Respray

19/4/2010 15:10:22

staatsof

Posts: 52
Since: 22/3/2008
Region: NYC area USA
Status: offline

OK, well I'm almost done so I'll go through the list:

Lights - easy
I have different front lights than you as well as the front bumper/air dam
The tail lights I haven't gotten out yet. The gaskets appear to have glued them to the body very tightly and I really don't want to break them.
This still looks like a **** to me right now. Maybe a liberal use of the hair drier.

Grill - handful of rusty screws
Badges - should be ok The rear is pretty delicate but again, on my car I have a fiberglass rear trunk lid so it's different.
Spoiler - I reckon an 8mm offset brake spanner should work on the offside bolt

Sills - handful of rusty screws I have removed the front & rear screws (wheels have to come off) plus all of those underneath. There are some slide in place clips underneath which recieve the screws. They might fall off at the painters so you should remove them. But you also need to drill out the black rivets next to the the door seals (I haven't done this yet). Be careful with this one.

Door handles - easy i have had the door card off before to fix the window motor I haven't done this as yet.

A pillar covers -mmmm the mechanic that works on mine says they are straight foward a couple of bolts that you access from underneath the head lining. he has done his and said they were not glued on. As
you need to remove these to change a cracked screen I don't see how they can be, but they are fragile and you need to be careful putting them back on.

Ah these are tricky. You have to start by removing the cowl spoiler which is attached in three locations. Center L&R. Mine had a self tapping screw on one side with threaded studs on the other two. This can vary from car to car. The are a pain to reach. The suggestion given to me from a chap with a RHD car was to remove the windshield wiper drive link on one side first for better access. I didn't have to do that but I have a LHD car. Once these are off you can remove the two front securing screws. My car has no interior but I have a full roll cage which isn't helpful for getting at the three interior threaded studs on each side. Once again these are very small.

They are indeed glued on but not all three mounting spots are equally secure. I had only one that was a real SOB. I ended up peeling the rubber strips off after loosening it up on that side. I used the hair drier a lot on the inside as well as the outside around the one stubborn center post. Highest heat setting. That might damage the interior though. That alone was not enough to get it loose. I also had to use a very thin 1.5" wide flexible steel putty knife which I inserted between the aluminum body clad piece and the rest of the car to break the seal. It took several attempts. These are aluminum so be careful especially when installing them or you can dimple them at the stud points. Basically this is a real pain. See the pictures. The factory used multiple glued on rubber bumpers in various thickness levels to properly space these pieces from the main panel. Some of them had fallen off of my car. I'm still uncertain how to put this back together around the three(3) studs. It needs to be secure and sealed from water but not pulled too tight. I don't like gluing them back on though. Have fun ... Maybe yours will just pop off. One of mine did.

I plan on talking with a dealer in the UK about what they have used on these spots. It looks like a combination of a foam ring and some kind of sealer that never hardens. You don't want it oozing out in the hot sun but it needs to be removable too.

fuel filler - handful of bolts Oh holly crap this is a really bad design and not easy like it looks. Someone should be shot for this one. Look at the pictures and you can see what happened on my car which has less than 2K km miles and only gets hand washed. They blocked the drain with a gasket and there's a big O-ring that's is supposed to seal a specially made aluminum filler neck to the body. It doesn't so this water puddled inside behind this filler neck and eventually rusted through. Hopefully most of these Cup cars didn't have the drain blocked up. Also, when you pop open the cap, a commercial piece they adapted to fit the special filler neck, you can see that there is no drain hole for gas overflow into so that it can run down to the ground. Water has no place to go either. That aluminum adapter can have a drain hole drilled to match up with the existing one. That doesn't solve the issue of water leaking in around that big O-ring.

I had to loosen up the hose clamps on the fuel filler neck inside the trunk and collapse the larger fuel hose so that the entire filler neck assembly could be removed for access to the back side of the outside fuel filler assembly. I then sprayed WD40 around the outside perimeter of the filler cap in an effort to lubricate that O-ring. I was then able to tap on the backside from inside the trunk with a piece of wood and a dead-blow hammer. It came loose that way. Easy? Not quite.

bumpers - handful of bolts

bonnet vents - clips

mirrors - I have heard these are a nightmare, but can't see why There is a connector inside at the bottom of the door which you need to disconnect. Easy so far ... I wasn't able to get that connector to exit at the top of the door. So I pulled it far enough on the outside of the car (beyond the sheath cover) to allow me to simply cut the wire but still have enough to allow for snaking it back down properly after painting. I tucked the exterior portion of the wire back into the foam sealer so that it's out of the way but doesn't simply fall down into the door. I plan to just solder the wires back and cover with shrink wrap.

boot lock - looks easy It is.

He will take the glass out, but does anybody kow anything about removing the rear side windows ? They look bonded in ? Eurospares list the glass as £40 the black surrounds £300 !! I'm not removing mine. I'm also not removing the front or rear windscreens. I believe the rear gasket lifts off of the body so they can get paint underneath if they're good. The front only shows at the top edge.

Attachment (9)

< Message edited by staatsof -- 19/4/2010 17:59:22 >