Restoration Part 3!, All fixed. For now... Options

[enderswift]

Halloween 2009 some douche got beyond drunk and bashed into my parked celi before speeding off . I found the damage a few hours later and aside from an internal cuss-fest I kept my cool and was really relieved to see that there was no mechanical damage. Pictures say a thousand words so observe:


this picture is from when it first happened and doesn't really convey the magnitude of the damage, I seriously thought the rear suspension was boned. I'll post fresh pictures soon, they'll show my sad looking (but effective) attempt at rust proofing.


After saving every penny from my summer job while scouring the world for parts, paint, good advice, and someone to trust my celi to, I finally have everything in order


(thats $300 in paint supplies right there, the majority of which was the insanely expensive toyota 3l2. That taillight was damn near impossible to find for a reasonable price)

I just cant be happier right now. Ill finally be able to wax my celi without wondering if I'm an idiot for waxing a ruined exterior (I figured a dent isn't an excuse to neglect the whole paint job!) also, I'll finally be able to pull up somewhere or go on a date w/o cringing every time my drivers side is displayed

So now the next order of business is to take a few things apart before delivery to my body guy. The rear bumper has to be removed together with the taillight, mirror, power antenna, front head light, sideskirt, and window trim. I'm paranoid about having someone else work on my car so I insisted on being as involved as possible. In fact, If I had the time I would learn body work and fix this on my own. Too bad university has to be so time intensive while body work is a skill that comes with lots and lots of experience..Either way until I graduate I'd rather have someone fix this thing rather than count on my rustproofing to hold up.

I'll post pics of the tear down soon

This post has been edited by enderswift: Jun 2, 2011 - 8:34 PM

[NewOrleans]

ahh i was there last year!
when ur done you will only appreciate the celi even more!!!

[SwissFerdi]

Good luck, you deserve it for all of the work you put in.

[Espo]

...


After saving every penny from my summer job while scouring the world for parts, paint, good advice, and someone to trust my celi to, I finally have everything in order


(thats $300 in paint supplies right there, the majority of which was the insanely expensive toyota 3l2. That taillight was damn near impossible to find for a sane price)

...

I hate to tell you this, but I've had a set of USDM Tails up on the site for probably a good month or two now. :x I'm curious as to how much that one ran you though. That way I can tell if I'm still overpriced or not...

This post has been edited by Espo: Jun 26, 2010 - 2:38 PM

[enderswift]

I hate to tell you this, but I've had a set of USDM Tails up on the site for probably a good month or two now. :x I'm curious as to how much that one ran you though. That way I can tell if I'm still overpriced or not...

Aaaaah! where were you?! I had a wtb thread, scoured ALL of the junkyards in chicago, stalked criagslist and even did second source searches at work. Needless to say I've had about 5 people drop off the face of the earth as soon as it came time to pay them and such. So finding that taillight was a frustrating process... Not to mention I wasn't about to pay those crazy ebay prices $100 per taillight. Luckily i finally found a guy that was near me who gave his up for $30

car goes in on wednesday so Tuesday I'll have pictures of the car being taken apart and prepped. CANT WAIT

This post has been edited by enderswift: Jul 6, 2010 - 7:13 PM

[enderswift]

The time has come. The celi is (almost) completely prepped and awaiting the hopefully skilled touch of my body guy. here are some photos of how it looks at the moment. Looks like it belongs in a junk yard haha:



you can see how the rear quarter panel was pinched against itself right where it meets the rear bumper. Luckily for me the suspension wasn't involved in the hit; and in-fact it looks like the celi rolled with the punch and mostly deflected the impact taking the rest along the door and front fender. Either way I'm glad I choose to do all of the dissassembly since it took alot of effort and patience to do it the right way. I dont think anyone else would have been so thorough. Now im gonna have the peace of mind knowing that the car was repaired properly without any mis-matched bolts, cracked tabs, missing parts, ect ect ect. Also it looks like my rustproofing handled the Chicago winter pretty well



as bad as the damage looks from the outside, all of the inner panels were untouched and everything lines up properly



I decided to remove the headlight just in case it gets in the way of spraying the fender. The last thing i want is over spray -_-




okay this upper trim is making me angry. does anyone know how to remove it? Its the only thing that I have left to take off and I really dont want to break anything. .





I tried to be as organized as possible, bagging and labeling bolts that I couldn't leave attached to whatever they went with. I also took care to make sure not to damage any parts once they were out of the car. Cant stress enough how irritating it is to break stuff while trying to fix something. needless to say im gonna have to buy a bunch or replacement clips haha, but those are nothing to worry about.



The tools of the trade, thats a my whole college-freshman-winters worth of checks right there. Money well spent

IM EXCITED!!!!!!! nice un-dented cars =ftmfw

but again anyone have a good idea as to how to remove that upper door trim?? I gotta drop this car off tomorrow!

This post has been edited by enderswift: Jul 7, 2010 - 12:14 AM

[SwissFerdi]

If it won't pop off, slide off, unscrew, etc., then the only thing I can think of is to pry it off and hope that it doesn't break.

This post has been edited by SwissFerdi: Jun 29, 2010 - 5:29 PM

[TerBeau]

ouch the rear panel!!! why is it that dents are attracted to that area on our cars lol..... both my celicas had that same dent in the same spot wtf!!!

[Mr_Tee]

Did you remove the Headlamp without take off the bumper? If yes, how did you?

[jtmlb3k]

Please let me know if you figure out how to remove the trim on your door. Mine came off on its own and I want to get it back in haha

[enderswift]

Did you remove the Headlamp without take off the bumper? If yes, how did you?

you dont have to remove the whole bumper, just undo the side of the target headlight and swing things forward. That will give you enough clearance to remove the two hidden bolts holding the headlight on

Please let me know if you figure out how to remove the trim on your door. Mine came off on its own and I want to get it back in haha

I'll make sure to put together a thorough explanation of how to reassemble things when I get the celi back, which should hopefully be by early next week

This post has been edited by enderswift: Jul 7, 2010 - 1:48 PM

[Espo]

I hate to tell you this, but I've had a set of USDM Tails up on the site for probably a good month or two now. :x I'm curious as to how much that one ran you though. That way I can tell if I'm still overpriced or not...

Aaaaah! where were you?! I had a wtb thread, scoured ALL of the junkyards in chicago, stalked criagslist and even did second source searches at work. Needless to say I've had about 5 people drop off the face of the earth as soon as it came time to pay them and such. So finding that taillight was a frustrating process... Not to mention I wasn't about to pay those crazy ebay prices $100 per taillight. Luckily i finally found a guy that was near me who gave his up $30

car goes in on wednesday so Tuesday I'll have pictures of the car being taken apart and prepped. CANT WAIT

I had my set of two up for $50 per in the buying section, link in my signature - granted mine are in really good condition but if you found one for $30 that means I'm overpriced still.

I think we just never saw each other's thread haha

[ChfNix]

ouch the rear panel!!! why is it that dents are attracted to that area on our cars lol..... both my celicas had that same dent in the same spot wtf!!!

Funny! Mine had that same dent when I got her!

This post has been edited by ChfNix: Jul 6, 2010 - 4:33 PM

[enderswift]

I had my set of two up for $50 per in the buying section, link in my signature - granted mine are in really good condition but if you found one for $30 that means I'm overpriced still.

I think we just never saw each other's thread haha

well $60 for BOTH of them is actually reasonable, everywhere else I looked people wanted $60 each plus shipping. Either way glws

Funny! Mine had that same dent when I got her!

yea it seems all the drunks and bad drivers in the world have a vendetta against that corner. Maybe its because that's one of the most annoying sections to repair?

So the car FINALLY went in today There were a lot of delays due to this thing called the 4th of July or something . I have the worst timing I guess haha. In any case all of the dents will be taken care of by tomorrow night and paint should take place this weekend depending on whether or not my guy can secure a booth. I'm in no hurry to be honest, just an excuse to cruise the Vulcan . That said I'll be calling for a status update this Saturday and might be putting her back together on Sunday!

Pictures soon!

This post has been edited by enderswift: Jul 6, 2010 - 7:01 PM

[NewOrleans]

ouch the rear panel!!! why is it that dents are attracted to that area on our cars lol..... both my celicas had that same dent in the same spot wtf!!!

Funny! Mine had that same dent when I got her!

same here too.
same spot and i also had a dented up driver side front fender

[enderswift]

So there I was lying in bed fighting off a freak summer cold when I get the text message of text messages: "car is ready". Several second later I'm out the door on my way to pick my baby up. Here is what I found:



I cant believe I ever had doubts about my body guy. The body work is simply amazing in that there is absolutely no hint of a collision. The rear fender still even says Toyota on it and all of the gaps are perfectly aligned . What really amazed me was how he managed to maintain the crease that encompasses the wheel well and have it blend away to nothing just like on the other side. The work is nothing short of perfect. All that pulled out and sanded for $150 is a steal! Paint was extra of-course (in case someone asks)



Another shot of the body work. Keep in mind that this was the area where the metal was literally folded over itself. I hope to one day possess the skills to do something like this.



Here is a shallow angle shot of my new finish. Blending and color matching is spot on and I cannot say enough good things about dupont 3l2 paints



As far as overall paint goes, It ended up costing $100 to rent out a booth at the local shop then $50 per panel to get things painted. As a bonus they guy offered to use the left over paint on the other mirror so both sides would be super shiny. Apparently Toyota originally applied a single stage coating which tends to fade pretty easily. Either way I'm gonna have some nice mirrors



All of my previous disassembly payed off with a great finish on the individual pieces with no over-spray anywhere. And my paint guru was happy he didn't have to take anything apart haha.



This is what the interior of the body looks like. You can see where he welded the prongs used to pull the dents and such. He warned me that although the finish on the outside will do a good job of preventing rust, the inside will oxidize pretty quickly and that I should apply some rust preventative paint and bed liner.



So thats what I did



This is the end result. Its not a very good picture but you get the idea. First I masked the space off and sprayed on some duplicolor rust-converting primer and waited for it to dry. Then I applied two coats of duplicolor bedliner to seal the whole area and hopefully protect it from ever rusting on me. I can imagine that fighting rust in that spot would be a nightmare...



There is quite a bit to put together... have to remember to ask if there is any other place where I should apply some rust prevention as well.



This photo is a mid-assembly shot where I was installing the headlight and all of the splash guards and such. I wasn't able to line the bumper up too well so I just ended up taking it off and starting from scratch. I feel like I can strip the front end of a celi in half an hour now haha.



I managed to put alot of the car together today but the weather and my cold have been bogging me down. So far the drivers side door is assembled and so is the whole front end. Tomorrow I'm going to tackle the rear, the side skirt, and all of the plastics in the hatch. After that, im gonna go buy some new Falken zeix 512/912's before applying a four inch thick layer of wax onto the paint and calling it a day

My celica looks good again! wooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

This post has been edited by enderswift: Jul 12, 2010 - 11:45 PM

[SwissFerdi]

Congratulations.

[RavenAegis45]

Awesome dude, i got some minor damage to that area as well, just looking for a suitable place to do the body work, but props your car looks amazingly clean

[enderswift]

thanks guys. Its really good to have the car looking good again. I put some more stuff together today and now im just waiting on the passanger side mirror to get back before I'll be totally done. Also picked up some falken ze 912's so the celi is almost complete!

[Badkarma]

you may want to wait a while before you wax. i saw you bought dupont. if i remember correctly, they recommend to wait 30-60 days after paint to wax. .. i could be wrong tho. wax sometimes "locks" in the solvents that need to escape from the paint. it can take a while.

i think they recommend not to wax soon to prevent "dieback" where the clear turns all milky looking.

good luck, read up on dupont chromabase and check with your painter

Erich

[enderswift]

more to come tomorrow!

I once spent literally 7 hours detailing the exterior of this car. Thats not including applying back to black on all the trim. I'm aiming to accomplish something similar tomorrow. The results should be fantastic

[enderswift]

and so the restoration starts again. I really hope this doesn't turn into a monthly thing cuz I really dont have the energy to jump through hoops too much longer










I was in line behind a silverado waiting to make a right turn onto a street to get to work. For whatever reason the silverado decided it was too close to the busy street and reversed. Before I could even throw it into reverse his rear bumper was already half way up my hood. I took pictures, have a witness, and the officer put him down as at fault.So my driving skillz are not in question here, in fact the previous damage i JUST repaired was from a hit and run when I wasn't even in the car. Anyway He seems like a stand up guy so we're gonna try to handle this outside of insurance. But if he starts to get flaky then I'm gonna come down with a ****ing vengeance.

to people in the chicago area: I need a radiator support, passenger high beam, hood, facelift bumper cover, and the black trim piece above the bumper cover.


This post has been edited by enderswift: Aug 1, 2010 - 2:31 PM

[NOVAKx17]

Mannnn. get some driving skills!! ... ha just playing


what happened now?

[Spider77]

Wow, sucks when you get the car looking sexy and then something like that happens. Hopefully everything will work out for you.

This post has been edited by Spider77: Aug 1, 2010 - 2:27 PM

[NOVAKx17]

ha that sucks... but oh well, life happens. . . i'll be watching the rebuild thread, yet again (:

[bloodMoney]

Why did you blur out his plate?

Other members could take revenge into their own hands......

ON TOPIC: The bumper cover is salvageable. For now, you could get away with buying a new high beam and hood. After my accident, my core support and trim reinforcement were bent up like that. I just pulled them back so that my bumper was level with my new hood.... I know that you want to fix it properly, but for now, you can do it rather cheap if its done like this.

This post has been edited by bloodMoney: Aug 1, 2010 - 3:21 PM

[richee3]

You can probably bend the radiator support back (not all the way, but close) and as Chris said, get away with a new hood and new headlights (Not to drop hints in this thread just like I did in the Midwest Meet thread, but Lagos has JDM highs for $200 ). But this sucks! I just saw your car yesterday. That car really is impeccable. At least the guy is going to try to get it fixed for you and if that falls through, you have witnesses that say it's not your fault. Your car is new enough and the damage is light enough that your insurance should handle it with little issue, if this guy falls through. Hope it all works out for you. Keep us updated.

[enderswift]

Bloodmoney, Richee3, you guys know your stuff! the radiator support and bumper can indeed be saved. I just had a reflex reaction to try and replace everything since I saw pressure just popped in a new support and stuff.

Why did you blur out his plate?

Other members could take revenge into their own hands......

lol thats why I blurred his plate! Actually he seems like a cool guy so im gonna hold back the collective 6gc fury unless absolutely necessary haha, but be on standby


/copy paste from other thread:

as far as repairs go, I went over to my body guy and we discussed my options. right now it looks like paint supplies are going to be in $150 range, paint labor is $250, booth charge is $100, pulling out the radiator support is $150, a new radiator is $150 (not factoring my 20% work discount), new toyota coolant and some r134a for the AC should cost ~ $90. $740 so far... I still have to find and price a hood and high beam. Surprisingly this is turning out to be more expensive than the damage I just fixed!

This guy wants to keep insurance out of this so i'm gonna take the celi to get a repair quote at the local shop (which is definately going to cost more that $1200) and then I'm gonna give him the price through my guy. I think He'll choose the latter!

~so it looks like im gonna ask for $1,200. So again, if any of you chicago guys know of a local hood and head light please, PLEASE, let me know!

This post has been edited by enderswift: Aug 6, 2010 - 10:08 PM

[ChfNix]

Wow! and it was looking so good! Hope everything works out for you!

[mkernz22]

if you need a red radiator support, I got one fore you!

PM me if interested!

[RavenAegis45]

WOW!!!!!!!!!! that sucks so badly, I can't believe he backed up like that onto your car? right after you had it looking pretty again? well best of luck on the rebuild, I would just take it to the nearest body shop and let his insurance handle it truthfully its not like its gonna effect your record if even the officer stated its his fault

[enderswift]

if you need a red radiator support, I got one fore you!

PM me if interested!

PM sent

WOW!!!!!!!!!! that sucks so badly, I can't believe he backed up like that onto your car? right after you had it looking pretty again? well best of luck on the rebuild, I would just take it to the nearest body shop and let his insurance handle it truthfully its not like its gonna effect your record if even the officer stated its his fault

Heh i was a little worried about doing this on the side but everything turned out pretty well. We met up yesterday and he gave me a money order for a grand with another 200 coming by next thursday. So as you can imagine I've spent today flying around chicago gathering all of my parts. Observe


First thing I picked up was a hood from certifit. With a little help of my friends transport mustang we got it home


And here is my brand spanking new hood. Much better than any one I could have found in a junkyard


Car is starting to look pretty good! Keep in mind that the bumper hasn't been straightened out or anything yet, I simply disconnected it from the support to prevent the sun from baking it into a deformed shape.


also, picked up a few other things:


I'm going to return this radiator as it turned out that only my AC condenser got bent. It was close though! there was only a millimeter space before the condenser would have taken the rad with it O.O



This $28 coolant is also going to get returned.







And of course the paints. One good thing I can take away from this whole ordeal is the fact that my previously rock-chipped bumper and hood will now have a fantastic factory fresh finish


I still have to buy a headlight and the tie-bar before the car gets dropped off for work and those should come in by Monday. Till then I'm going to take the car apart and prepare everything. I'll post more pictures soon!

This post has been edited by enderswift: Aug 6, 2010 - 10:34 PM

[RavenAegis45]

Awesome, glad to hear he didnt skimp on you, and already the car is starting to look good again, good luck

[cheela]

you got such a great attitude for a guy being hit twice. Your prep work is amazing so i'm pretty sure your front end will match the rest of your car soon.

[presure2]

i love chromabase.
good stuff.

the clear you have is on the lower end of the spectrum, but still flows decent, and has good holdout (meaning how long it holds its shine before it starts to dull)
at the pricepoint of that stuff, its hard to beat, and definetly does the job (before we switched over to PPG we used the same clear for most everything but the highest end stuff.)

my price on a gallon of high end clear, and appropriate hardener ect is over 400$ lol

[enderswift]

you got such a great attitude for a guy being hit twice. Your prep work is amazing so i'm pretty sure your front end will match the rest of your car soon.

Oh believe me I was pretty ticked off right after the second accident, but theres no good reason in staying that way when theres a lot paperwork to prepare and parts to collect. As far as my prep work goes, I have a surprisingly large amount of things to take apart in the front. Unfortunately theres clips galore so its gonna be fun searching for clips again... The ultimate goal is to keep it looking as close to new as possible until I graduate and can start turning it into the GT4 I've always wanted

i love chromabase.
good stuff.

the clear you have is on the lower end of the spectrum, but still flows decent, and has good holdout (meaning how long it holds its shine before it starts to dull)
at the pricepoint of that stuff, its hard to beat, and definetly does the job (before we switched over to PPG we used the same clear for most everything but the highest end stuff.)

my price on a gallon of high end clear, and appropriate hardener ect is over 400$ lol

heh, I figured the clear wasn't all that good but they guys at the supply shop said I could do a lot worse. Plus my car is usually coated in a 3 inch layer of turtle wax so I think I should be good for a loooooong time what clear do you use? PPG? just in case I have to do this all over again in 3 weeks

I cant agree enough about the chromabase, the color match is fantastic

This post has been edited by enderswift: Aug 7, 2010 - 9:34 AM

[presure2]

yea, the clear is fine.
yea, we use all PPG products at work, deltron line for the high end stuff, and omni for the cheaper stuff.

[HectortheRican]

OUCH! that really sucks. But hey, you're optimistic and didn't let it get you down, that's what counts. You'll get it

[Stambo]

if you need help with the air conditioning to get working i got a condensor laying around.

[enderswift]

if you need help with the air conditioning to get working i got a condensor laying around.

Much appreciated Stambo but I already have a brand new condenser at a 20% discount coming in through work, and if it ever goes out I'll get a new one free


And here it is! came in sooner than i thought




The only thing I'm worried about is whether or not the 24 ounces of r134a I bought will be enough. My computers say that the celi takes 1.44 lbs of the stuff, so at 16oz/lb that works out to the two 12oz cans i bought... can anyone confirm my reasoning?

also, my UTI buddy is telling me that the compressor holds half the systems oil, the lines hold a quarter of it, and the condenser usually holds the other quarter, meaning I would need an oz of oil for just the condenser (which comes in one of the cans). Thing is, I'm not sure how much oil will come out of the lines when I drain the system so maybe I should add 2 oz? what do you guys think?

This post has been edited by enderswift: Aug 8, 2010 - 2:35 PM

[enderswift]

another day another update. I never realized how tedious it is to put together a halfway decent progress thread, with the picture taking, editing, uploading, organizing, and writing. It really puts into perspective just how dedicated some of the members on here really are. but i digress...

After calling a bunch of junk yards and searching craigslist I finally gave up on finding a local celica to use as a parts car. There are a billion 5th gens roaming the streets but 6g's are few and far in between. So I turned to ebay for my passenger high beam for $86 shipped and got my radiator tie bar trim from autopartswarehouse.com for ~$31 shipped. Both parts should be in by the end of this week, just in time for me to pick up my celi.

My last paycheck was this past Friday and I was originally planning to use it to buy a couple final parts before I considered the celi complete. Among them were a set of rear rotors, parking brake shoes, a drum hardware kit, denso spark plug wires, fuel filter, and, after 3 years of owning the car, a key fob ^.^ Then the accident happened and i figured the check would go towards fixing everything.Lucky for me everything worked out in my favor so the original plans are on track! wooo!

Anyway, after running around and buying all of those parts I decided to make to most of my day off and prepare the celi for my body guy:



Obviously the first thing I had to do was get the car in the air and take the wheels off before I could take the front end apart. I figured this was good opportunity to show off my overspray removal efforts, since my body guy got quite a bit of paint onto the suspension and wheel well splash guards. I still have some work to do but its really really tedious. This time im going to make a point of stressing that I want as little overspray as possible, especially since the engine bay is involved. I'll even offer to mask things off.



With the car in the air I unbolted the bumper and took off the surprising amount of clips and hardware attached to it. Now I could see the true extent of the damage and it really isn't that bad. Only the upper part of the support was bent and it looks easy enough to pull out. Like I mentioned before the condenser almost took the radiator with it but I couldn't get a decent picture



Here's a shot showing how the condenser got damaged. I'm not sure if that vertical bar is absolutely necessary for the structural integrity of the radiator support, but i guess the toyota engineers wouldn't put it there for no reason.



as before I took the time to bag and label bolts and parts to ease reassembly. I tried to put myself in the body guys' shoes to figure out what would get in the way and what was needed to help in aligning the support properly. This guy is doing me a favor since his labor costs are way below what he usually charges so I want to make it easy on him... not to mention he had a triple bi-pass a few months ago!



These are the rotors I mentioned earlier. Nothing special but I figured I'd post a picture anyway. I know I love lots of pictures in progress threads




Finally this is my car as its site right now. The bumper is basically just hanging off of the fenders with a few zip ties holding it in place at the upper support. The point is to be able to drive the car over to the shop while still being super easy to take apart. Celi should go in for work tomorrow and I'll post paint progress pictures this time! (i think)

oh yea, no one knows anything about the AC question i asked earlier???

[enderswift]

alright its been a few days and its time for an update of sorts. Well this isn't much of an update to be honest. My body guy has been busy with a few other cars and told me he wouldn't take my car until tomorrow But he did take my hood to apply the sealer and do all the preparations for paint. That way the turn around time will be much quicker when he does finally get to my car. In the mean time i spent the week installing some of the tune-up parts i mentioned before.

I am aware that some of you are probably looking at this thread with this expression on your face : since none of this is particularly interesting. Theres no doubt that the majority of you know what rotors and spark plug wires look like! I'm really just making this thread as keepsake for myself, if someone gets something out of my experiences then all the better. In the future when I finally graduate I'll have the cash to make the most epic progress thread of all time. In fact I'm gonna make a point making it as detailed as physically possible haha. Till then I'll have to get by with my humble restoration and reading other about other peoples swaps. Here are some pictures of some things that went on this week:


New denso wires, parking shoes, hardware kit, and fuel filter. My hatred for drum brakes was only reinforced with the experience of putting these on


Here is the finished product. Dont those rims look bad up close? I really wish I had the cash to buy some 17inch enkei rs5's since I sprang for the falkens, but the tires alone were ~$500 and my summer job just couldn't cut it. I cant help but feel the same way about the taillights and headlights, if your gonna replace em then you might as well get the jdm tails and a set of front projectors... but I just couldn't justify the costs


And here is the replacement highbeam that really should be a jdm clear piece!


After 3 years of owning the celi I FINALLY have a remote. Programming took ~5 seconds. I cant believe the dealer wanted $90 for a 5 second program. The way they rip people off is mind boggling. If you do the math that works out to $64,800/hour


Heres another shot of how my celi currently sits. I have a car cover over it most of the time but it got ripped off in last nights storm and my whole engine bay got rained on

This post has been edited by enderswift: Aug 14, 2010 - 9:39 PM

[cheela]

looking good!

[Driver]

Car is looking good. BTW, I just noticed you're in Chicago as well. What's up neighbor! Haha

[zfjohnson07]

thats great!

[richee3]

MOAR!!!!

Keep up the good work, Luke You keep this car clean. It couldn't have a better home.

[mgnt232]

great job keeping the car up to par keep on keeping her clean and givin her love

[OOBE]

You're alright, man. Keep up the great work.

[enderswift]

thanks guys, I get my car back today!

Not a moment too soon cuz cruising the kawi to school blows in stop and go traffic

I'll post updates soon!

[enderswift]

thanks guys, I get my car back today!

Not a moment too soon cuz cruising the kawi to school blows in stop and go traffic

I'll post updates soon!

^ HA!

I THOUGHT I was gonna get my car back. But it got pushed back to the next day, then the next, then another day. . . I was getting annoyed when today I finally got the call to come pick my car up. Whew, I can only handle riding a motorcycle in downtown Chicago for so long!

So off I went to pick up the celi with cash in hand. I was expecting another fantastic body restoration but it was not to be. As soon as I arrived the guy says he needs more paint to respray the bumper. I looked at him wondering "wtf? you've had the car for two weeks! Which is a week longer than during the first round of repairs, and the damage was much worse then! This new damage shoulda been cake... ". Confused, I walked up to my car and sure enough something went wrong. The hood was one shade of red, the bumper another, and the fenders yet another.

He said that the primer was giving him trouble but I dont know what to think. I knew he's been overloaded with cars and I could tell that this was a rushed job. There were defined lines on the hood where two separate coats were contrasting, as if the final coat was incompletely applied.

I was livid. Not only did I go out of my way to collect all of the necessary parts, buy the proper paints, TAKE THE CAR APART,accommodate his schedule, but I also gave him an extra week of time. With every other job he just gets the car and thats it. HE has to do all of the preparations. But I went ahead and did everything. And for what? However getting angry wasn't in my best interest so I held back my temper and we started to talk about what to do. We agreed that the car needed a respray and that tomorrow I would go to the paint supply store to get another pint of 3l2. After that I took the car home to change out the AC condenser and put the headlight back onto my freshly straightened out front end. Well, at least I thought it was straightened out when I tried to attach some parts, there were gaps all over the place. I didn't just spend a whole summers worth of paychecks and effort on this car just to ultimately end up with a jacked up front end

photos are worth more than anything I could ever type onto here so observe:



This picture does a good job of showing whats wrong with the paint. You can clearly see that all three panels are a different color, with the hood being the worst of the three. When I removed the bumper there were two runs in highly visible areas. Also, my bumper originally had a bunch of cracked paint that I think is called spider webbing? I was happy that it was gonna get fixed up with everything else. well... Instead of sanding the webbing down, he just painted over it.



heres the "pulled out" radiator support. This is what really pissed me off, I told the guy that I had a new support in the mail but he insisted that the original one could be pulled out no problem. By "no problem" I thought he meant that it would looks pretty close to factory... Seriously how can you look at this and say "I did a good job"? If this isn't evidence of a rushed job then I don't know what is. Welding in my spare support would have avoided this problem entirely.

Unfortunately I don't have any other decent photos but believe me when I say that the rest looked bad too. In fact after I installed the new condenser I had to pry various sections as hard as I could just to be able to bolt them together. It was at this point that I decided that I'm going to fix this radiator support on my own.



Heres an example of the gaps I mentioned earlier. The original damage from earlier this summer was fixed AMAZINGLY well and I was really impressed with this guy. Not to mention hes a family friend so I cant be too angry. Stuff happens and I guess he got too much on his plate at once. Now that I think about it I think his son mentioned something about him scrambling to fix a bmw that got hit while he was on his way to the paint booth with it. Still, this could have been handled a bit better. I would have given him more time.




After installing the condenser I pulled out my spare support and proceeded to prep it for paint with a cleaning and scuffing. The plan is to spray on a nice protective layer of flat black rustoleum before drilling out the old support and bolting this one on. Im not gonna mess with trying to weld the new one in since its only 2 spot welds on each side and I'm more than sure that some stainless steel bolts will do a good job of keeping things together.



This is a mid painting shot (sorry about the snow, there was still alot of paint in the air). After the silver rustoleum paint, I added 2 layers of flat back rust-tough enamel. I used this same combination on my friends cheapo ebay intake and it hasn't rusted a single bit after 3 salt infested winters. So I'm confident this will hold up.



Heres a mid assembly photo I took while removing the old AC condenser. Our very own mkernz is supplying me with the radiator support trim that will hopefully arrive soon and confirm whether or not the front end is nicely pulled out. C'mon dood you find a shipping box yet? I need to drive the celi!

Alright, well tomorrow is gonna suck. I have to rent out an ac vacuum pump and a set of guages to properly refill my ac. Then I have to drill out the old radiator support and bolt in the freshly painted one. After that I have to put some odds and ends back onto the car before going to the paint shop for more paint.

This post has been edited by enderswift: Aug 28, 2010 - 11:09 PM

[Keiri]

Keep at it dude.

It sucks that he rushed the repair and kinda tried to push it off as finished.

But the car will look stellar once everything's fixed...3L2 always does.

[richee3]

You're keeping an extremely level head about this, Luke. It'll all work out in the end. Hopefully the guy doesn't charge you for any more labor.

[cheela]

wish i would've done the same thing as you when I got mine fixed.

[ChfNix]

Wow!!

Sometimes this thread makes me Sometimes it makes me

Hang in there!! It will get better one day!!

[enderswift]

wish i would've done the same thing as you when I got mine fixed.

what do you mean? you wish you could redo?

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I know that eventually I'll get everything done the way its supposed to be. I mean, statistically it HAS to go my way eventually haha.

Quick update:

I decided to hold off on mounting the new radiator support until I get the car back from the respray. I figure theres no point to offend the man (especially when he has my car). That said, I stopped by his place today to drop off the paint and we ended up talking about the car and what would happen in the coming days. I made sure to emphasize the fact that I've dumped virtually all of my summer earnings into the car so he knows that I wont be happy with something that looks 'alright' to any passerby. I want the car to look as if it was never in an accident. From there we arranged to have me bring the car back on Monday afternoon and started talking about my AC system. Originally I was gonna go over to autozone and rent a vacuum pump along with pressure gauges to refill the AC on my own (and to make a how-to for 6g). However, he offered to let me use his snap on pump and guages. I wasn't about the turn down a chance to use quality tools over potentially crappy autozone stuff so I refilled the AC right then and there. Everything went smoothly and The new condenser works great :thumbsup. For those of you who might need to refill their air conditioning in the future, be sure to get 24 oz of 134a. The system is rated at 1.44 lbs, which at 16oz/lb works out to 22oz. So two 12oz cans are enough.

anyway. When I get my car back later this week, I'll go ahead and mount the radiator support and update you guys with some awesome pictures. stay tuned!

This post has been edited by enderswift: Aug 28, 2010 - 11:36 PM

[SpadeBF]

great thread man i lvoe threads like this, very interesting

motivates me to put every pay check towards my car

[enderswift]

whoa, finally. I cant believe it. Its here. its finally painted! No more knocking around campus like a tool in full motorcycle gear

Honestly I was expecting the worst while walking over. Mainly because a few days earlier I stopped by and saw this:


Oh yes, a garage special So much for renting out a professional booth...


Thats why I couldn't help but cringe when my car first came into view. With todays cloudy skies and poor lighting the new finish looked really flat. I thought I was in for another round of headaches


Luckily things got MUCH better as I took a few steps closer. The finish instantly gleamed up and the orange peel of last week was no where to be seen. The runs of paint on the bumper were gone and the infuriating painted-over spider-webbing was no more! In short this paint is up to par and I'm happy to finally have a car again. I paid the guy for his effort and quickly got the car home.



First I want to show off my hood look! clear coat on the underside, bonus! (Ignore all of the white dust, Its just dried up polishing compound that I still have to clean off)


I don't know what happened to my earlier photos. I had a few of the support getting drilled out. . . Oh well, maybe they'll turn up later.

This photo shows what the car looked like just after removing the ruined radiator support. It was a real pain getting the drill to stay centered on the spot welds, even after making marks with a punch and hammer. I ended up drilling the holes a fraction of a nanometer off center and had to get creative with my screwdrivers to finally remove the support.


This, of course, is the support after its been removed. Strangely it doesn't look all that damaged outside of the car. But it is.


With the old support out of the car I went ahead and did a mock up with the new one. It was held on by nothing but a few bolts and the highbeam tabs yet still allowed me to find a few spots on the frame that needed a slight tweaking. All together I think I spent an hour and a half adjusting the front end of the car before everything started to line up perfectly.


Heres the result of all my effort. I'm really happy with how I managed to align everything.


Another photo showcasing my radiator support.


And another. Its amazing how the smallest shift to the left or right in a key spot can majorly throw off the alignment of the whole front end. But I won



I painted some more bits of the front end flat black (including my hand) to keep them from contrasting against the black AC condenser through the bumper openings.


At this point I ran to Ace hardware and picked up some stainless steel nuts and bolts to permanently attach the support to the celi. I know some of you will think that bolting the support on is a hack job but the fact of the matter is that I dont know how to weld yet. So until I take a welding course sometime next summer these bolts are gonna have to do. I just wish I painted the ends to keep them from rusting. .


After the support was completely bolted in the car was ready to finally start coming back together! (In this photo the support looks like its tilted too high on the drivers side but thats only the way the picture came out, my driveway has a slight slant and I can assure you that the support is dead on


I went after the bumper and reattached all of the clips/trim/foam to get it ready to mount

Unfortunately the work light I was using made it impossible to get any decent photos so this is where I gave up on taking pictures. I figured you've all seen a stock celica before so there was no point fighting with the work light and flash settings. Right now I'd say the celi as about 70% complete. Tomorrow I have to go to the dealer and pick up a few clips for the washer hoses, a new piezo chirper, and a few other odds and ends.

Hopefully I'll get my new tie bar trim from Mkernz soon and officially call the celi complete. in the next update I'll post some pictures of the celi after its been put completely put together and washed. I'll also show you guys the automated Sigg 552 assault turret I'm mounting onto the roof. Still have to figure out how to keep it running w/o draining the battery and if my statefarm sticker will look best on the barrel or on the stock... hmmm

Seriously if i get hit again I'm buying a beetle.

This post has been edited by enderswift: Sep 4, 2010 - 9:22 AM

[NOVAKx17]

wow man, looking good! its amazing the attitude you keep throughout all this!
I can't wait to see what you do with your car once you can stop throwing all this
money into repairs!!

[presure2]

good work man!
the bolts are fine IMO, the only thing is that you wont have a backing to weld to when you actually want to weld it in.
the cheapo harbor frieght spot weld cutters work great for the price, i'd check them out for future use.

[enderswift]

[richee3]

Looks great, Luke! I need to head up north and check it out now that it's all back together and in one piece!

[enderswift]

sounds good! hope we have another midwest meet before it gets too cold around here O.o

[richee3]

If you set something up, be sure to give me a call. I'll do everything I can to get out of work. I wasn't planning on going back up north any time soon so I could save some money for the motor in my Celica. But I've recently found a new cause to head up north to Chicago. So even if it would just be 2 or 3 of us, I'd be in.

[Driver]

I'd be down

[enderswift]

heh it probably wont happen till next spring. I took 15 credit hours of hardcore classes and Im gonna be absolutely slammed with work this year

[enderswift]

well 6gc its finally over.

Our very own Mkernz came through on delivering my radiator tie bar and after a little work I popped it on the car. I cannot say enough good things about Mkernz. Great communication, AMAZING packaging, and I even got the rubber trim! My experience is exactly when 6gc commerce should be. Thanks bud!

anyway, first thing I did with the tie bar was strip off the old finish and hit it with some rustoleum. Next I took the rubber trim and cleaned off the years of grime and soaked it in a mix of water and back-to-black to condition and soften up the rubber. Thankfully the marinating worked and the rubber is like new again

from there I mounted everything onto my car only to realize that I had some more adjustments to make. The hood gap was almost non-existant towards the middle of the bar. I spent an hour and a half pulling on the radiator support to get it perfectly aligned. It turned out that the vertical bar connecting the tie bar to the lower radiator support was too long. What a surprise considering the body guy welded it. No matter, I was still able to finesse everything into the proper spots.

oh does anyone know how to adjust the hood w/o having to remove the fenders? I've already adjusted it as much as I could by messing with the hinges on the hood side. Now I need to get at the other end of the hinges. I was thinking of using some offset wrenches... anyone have any insight?

I'm sorry for the lack of pictures with this update but I'm waiting on day off with good weather to take a proper set of photos. Till then all I have is this picture:




Thank you to everyone who offered advice and motivation through all this. The restoration woulda sucked w/o 6gc!

This post has been edited by enderswift: Sep 18, 2010 - 1:16 PM

[NOVAKx17]

damnnnnnnnn. looks like its back in all its glory again! one thing that would make this car just awesome is some projectors! ha.

but all in all its looking fineeee! i'd love to have my car running and looking like this baby (=


whats next on the list now that your done with fixing and can start modding??

[enderswift]

ah yes, a nice day and cancelled classes. Waxed the crap out of this car and took some nice photos for you guys.









[img]http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i277/subaru25rs_photos/IMG_2734.jpg

The rear bumper and rear fender dont match. Oh well, Ill fix that next summer. It only shows up in certain light





yea the front bumper and passenger fender dont match either. I honestly dont care that much, its only visible under certain circumstances and why bother when I'm gonna swap the whole front end eventually anyway?

This post has been edited by enderswift: Sep 21, 2010 - 7:52 PM

[NOVAKx17]

if you ever feel like taking up a small challenge or two, its just my opinions, but i think your bay would look nicer if you sprayed your intake tube black... just to make it stand apart from the silver and black would still look very nice.... i'm thinking of hectors for example but his looks nice that color... also it would look REALLY nice with a redtop battery... even nicer with a Battery relocation to the Hatch


but loving the pics and how clean it is (=

[enderswift]

Hey everyone,

less than a year has passed since my celi was repaired before I have to start all over again. This time, I parked my car across the street from my friends house and his aunt backed into the celi as she was reversing. The funny thing is i was watching her the whole time thinking there is no way in hell she doesn't see BAM! I simply couldn't believe it, a sudden rush of rage followed by instant calm. Why throw a fit right? Anyway, the drivers side fender got crunched and the front bumber is pretty much toast. Im also pretty sure the fender support is done as well, but I haven't taken it apart. So we exchanged insurance information and I'm just gonna step back and let farmers take care of this . I'm tired with all the jumping through hoops that comes with fixing this stuff on your own (I insisted on choosing the shop though). Bright side is all the blending that comes with replacing the bumper will get all the orange peel and mismatched panels taken care of . Only question is whether or not they're gonna go to the trouble or reinstalling my splashguards. Its a reputable shop so I don't see why not, but I've been surprised before
-_-

This post has been edited by enderswift: May 26, 2011 - 5:09 PM

[Stambo]

you have the best luck dont yea

[enderswift]

I really do

[cheela]

3rd times the charm???

[enderswift]

hopefully haha. I just found out today that they're replace my radiator support, bumper cover, bumper Styrofoam absorber, and headlight too. All Toyota OEM. So that's pretty sweet. Cant wait to pick it up on Tuesday

[richee3]

Dude.... God hates you

Seriously though. You might have to start wrapping your car in bubble wrap.

[enderswift]

Hey sluts,

just got my car back! and it looks fantastic! take a look:





So in the end the shop ended up charging farmers with $1800 worth of damages. The front bumper cover was replaced with an oem part, as was the driverside low beam. Then everything was painted and blended, so no more mismatched panels! They also took care of some of the orange peel from last time

all in all I'm very satisfied with the way they fixed up my car and I like the bonus emblem too. Lets hope the celi stays this nice for more than a year this time haha