop all the constant rattle-jangle from the doors on the road.  Finally I cleaned up the window mech. and tracks and greased them.  They are a LOT smoother now.

Vanity makes me want to paint that yellow inside but there's not much point to it as it's completely hidden with the panels and rubber back in place.

On to the other door now (I told you I was being slow)

Citrustrip is not good on skin

While wonderful at removing old glue and paint Citrustrip should not be applied to the face, I have a finger shaped chemical burn beside my nose to prove it!  (yes, I AM a dumbass)

I've gotten the seatrails, handbrake and gauge binnacle sanded and painted in fresh black satin.  Looks lots and lots better!

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.