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97 GSX "Restoration"

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Still rolling along. I'm getting after all the small things that no one will see/notice but me. I should just leave them be but I know I will loose sleep over it.

I missed a little glue from the front windshield on this corner. I know it would be hidden by the new one but it was bugging me.
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Almost done with this guy. Nothing too big here, just a few small pinhole sized things.
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The biggest pain in the butt are the edges. There are only 2-3 that burned through but none the less its a paint. I have to mask the entire car, skuff the area of the metal back down too around a 220 grit, spray etching primer, then within the respray window I have to re-coat high build. Then the whole process starts over again when I pull all the masking off, take the car back outside and wet sand to 600. The hardest part is not loading them up with primer so heavy that it looks strange. I got some advice from another forum on how to go after these a little more delicately that I'm going to try this weekend.

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I did add a few more lights in the booth just for good measure because we all know that you can never have too much light.

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The lower rocker panels and the edges on the underside of the fender flare/lip are kinda a pain as well. Its just a tough angle to get at and see. The lower rocker panels were okay but had a few dings and chips from misplaced floor jacks and what not. I didn't go as far as to pull every single little dent seeing the side skirts will cover them, but i did smooth all the scratches and skuffs out. The lip on the rear quarter panel flare (best way I can think to describe it) is pretty simple with no damage, just got missed in all the initial spraying because of the angle. Hardest part here is the tight masking to keep over spray off the undercoating.

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This right here is the last big thing I have left to do, or should I say re-do. This is where I removed the fuel filler door and welded it up. There has always been a high spot on the bottom left corner and I had it about where I was content (not really) and i just couldn't stand it any more and had to fix it. What im assuming happened was that when I welded the door up that I went slow enough to not have to worry with warping the thin metal fuel door, but I ended the weld at the bottom corner and the little bit of flex it had left ended there and bowed the quarter panel about 1/16th of an inch out. (just enough that you cant see if with your eyeball but your had will catch it) So after much contemplation I got the very precise tool of a hammer and a small 2x4 and gave it one pop and solved the problem. I cleaned the whole area up because of all the layers of failed attempts to fix it so that when I glaze over my new spot here it will be simple and clean. I'm still not sure why I didn't do this to start with.
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Otherwise its getting there. Slowly. I spot a few small things every time I go in the garage so I need to just get to where I am happy and spray it, otherwise Ill spend 2 more years fixing stupid things. (like a scratch on the back side of the dash bar)
 
Very good work. That has always been my problem, everytime I walk in the garage I see another little spot that no one else will ever see but I will know it is there. Appreciate you disclosing information on the products you used as well. :thumb:

Jayson
 
Yep. I spent 2 hours going over every inch of the car and made a list of 10 things I want to fix. I allowed myself to add 3 more things and at the end the list had around 25 items. We are down to 4 items left at the moment and I used the last "add in" item for the dent so she should be ready for seal coat, base and clear here very shortly.
 
This corner gave me fits from day one of the project. It was one of the first things I worked on and it was literally the last piece of body work I finished. Its not perfect, but it passes the guide coat, hand, and eyeball test so good enough.
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Rear bumper primed up and ready to go. I got both front and rear bumpers from a junk yard and the rear turned out pretty decent with a few scuffs. The front had been repaired at the bottom lip but you could see it until i started scuffing to paint. Lots of bondo and I decided to bite the bullet and just buy a new one online. They are pretty cheap actually. shipped to my door for 65 dollars.
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I've got a decent spray gun but really wanted to attempt to save that for the clear so I bought some of the el-cheapo harbor freight guns (assuming 2 would work) and to be honest, they work pretty dang good. I bought 3 with the coupon for $39.00. This allowed me to have a gun dedicated to each product with no chance of cross contamination.
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I decided to start with stuff that no one will ever see so I could get some practice in before spraying the exterior. My biggest issue right now is I cant fit all the small parts inside my paint booth but yet I cant leave the car outside overnight. For the back sides of panels it takes around 3 hours to spray the 2 coats of sealer, 2 coats of base, and 2 coats of clear. Seeing that the final coat says it takes 8 hours to cure (some people told me 2 hours but im not willing to risk it) I can only paint one booth full of stuff a day. So it took 2 days to get all the small parts and back sides.

Getting ready to go.
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Seal Coat
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Base Coat
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Fresh Clear Coat
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Outside in the sun the next day
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The 2nd round went pretty good as well but I learned a few really good lessons. #1 don't paint close to the floor. Aside from the fact that fenders are the biggest pain in the arse to get to sit still on a saw horse (which I gave up on) I used boxes thinking that that would be the trick. I was wrong. Common sense will tell you that you will stir up the overspray/dirt when you spray air close to the floor. My brain apparently had to much paint fumes that day. Its still fine seeing its the back side of the panel but im going to do a little sanding and re-clear it along with keeping everything elevated from here on out. It ended up with a good amount of specs on it, compared to the rear hatch that is 2 feet away and has one little spec of dirt on it.

You can sort of see the fender in the bottom of this picture
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Same thing with the other parts, stuff up came out pretty darn good. Stuff closer to the ground will take some elbow grease to get cleaned up.
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Back side of the rear hatch
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So far I only have one piece that im going to take down and redo completely. I painted the lower door moldings separately so I can spray the entire door when its on the car and some how after all my checking and re-checking of the parts one of these pieces of molding got by me with some of the double sided tape still on there. Beats me. (its the "not shiny one, I didn't waste clear on it knowing I was going to fix it)
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So as we sit I have one more batch of stuff for the booth before the shell of the car comes in to stay. I'm going to paint the front and rear bumpers last seeing they are so big and bulky that its hard to put them anywhere safe.

Here she is getting her last "super bath" as I call it. This was about 6 hours with regular boring dish soap, a bucket, water hose, air gun, and the shop vac. If there is dirt hiding in the car then it can stay.
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I could have started on the interior of the shell just to keep things moving but I had to go to work for a few days and I didn't want to leave the tape on the car any longer than I had too. I've already fought the tape goo battle.

Thanks for following! Ill keep the pictures coming as I get them!
 
Decided to figure out the "good" spray gun.

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Its a Devilbiss Finishline 4. It cost just under $200 dollars and is well worth the money. The harbor freight guns are pretty darn good for 15 bux a piece, however they waste alot of paint and create alot of over spray. Anyways... I got the new gun going and somewhat dialed in on a test piece and got back to spraying paint.

Here she goes... Her last trip outside in her primer grey style. This was after washing it again for the eleventy-billionth time.
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Taping is alot more time consuming than I thought it would be. Its been taking me about 3 hours per session to tape for what I'm spraying that day. It may look weird the way I have the car taped but there is a method to the madness. I went around the car "practicing" and came to the simple conclusion that I could physically not paint the floor of the cabin and the roof of the interior at the same time. (I cant bend that way) To solve this problem I broke the spraying of the chassis into 3 stages.
1. Bulk interior, hatch, and rear area behind the rear bumper
2. Floor of the interior, door jams, and engine bay. Paint booth didn't have enough room to paint the back and front (engine bay) of the car at the same time so I broke that up as well.
3. The scary part that everyone sees... the exterior. This part isn't completed yet. Ran out of time, had to go on a trip for work and didn't want to stop in the middle.

Enough yacking... here's some pictures
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Seal coat in black
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First run of Base Coat
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And then the rest
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Lights hitting the dash bar kinda funny for some reason
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And the engine bay
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Thanks! I will keep them coming!
 
With a car completely torn apart, how do you keep track of what went where and what bolts are needed for every little piece to put back on?
 
That's why he has the spare red one next to it as a map. LOL

Great update! this project is awesome.
Exactly. I've been at DSM's for a while something's I'll have to look up but for the most part common sense applies for most of it.
 
Its been a while since an update. I got busy with the car and then work got in the way, and then... my hand got in the way. More to come on that later.

I finally got the paint finished up. I could not wait to get that paint booth down. It was such a pain to get around and i always forgot to lock the door on the side of the garage I couldn't get to without going outside. Overall the job came out better than I expected. There are a few blemishes that can be worked out but overall nothing too bad.

I re sprayed a few panels for one reason or another. Short work now rather than hard work later.
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First trip in the sunlight
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Got the garage straightened back out and the car back to its natural habitat... on jackstands.
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Finally got back to turning wrenches. Started work on de-powering the steering rack. Ignore the orange paint... its going away.
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Next I got started on subframe bushings. I plan on adding another attachment point for the rear diff which will require some more fab work once i get the new mounts in. I started burning them out but figured out its much easier to drill a few holes, cut the rubber out, then slit the metal outer ring followed by a punch and pry-bar. takes about 10 minutes per bushing.
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And then... disaster. (Cars fine) When I was taking out the last bushing I was using the vice and press to hold the subframe still seeing its a little awkward. I had tapped the metal outer ring out and was using a pry bar to bend it a little so it would wiggle out... when the ring broke with all 185lbs of my weight behind it. Right pinky and ring finger knuckle hit the cross bar on the press at about 678 mph. I tried to shake/drink it off but the next morning it was pretty obvious it was broke.
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Broke 5 bones in my right hand. More commonly called a boxer break. Now that the swelling has gone down I got a proper cast instead of the splint and get to keep it for 3 more weeks.

Thanks for following! more to come soon!
 
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Ouch is right. That hand looked like it took a good hit. Happy to see another update from you.
By chance, did you ever mention what paint code you went with? It looks really good. In some pictures it almost looks black. In others it looks like a dark gunmetal.

very nice.
 
Just finally getting back to work a week ago. The break healed pretty nice but rehab for my right hand took forever. Pretty bad boxer fracture that got all the joints in 2 fingers down through my wrist. I'm finally getting enough strength to be able to potentially work on the car again.

The color is Gtey Iridium Metallic. GM color. Look up 2014 silverado. Only difference in mine was a black base/seal coat. I did a test run on a grey primer panel and its a night and day difference in the darkness of the color. The whole idea was almost black but a little color. I Love it. Small flake for the metallic looks good. I got a sample of paint with larger flake, a little blue pearl and a skosh darker and it gave the test piece a purple tint to it which I didnt like.

Hopefully I can get after a few things this week and get back in the swing of things. Definitely haven't lost interest... Just been broken for a few months.
 
Still alive here. Sorry for the delay on an update. I've been back at work for almost 2 months now and the hand is finally starting to act right again. I've gotten a few good days in of work on the car over the last few weeks. Is been pretty slow because it's still tough to swing a hammer but its going at least.

First thing I did was get after the sub frames and diff mounts. Getting the bushings out was actually pretty seamless once I got the hang of it. The 20 ton press wasn't quite enough for the rear bushings but worked perfect for the fronts. Getting them back in was fairly straight forward as well. I put them in the freezer (just a regular one) for a few days and pulled them out one by one. The only tricky one was the rear diff bushings. I could not quite get it jigged in the press right and decided to go with the block of wood and BFH option. That got it 95% of the way there and then the solid bushing said no more. I ended up making a tool to finish the last 1/4" that worked pretty good. (used an old brake rotor & engine stand. I drilled a hole, ran a ARP head bolt through and ran it down with the impact. worked great.) Afterwards I sandblasted, primed and painted them.

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Finished up the steering rack. Not a whole lot to add to that other than finding some plugs, JB welding them in, blasting, painting, and new boots.

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I pulled the steering column assembly out the shed and it was nasty. (been sitting for a good while) Lots of surface rust, cobwebs and was just plain dirty. I got it in the vice and started messing with it a little and wasn't really happy with how it felt. It seemed like it was binding up a little and the bearings were pretty tight. So, apart it came. I pulled all the accessories, steering shaft, and bearings. I gave the bearings a good cleaning and greased them up, sandblasted and painted the column, put it all back together and still had an issue with some binding. I thought I would be able to deal with it, but as usual it was driving me nuts. I pulled it again and found out that the shaft was bent. After using the garage floor as a straight edge I found it was warped almost 1/4 inch... Pulled one off a parts car and solved that issue.

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Also got all of the remaining suspensions arms bushings removed, sand blasted and painted. Nothing super special to talk about with these guys.

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Picked up this guy for some seam welding on the subframes and some other future projects. :D

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Got the new column installed along with the upper arms all around. I plan on getting the subframe's in before installing anymore suspension arms. Id like to get the rear diff installed but I am still waiting on main caps, girdled cover, and would still REALLY like to track down a pair of solid rear diff mounts.

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Thanks for following! More to come in a few weeks!
 
This a Big Update.

More work done. Subframes both painted. Front subframe was installed.... Then 10 minutes later it came back out. I somehow forgot about some buggered up threads that I noticed 10 years ago. Not too bad to fix. Decided to stud it rather than try and repair the threads to keep the geometry right for the control arm. Took a little fabricating but turned out pretty good.

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I did have to grind down the head of the bolt after welding it on for clearance on the chassis.

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I got really tired of hunting for hardware in three 5 gallon buckets knowing that most of my DSM stuff is underneath about 50 lbs of random stuff. After looking for that stupid toe bolt for the rear toe arm one night I said screw it. A 6 pack of bud light, and 234232354 pieces of hardware on the work bench later we were golden. It took about 6 hours (okay, maybe a little more than a 6 pack) but I got all the metric hardware sorted and organized. What a life saver that is. Best investment of time ever.

This is about 1/4 of what I have. These guys are just out so I can have easy access to them right now.
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Another thing I got tired of was cleaning up hardware so while waiting for something to dry I came up with this idea. $10 sander from Lowes, scrap metal frame and a folders coffee can. Sander in the frame, coffee can to sander, add some black walnut shells and plug it in! (far far away... that SOB is loud) Believe it or not it worked great. I just need to find a metal cookie tin instead of the plastic because the coffee can rattles holes in itself after about an hour or so of running.

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Front subframe is back in, column hooked up, and has all the front suspension arms on it. I also got the steering column installed and the tie rods adjusted roughly with a tape measure for toe. Steers pretty nice on jack stands without a load on the rack (don't they all) after de-powering.

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Garage started getting cold so it was time. The little tank mounted single burner heater wasn't cutting it so I got this little guy. 47-65 degrees in about 30 minutes then it kicks on for 5 minutes every once in a while to maintain. Gas company is coming to install a 100 gallon tank outside next week.

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Rear subframe is in (diff work will come later, still waiting on parts) and all suspension parts reinstalled. Talk about a jigsaw puzzle of hardware trying to figure out what went where.

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I'm sure some of you know my pain already but I scratched my head for a few trying to remember what the deal was with the rear toe arms. Finally it clicked that I had forgotten about that spacer that came with the prothane bushings.

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Rear Shocks are installed. This was where it got tricky, the suspension was so stiff from the new bushings, freshly installed hardware, and brand new coil overs that all the floor jack did when jacking up the spindle was raise the entire car up. I actually found an 8' 2x4, attached a 4' 2x6 to the end (more surface area because didn't want to put a hole in the sheet rock and have the wife kick my butt) and wedged it between the floor of the rear hatch area and the ceiling in the garage.

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Last part of this phase was to go digging in the storage building for some wheels. After all the effort making everything look nice I didn't have the heart to just throw some steelies on her and call it a day. I dug out the old 18's and gave them some plasti-dip love for the time being. I had never used the stuff before but one of my buddies swore by it and gave me a can to try. I do have to admit that they actually came out pretty dang nice. I also gave the car a mild courtesy of running to Napa and getting some black lug nuts.

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The next part here was probably the easiest part of the entire project so far. Lug nuts installed & jack stands out.

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In Summary:
Fall 2007
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Spring 2009
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Fall 2010
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Winter 2012
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Summer 2016
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Sunday Evening: :D
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For the first time in over 7 years shes back on all 4's. This is probably going to be my favorite milestone aside from when I drive it out of the driveway for the first time. 9 years ago when I started this project (lots of breaks in the middle for that whole being a grown up thing) It just seemed like a never ending project because I kept going deeper and deeper down the worm hole to get it like I wanted... and then even bigger to get it back to a point where someone beside myself could tell what kind of car it is.

Next Phase: Electrical

Thanks!
-Kevin

PS: Man its nice to be able to just open the garage and push this thing outside in about 10 seconds!
 
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