[82_in_FL]

Car is painted! Used the PPG DBC base and some SPI Universal clear. First time using the SPI clear so it took a bit of fiddling with gun settings and pressures but I think it came out pretty well. Have to cut and buff to get rid of the trash and a few oops.





After it cured for a week I sanded and buffed all of the parts. Still have to paint the flares, 85 spoiler and the bumpers.






Now you are all caught up with where I am now with the project. It has taken a while to get to this stage. Now I can start putting things back together which means restoring all the parts I took off. Quite a pile of pieces and each one needs at least cleaning.

 

[Camsdad66]

Looks amazing! Fantastic job! I'm facing a similar project with my rusty '83 as i said previously. Can I ask how much time invested so far in bodywork and paint? Want to know if I will live long enough to finish mine!

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[82_in_FL]

I really have not kept track of hours spent. I only get to work Sunday on it so if the first pics from the roof job were time stamped May 2019 then that looks like around a hundred Sundays since then. So if I worked an average of 7 hours each day that comes out at 700 hours. I don't work very fast so there is a bunch of extra hours in there that someone else might be able to do faster. Probably could have shaved a few days off by whizzing it down to bare metal all over instead of blocking the existing paint down. I decided that since most of the body was in very good shape, except for the areas I showed the rust repairs, that I would use the existing paint as blocking material. I knew exactly what layers were there because other that the factory paint I have applied all of the subsequent layers. This was the third paint job I have done on the car since it was new. The second and now the third time I blocked most of the previous paint job off so as not to build up too much paint thickness. Started with 220 then 320 and finally 400, all dry sanded.

 

[Camsdad66]

Once again, awesome job. Takes dedication and a lot of hard, dirty tedious work to achieve something like that. Also super special that you are the original owner of the car. I doubt too many here can say that.

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[pdupler]

Now let's put that in perspective. The average hourly rate for body shops is about $59/hour but "restoration" shops typically charge more, sometimes a lot more because those are skills not associated with your typical late model crash repair for an insurance company. So lets figure $70 an hour times 700 hours. Yikes! That's $49,000 at a professional restoration shop!!!! Even if a "professional" was more efficient and could have cut 100 hours off, any way you look at it, its still over $40 grand.

So for the rest of you, think about what its going to take to restore that sub <$3,000 basket-case before you buy it. Heck, think about what its going to take to restore even that pretty decent $6,000 survivor with what you think is only one little spot of rust. If you don't have the DIY skills, you are looking at BIG money.

 

[Camsdad66]

Yep. The truth hurts sometimes. You either have to be rich or have (or acquire) some skills to restore an old car. Can't wait to see your car finished up, it's gonna be a beauty!

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[KenHenderson]

Almost certainly the most amazing DIY build I have ever witnessed. Extremely well detailed and documented.


Ken.

 

[aerojock]

Great work and skills. It's great to see another terra cotta being cared for. I know of some of what you were going through since I did one years ago. Just a few pics of mine in this post. A Big Thank You!

 

[82_in_FL]

I have been working on gettting the plastic parts(flares and 85 spoiler) ready for paint. Also tackling a few other restoration jobs like the fuel filler splash guard. I posted a pic up earlier of the sorry state of my part. I found it is made from polyethylene and is heat weldable. So I ordered up a plastic fusion welder and some LDPE welding rod for $85. I was surprised at how well it works. This is what it the welder looks like.



And what I had to start with.



After starting on the major cracks I got good results. The inner mounting point got stainless mesh embedded in the back side to reinforce that area.




I then worked on the upper mount which also got the stainless mesh embedded on the backside.
The lower portion was a bit trickier as there was a lot of missing area. I had a piece of metal shaped for that area that I had riveted in during a previous repair and was able to use that as a shape form to melt in a bunch of filler rod to replace the missing area. It took a while but it came out well. I used a carbide burr on slow speed and a 3" roloc 60 grit to smooth it out a bit. Not real pretty, but functional!




Since nothing really sticks to polyethylene I am debating whether to sand it all and try to coat it with something or just leave it like it is and install it up under the fender where no will even see it.

 

[Camsdad66]

I have been working on gettting the plastic parts(flares and 85 spoiler) ready for paint. Also tackling a few other restoration jobs like the fuel filler splash guard. I posted a pic up earlier of the sorry state of my part. I found it is made from polyethylene and is heat weldable. So I ordered up a plastic fusion welder and some LDPE welding rod for $85. I was surprised at how well it works. This is what it the welder looks like.



And what I had to start with.



After starting on the major cracks I got good results. The inner mounting point got stainless mesh embedded in the back side to reinforce that area.




I then worked on the upper mount which also got the stainless mesh embedded on the backside.
The lower portion was a bit trickier as there was a lot of missing area. I had a piece of metal shaped for that area that I had riveted in during a previous repair and was able to use that as a shape form to melt in a bunch of filler rod to replace the missing area. It took a while but it came out well. I used a carbide burr on slow speed and a 3" roloc 60 grit to smooth it out a bit. Not real pretty, but functional!




Since nothing really sticks to polyethylene I am debating whether to sand it all and try to coat it with something or just leave it like it is and install it up under the fender where no will even see it.

Man! You're as good with plastic as you are with metal! Looks 100% better!

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[82_in_FL]

I have been working on lots of small things that needed to be done. Cars come apart quickly but take forever to put back together when every piece needs some sort of cleaning or restoration. I got the hatch glass reinstalled with a new gasket. The old 1982 one finally gave up on the third removal. I am using the 85 spoiler so I don't need the trim on the gasket.


Cleaned and reinstalled the rear quarter windows. Working on the trim around them. Going gloss black.





The pillar trim was pretty sun baked and crazed so it got disassembled, sanded with 220 then primed with 3 coats SPI epoxy black. After cured that was sanded smooth and top coated with PPG DCC9300 black urethane paint. It didn't come out as smooth as I wanted so it got cut and buffed. Came out well. Emblems got cleaned and the chrome edges which had weathered off got coated with a chrome paint pen before reinstalling.





Lots more to go!

 

[Camsdad66]

Dear God! That is gonna have to be one of the nicest Mk2 Supras when you're done! Love that color, it looks great on a Sup.....Fantastic work......Thanks for the new photos Keep us updated!

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[RedP85]

@82_in_FL , 171 posts in 18 years!

you have incredible attention to details. 👍
That car will be better than new! 👌

 

[82_in_FL]

Side window trim is done! Painted them the same gloss black as I did the b-pillar trim. Still need to do the mirrors and the winshield trim.

 

[Camsdad66]

Very nice! I might be drooling a little....that car is gonna be SUHWEEET!

 

[82_in_FL]

Well things have been happening but I have not posted lately. I decided to work on the headliner for the hardtop roof that came with the roof cut. It turns out it was not in as good a shape as I thought. To top it off it is made of cardboard! The sunroof headliner was made from a pressed jute type fiber and has held up pretty well.

Some time in its previous life the cardboard suffered some water damage at the rear due to what I suspect was a leaking hatch wire grommet.




So I decided to cover the backside of the damaged area with a layer of fiberglass cloth and resin. The visible side got a layer of chipboard glued on the damaged area to hold everything together.




The rest of the headliner had numerous cracks, splits, tears, etc. I applied fiberglass to the back and filled the front if necessary with some 2-part spot putty.




I worked on it when I could with it anchored to the roof cut framework so as to maintain the shape and support the fragile cardboard. Once I got the cracks supported and smoothed as much as possible there were still some waves in the cardboard that I did not like. I made some panels from 1/8" expanded PVC to glue to the back side in the larger fairly flat areas. This pulled most of the waves out.



Still needed some smoothing so I glued 1/8" Volara foam on the front which gave me 1/8" of "filler" to sand.



Once I was satisfied with the surface I glued on some black Alcantara over the foam.



It was a little tricky to get it laid out smooth and wrinkle free but I think I like it



Still need to paint the new dome light I found. Could not find a black one.

 

[Spook]

YES! I love all of this. I really admire your work and wish I would have read this before I started work on my roof.

 

[82_in_FL]

The project this weekend was installing the new black ACC carpets and Lloyd floor mats. It took a while to fit the edges and cut all the holes but in the end it looks good. The picture makes the carpet look grey compared to the mats. Both are black but the mats are a deeper black. A few spots around the seat mounts took a little bit of heat gun application to get them to sit right, but overall the carpets fit really well.

I cleaned up the two console pieces and fixed a few cracks and warps then re-dyed them with some SEM Landau black color coat. I set the main console in the car till next week when I can install it.

 

[Camsdad66]

Looking good!

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[Spook]

Is this the carpet from Raptor Racing? If so, did you end up getting the mass backing? I’m assuming it fits no problem right?