Benno

The door with the plasma cutting was pretty wonky, so ended up finding a replacement. Managed to get all of the doors paneled and into paint. A bit of dust and a couple of runs, but I'm definitely getting better with the paint gun. 

Now working on sandblasting the door hinges and cleaning up the boot lid, before reassembly, wet-dry sanding and a final coat. Stoked to be making some good progress again.

I had a son last year, so progress has slowed down on this but still happening. Managed to get the guards, valance and bonnet prepped and painted. I got a bit of dust in the paint, but I'm happy enough for now as I'll be putting on another coat later on.

Now onto the doors. A couple have had some dents in them, so heaps of bog. I've stripped them and having a go at straightening with a hammer and dolly. One of them had been cut with a plasma cutter then not welded back together, I'm going to tidy that one up.

I was sold on a leaf from the discussion in the climate change thread. @Ned's breakdown of the cost savings stacked up well for me, I bought the suggested car (24 kWh 2015 aero) a few weeks later. Love it, the instant torque is great. My favorite feature would probably be the climate control timer, it's amazing getting into a warm, defrosted car rather than shivering for the first few minutes while squinting through a small defrosted hole in the windscreen until it warms up. With the clean car rebate, 1% loan and money from selling my Terrano, it's paid for itself in fuel savings in less than 2 years.

There was a bit of rust in the LHS guard, I got a 'good' replacement guard off trademe. Turned out the replacement guard was full of bog, so back to the original. Cut out some previous repairs. Still a bit of bog in there, but less and not as thick.

Painted the inside of the guards and valance with 2K black. Painted the outside with 2K primer filler, top coat around the edges.

Have bolted back onto the car to do the final bogging and sanding, too much flex otherwise.

Got a the bonnet, boot hinges, front cowl, indicators and inlet manifold vapour blasted. Came up really well. Gave the blasted parts, guard and front valance a coat of epoxy primer.

Found a rebuilt mk3 engine on trademe. No receipts so a bit of a risk, but better than the mk2 engine I previously had lined up for it.

After the painting I pulled the diff and springs back out. Painted the boot with 2K black.

Cleaned off all the rust from the springs. Bit of pitting, but not too bad. Treated them with Brunox, painted with CRC Black zinc. Then got them reset and riveted at Bellamy and East, really happy with the job they did.

Next I bare metaled the diff, epoxy and 2k black

Re-did the worst part of the guard, not perfect but now only a few mm of bog needed

Also made a new inner guard nose. Guessing mud etc gets stuck behind it, which rusts it out

Wee skim of bog over the repairs and some other small dents. No more than a couple of mm, much better than the >10mm that was there before. Repeated the bog, sand, filler primer, sand process a few times until I got it to the stage I was happy with it.

First coat of colour went on a bit dry, so I put a bit more thinner into the second coat. Wee bit much it seems so have got some runs. Hopefully will be able to wet sand out without too much trouble

Panelbeating all sorted, signed off by the repair certifier. Really happy with the work that Delray did, would highly recommend.

I got them to give it a sand and coat of epoxy primer too.

Now just need to sort the boot and a few wee bits that need a light skim of bog. So much better than what was there previously.

Unfortunately, I've got an office job so don't have any free time over lockdown. While the body is at the panelbeaters, I've been working on stripping the front valance and gaurds. Front valence wasn't too bad. Wee bit of bog, but I was able to mostly straighten out the wee dents without too much trouble.

Can't say the same about the guards. Looked fairly good, but shitloads of bog and some horrendous repairs.

Unfortunately there is a support for the guard, so I can't easily get to the back of the indented bit. I will have a go at welding on some tabs and pulling it straight. Don't mind a wee bit of bog, but that is taking the piss. 

Cut out the shitty bit at the front first, will sort that bit out first.

I decided that if I bogged up the rear quarter and sills, it would always annoy me. Planning on keeping this car, so wanted to get it right. After I'd finished stripping the car I took it to a panelbeater, who is doing an awesome job so far. Getting a repair cert done at the same time to try to make re-vin as easy as possible. So far so good, but covid has put a bit of a handbrake on getting it finished off and back.

Got a container of bolts, nuts and brackets vapour blasted and zinc plated. Really happy with the result, certainly beats manually cleaning them with a wire brush and painting.

Got the brake MC rebuilt by Undercar.

Been busy with the strip disc removing all the paint from the boot and body. Found a few less than ideal repairs, covered with lots of bog. Considered just bogging it back up, but decided it would always annoy me if I did so going to get it fixed by a panelbeater. Will get the crushed sills fixed properly at the same time.

Got the fuel tank painted in 2K black.

Took the front and rear windscreens out and doors off. Fortunately no rust around the window frames which I was a bit worried about.

Now working on the boot area. While I'm removing paint, sound deadening and rust I've got some of the diff mounts in the electrolysis bath to clean up.

Got the fuel tank back. First pic is before it went to the radiator shop. Had the remainder of an existing liner in there, so he had to split it and sandblast to get the new liner to stick. He also knocked out the worst of the old dents, so I am happy with the outcome. Stuck some brunox on there and have got into epoxy.

Found some denting on the sills which is a bit annoying. Guessing it has fallen off a jack at some stage, unfortunately it's got similar damage on both sides. Not sure what I will do here yet, I think it is within the VIRM spec so I might see if I can just get signoff for it, then bog it up later on.