Finally back on the road after re-paint

[Grover]

After months of work, Grover is finally back on the road again. Of course I still have a laundry list of things to finish off/tidy up/tinker with, but the bulk of the work is done. As such, I figured I'd put some photos out there.

But quickly, a few kudos: To Andy Schank, the painter, who was so open in letting me work alongside him. To Ash02 for a couple of marathon welding days. To Curt, for the many hours of assistance in helping get this sucker back together again. And to both Blunt and the guys at German Auto Sport in Berkeley for sourcing what seemed like an endless stream of little parts that I forgot or just plain didn't know I needed. Oh, and to Ought2, for supplying the finishing touch Italian-style lenses. Giddyup.

The old paint job, which I believe was the second one, was really getting to be pretty awful. I had huge amounts of clear pealing off a number of panels, as well as a variety of little rust patches here and there.

Aashish hard at work

After the welding work was done, I replaced the rusted out old fender and trunk lid. this was about as bad as my car has ever looked.

The driver door had some nasty old bondo, so down to the metal it went

Signs of the quality work from the past paint job

One day I spent a solid 10 hours doing nothing but trunk cleaning and prep. woof!!

During my first outing a couple of weeks back, I stopped at my local BMW dealer to take a fun contrast shot next to a couple of new M3's

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/Grover1/november009.jpg[/img]

[02again]

MOST.....Excellent!

[dp2002]

That looks incredible. Nice job

[cj]

Lookin' good Tom. Diggin' the aero front bumper guard mod.

Cris

[auggiemize]

Superb job Grover...love the photo story. Nice shot at the dealer, and at "eternal". Glad you didn't park there for long. Whats the story on the front bumper over-riders? Dave V. in NC

[dp2002]

Can you email me with a around about cost for this good of a paint job? I am next.

bfallon101 at yahoo dot com

[Guest]

congrats Tom. Looking sweet. Hope to see you again this year at BayArea02 meet. I'll be driving my baby up this year.

Le

[NickVyse]

Looks awesone, well done.

N

[HarryPR]

Love it! Great job, Grover.

[BillWilliams]

You guys did an incredible job, stop smiling!

[#73]

Way to go... thanks for sharing.

If this was Flickr, I would favorite pic #3.

Please tell Aashish to wear at least a Niosh particulate elastic mask!

Prost!,

[Rick74]

Way to go Tom, it looks awesome!

[JsnPpp]

REALLY nice! Gorgeous car!

The front grills are incredibly straight, it really makes the difference IMO. I'm going to go outside and make sure mine are straight today. :-)

Thanks for posting, I love before and after shots.

-Jason

[watney74]

Gorgeous car... great work!

Love the trim and side marker delete... that alone makes these cars look so much better.

[Grover]

Thanks for the compliments folks. Dave V.: in terms of the overriders. My car is a '73 so originally had the chrome bumpers with the longer sides and rubber strips on the corners. And, while I liked the overriders, they have a notch on one side to accomodate said rubber strip. I was tempted to buy some of the really early small overriders, but just couldn't find any that fit into my budget, so I decided to modify these "aero" ones to work. Basically, I made a template of the non-notched side and then transferred the pattern to the opposite side to cut out. I actually found it was easiest to flip them left-to-right and vice versa to minimize the amount of cutting needed. What this resulted in was a need to cut the top line as it then didn't line up with the back edge of the bumper. A little work with a dremel and voila, you'd never know.