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Street Build bkrathwohl's Galant VR4 #1228/2000

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Sorry, it's been a while since I made a post. I had to puppysit for a while and didn't have much time to do anything else.

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I did receive a few different orders in since my last update.

I received my timing supplies:

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Front case gasket, front main seal, oil pump seal:

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The paint guns showed up, I haven't really had a chance to look at them yet:

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And also came across an AWESOME deal on a South Bend K05048-SS-TZ with an ACT Streetlite flywheel. The seller wasn't sure of the miles but from what I can tell there weren't many!

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One of my good friends also said it was alright to use his heated pole barn for painting the front clip! Things are slowly coming together.
 

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I received my base and clear yesterday! I need to get the front subframe remounted so I can put it on a trailer and get it over to my friends heated pole barn. That should be sufficient for painting.

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Sorry there haven't been any updates for a while, just getting everything packed for my move next month. There probably wont be any more work until after that.
 
Yeah I need to get to updating. I have a few since the last one but am waiting on benches for the garage before I start that.
 
I've been moved into my new place for a while now, but my lack of storage in the garage has been hindering any progress. Luckily that is being resolved!

Some updates, there have been a few!

Prepping for the move I was able to get the new bushings in the front subframe, they look nice with the subframe being repainted.

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Once finished I mounted it up to the car.

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After the subframe was mounted I got my Detroit Axle remanufactured steering rack out to try installing it. Sadly it didn't fit. There were hard lines on it that would hit the subframe (which I thought was strange as I've read DSM steering racks fit fine).

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Instead of screwing around with that I opted to clean up my stock Koyo steering rack. It came out quite nicely, i'll probably end up rebuilding it down the road with OEM parts. The fittings that the previous owner, used to block off the rear wheel steering, looked to be pretty sufficient as well. I was impressed.

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Once the subframe and steering rack were mounted I started assembling the rest of the front end! Feels good to be this far on the body and drivetrain portion.

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I haven't bought new KYB AGX struts for the front yet, but I still have the original ones that came with the car (which will be sufficient for moving it).

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Ignore the bungie cord holding the tie rod end together...

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Finally, wheels on!

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Next up was moving day, surprisingly easy to push on to the flatbed and into my new garage. These new wheel bearings are amazing.

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In other news, I know the direction i'm going for the power plant now. A good friend of mine gave me this from a previous build, old school FP Red:

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It will obviously be rebuilt, but thats not a problem. It also came with a custom downpipe/o2 housing, o2 dump, and external wastegate!

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On to current projects. These are the benches i'm making for the garage. Once they are finished (hopefully this evening) I will finally be able to organize my garage and clean it up.

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I had to take a week off of work at the end of this month or I lose my vacation days. I'm thinking that will be my painting week! More to come.
 
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so awesome! I was looking at a grey vr4 down here in Virginia but i passed on it. Seemed just a little to rough and i don't have the space you have to do a full restore on it.

Keep up the great work glad to see your saving one! MORE PICS
 
Don't worry, there will be more pictures to come. I've never painted so this is going to be an interesting adventure.

Benches finally done! I'm so excited, these things are super beefy and turned out very nice. About $120 in supplies.

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Tonight I started disassembly of the front end, there is still a bit of prep work that needs to be done before I paint it later this week.

First I started with removing the front subframe. I opted to remove it all in once piece this time, it didn't take too long as all the parts are new now.

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Since the front subframe didn't take as long to remove as I thought it would I figured I would take another look at the wire harness. I just started unplugging stuff until I could remove the harness, somehow that worked.

I started by unplugging everything from the fuse box, front and back.

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Here you can kind of see where the wire harness runs into the cab (the left side harness).

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Once everything was unplugged a few tugs and everything started to come out!

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I then took the hood release latch off as well.

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I will be leaving the passenger side driver harness in the car, it will be a lot easier to get out of the way for painting than the drivers side would have been.

Finished product!

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This is going to be awesome, dude. I'll tell you from experience, this might feel like an ass pain now, but it will pay off big in the end. Every time I pop my hood, I thank myself for taking the time to clean and paint everything.

Can't wait to see the finished product!
 
Yeah, its going to take some work to get it prepped for paint. I know I am going to love it in the end though.

I cant wait to see the engine bay start coming together once it's painted!
 
I picked up this awesome bluetooth speaker for the garage audio. This thing sounds amazing, i'm so happy I got it!

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It has a surprising amount of punch for how small it is, fills the entire garage with sound.

While cleaning up the wheel wells with a wire brush I ended up chipping off part of the undercoating to find a little pocket of rust!

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It wasn't too bad to clean up, but I wouldn't have even known about it if I didn't try cleaning that area up a bit. It makes me wonder what else is lurking in other areas...

For my initial cleaning I used Gunk Engine Degreaser and mineral spirits. I used about 2 cans of engine degreaser for the first clean

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I followed that up with a nice mineral spirit bath from a spray bottle. I didn't want to use water because I have bare metal in various places. It turned out pretty well.

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After a few hours I ended up repeating the previous process; Gunk Engine Degreaser followed by a nice mineral spirit bath. I let it sit overnight with a fan pointing on it so it would dry.

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Looking great!

Just ensure everything is COMPLETELY dry before paint. Nothing will f*** you paint job worse than a wet surface. All of that undercoating will hold a lot of hidden moisture, so make sure it's dry!
 
After some thought I decided to just go for it and make a paint booth.

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Supplies:
15 - 1 inch 10 foot pvc pipe
8 - 1 inch, 1 inch, 1 inch 3-way pvc elbow
6 - 1 inch, 1 inch, 1 inch pvc tee
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7 pvc pipes need to be cut to 7.5 feet (for corner and center vertical supports).

Sides
4 pvc pipes need to be cut to 7 feet, and then cut in half again (to add the center vertical support tee)

Front
2 pvc pipes need to be cut in half (to add the center vertical support tee)

Rear
The two remaining pvc pipes are left untouched.

This sounds very confusing but its a 10x7x7.5 cube. There are center vertical supports for every side except for the rear (because the car is in it).

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I did another scrub down with mineral spirits. There was a lot of gunk towards the bottom of the car (wheel wells, radiator support, etc).

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After a lot of elbow grease I'm satisfied with how clean it is. I will be going over it again before applying the Metal Blast and Rust Bullet.

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Full house!

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I masked off the vital engine bay components.

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This will be my paint booth exhaust. I got the idea from a youtube video. Basically cut both sides of the box off and tape a filter on the intake side of the fan.

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I didn't really have a chance to take any pictures of the plastic wrap being put up. All I really did was buy a bunch of 12x9 foot plastic sheets and wrapped the cube. We put the intake filter on the front side of the booth.

NOTE: Get plastic sheeting that is at least 3mm thick. The sheeting that I bought from Harbor Freight was 0.4mm thick. I didn't really look at thickness when I bought it, but watching videos on youtube and seeing how much easier handling thicker plastic I would 100% buy something thicker if I had to do it again.

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We put the exhaust fan in the rear corner of the booth.

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End result. I'm pretty impressed with my terrible handy work. I still need to get some plastic sheeting under the car, but that will only take a few minutes tomorrow.

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Sadly rain is threatening the day tomorrow so I won't be able to apply the rust bullet until Monday at the earliest.

Per Rust Bullets instructions:
"Never apply a Rust Bullet coating while raining or under threat of rain."
 

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I'm hoping today is the day that I can start painting!

I started out today with Rust Bullets Metal Blast. I sprayed the bare metal/rusty areas first and then kind of glazed over the rest of the car, just in case.

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The directions say you can let it evaporate and dry, but for best results let it sit for 30 minutes and wipe it off. I sprayed it on pretty good so I let it sit for 45-50 minutes before wiping it off.

I realized while wiping it off that I forgot the lower radiator support area, where the wire harness runs along the body, so I went back in and sprayed that area and let it sit for 45 minutes as well.

While waiting for the Metal Blast to do its thing I figured I might as well get my air line setup situated. I bought a Craftsman filter from Sears a few weekends ago.

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Paired that with a 5ft line from the tank to the filter and few quick disconnects and she was ready to go!

When I was completed with that I went back to wipe off the Metal Blast. It didn't really do much on the painted areas but on the bare metal it was very noticeable.

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It etched up those areas quite nicely.

Next I disassembled my 2.0 nozzle air gun for a quick clean. I've never used this gun so I figured I would get whatever liquid/lube it shipped with wiped off before my first use. Once it was clean I assembled the inline filter and air regulator.

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I am giving the bay a few more hours to make sure everything is completely dry before I start my first coat of Rust Bullet.
 

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Some progress, this is my first coat of rust bullet. I probably wont show additional coats of this as its just going to look the same.

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I did a pretty generous coat of this stuff and I ended up with a good amount left over. This was too much for one coat.

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Here are the end results. I will wait about 2 hours before I check to see if I can put another coat on.

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The 2.0mm nozzle on my gun worked perfectly for the Rust Bullet, for others who are curious.

On to the first coat of Black Shell.

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I'm not sure if the nozzle size I used (2.0mm) for this was too small or if I didn't clean the gun as well this time around. The Black Shell didn't want to come out quite as easily as the Rust Bullet. I'm guessing the Black Shell is a bit thicker than the Rust Bullet, a bigger nozzle may have been more suitable.

I ended up doing the wheel wells with a bunch of paint left in the paint cup. I decided I would do the lower half of the car (that isn't visible) with Black Shell as well.

It will be easier than trying to get factory paint in these areas, plus I believe the Black Shell will be a lot more durable compared to paint. It will make me feel better knowing that these areas are more protected from the water/dirt/gunk.

Results!

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I will need to do another coat of Black Shell in a couple of hours.

After that is done I will probably wait an hour or so before going back in with factory paint for the engine bay. I'm happy to be on the final stretch of this task!
 
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