Alright, alright, last one for now.
While the car has been in the body shop, I've picked up a few things. Nothing special, but I'm looking forward to installing them. We had the antenna hole shaved, so we bought a Metra 44-UA200 window mounted antenna, black "GT-FOUR" decals to go on the riser blocks, then we picked up some clear sidemarkers for the front fenders. We have Wolfie clear front turns, so orange OEM sidemarkers would look a little odd and out of place. Then the body shop told us that it would only be $30 to delete the front sidemarkers, the new Ebay sidemarkers cost $25... Needless to say we opted to delete the sidemarkers and will have the clear brand new sidemarkers for sale very soon. We also picked up some JDM door sills from Culp, some LED strips for the footwells, and we're ditching the "I Love Dinosaurs" license plate frame in favor of a TRD license plate frame.
Now for storytime... Took us quite a while longer than we thought it would to save up the cash for the paint job. The guy that owns the body shop is a family friend of Brigette's, so he's giving us an excellent price for all the work he is doing. Once we finally saved up the cash, we made an appointment to drop the car off with him. We paid him the cash, up front, before even handing him the keys to the car. He estimated 3 weeks to get it finished. That was April 7th. Well, two weeks go by and we decide to stop by and check on the car to see how it's coming.... It was still exactly where we parked it. Untouched. Third week goes by, he finally moves it inside the shop. Two months go by, it's sanded, but that's it... Tomorrow will be 3 months to the day. You can see that I'm still missing front fenders, splitters, skirts, mirrors, spoiler, front bumper is painted but can't be installed yet... We had to call the shop Friday to clear some things up, and just politely asked when it might be finished. He said he'll
try to have it done by the end of July.... Key word, try. That's nearly 4 months for a simple paint job... We aren't doing anything special or extravagant. Certainly nothing custom or original. I've been extremely patient so far but after being told he'll
try to have it done by the end of July, nearly 4 months in the making... Now I'm pissed. I know we're getting a good deal on the work but seriously... I gave him cash up front so he has no out of pocket expenses, he's already been paid for the work... There's no excuse for this. Anyway, moving on...
After the car was at the shop for two weeks, I decided to go pick up my projectors and do the cutoff mod. Talk about being nervous, all I could see was putting a new set of projectors on the credit card if I messed up. Turns out that mod is very simple. We all know how it goes so I'll just leave some pictures here.
I used that fancy Nissan butyl rubber sealant to reseal the headlights. It's very easy to work with and very cheap in the grand scheme of things.
Then I got thirsty. More tea.
Moment of truth...
I didn't get as fancy as other members who used pop rivets. I just went for a few self tapping screws in each one.
Final result.
That's about it for now. I'm keeping an open eye for a set of the JDM rain visors but otherwise, I'll be just about finished with the exterior. It'll be lowered again at some point but I'm in no rush.