Oscars Rebuild Part 1

So, after my fiasco, I'm putting the car back together. I'll start this thread and show pics as we go. Here Oscar sits on jackstands. The rt front "A" pillar has already been pulled. It was ridiculously easy, in fact, so easy we didn't even put it on the frame machine, we used a pulling post on the floor.

Honestly, I've been in this business for over 26 years and I don't remember ever having a car in the shop that was this easy to repair.... just lucky.

You can see in the right "A" pillar, it's straight, I still can't get over how little damage it did.

 Left side was never touched.

 

Most of the creases/damage on the right door was repaired with PDR. There were a few little dings so they had to be straightened but again, it went well.

 

 

 

9/13/10

The hardest part was choosing a color. Here's lamborghini orange at several angles.

 

 

Though the lambo orange is definitely a HOT color, I think the only way it would look good is to spray wheel flares and every piece of trim. 

So, I then sprayed out the lime green from a Porsche.

I won't even post pics, it was simply too fast and furious for me personally.

And then the right color... Porsche GT3.

 

That's not metallic, that's trash...lol. It was just a quick sprayout to see if I liked the color. Normally we spray spray-out cards in the paint booths, this was done outside.

 

 

 

 I'm thinking with black flares, black roof, painted door handles and black belt mouldings, the GT3 orange should look hot yet classic.

I like the non metallic look on the Mini.

Tomorrow we pull the engine so we can paint the engine bay.

 

09/14/10

 

Well, engine is out...

 

 

And the engine cradle....

 

 

 

Time to start prepping....

 

09/14/10 6:14pm

 

 

 

 

 09/15/10 3:53pm

Pressure washed the engine cradle, rack and pinion. Notice the Powerflex bushing kit for the control arms and 27mm swaybar installed while we're at it.

 

Put most everything back together minus the engine. (obviously waiting for the OS diff and OS clutch assy)

 

 

Installed the coilovers....

 

Tore the doors and hatch off the car. Going to get them cut in tomorrow so I can hang the parts.

 

 

So here's what got done today....

Got the parts trimmed in this morning.

 

 

Also, got the door jambs and trunk jamb cut in.

 

 

 

Since I second day air'd the OS Giken parts, they will be here tomorrow. I can't install them because I ordered some Red Line gear oil (shockproof) to fill the case and it won't be here till Monday or Tuesday.

Which doesn't matter because tomorrow I'll hang all the parts back on the car and prep the car for paint.

With any luck, the car will actually get painted tomorrow. I don't want to mask the car tomorrow only to let it set over the weekend to be sprayed Monday because the tape will let loose by then.

My goal is to have the car back together and driving by end of the week.

 

 09/17/10 2:25pm

Didn't get much done today... things got screwed up. Somehow my left door jamb got scratched. , ran out of clear that I wanted, I had sent my JCW aero kit out to get sodablasted and primed so I wasn't adding yet another layer of paint and they did a HORRIBLE job.

Boy, did I do some cussing today. Anyway, did get this in....

 

 

 

Went ahead and installed the LSD in the diff, hung all the doors, hood, trunk, etc to get painted.

Started to mask but changed my mind figuring we wouldn't have enough time and the tape would lift by Monday.

Sorry, not much of an update today.

 

 0920/10

 

Okay, got back on it today...

Starting painting the outside of all the trim pieces. The trim pieces were in one paintbooth while the car was in the other.

 

 

Can't forget the thing I've wanted to do since I bought the car... Paint the damn door handles. Geesh, couldn't stand them chrome, the thought of taking out the entire door glass, regulator and panel just to change door handles was enough to make me stay away from them.

 

 

Gascap door

 

Conitnued in Part 2:  CLICK HERE