The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebaggery

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The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebaggery - Printable Version

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Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - SlimKlim - 11-28-2011

Okay. Time for a little update I 'spose.

The shitty Maaco respray on my car hasn't been holding up so well the past year or so. The front bumper was peeling something awful because the plastic wasn't prepped properly. There were several patches of peeling clear coat on the hood, roof, and mirrors, some of which happened on their own, some from my own stupidity. I was rear ended a few months ago, but it's okay because the shop that fixed it a couple years ago used the wrong primer under the yellow and it doesn't match. I left it under a sappy tree at some point this summer, and I've been paying for it ever since. On top of that my front right bumper clip is broken, I'm missing the front part of the passenger inner fender and brake duct, all the OEM lip hardware and rear valence hardware, some of the side skirt hardware is broken, etc, etc, etc.

The plan for this weekend was to set up my dad's tent and repaint the front bumper, hood, roof, rear bumper, right rear quarter, front right fender, and do a full correction on what's left. Unfortunately, my mom calls me on Monday morning following my dad in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. A pacemaker later and he's fine, thank god, but it looks like we aren't tackling our project for a while.

The thing was still friggin filthy, so I decided to take advantage of the available time and equipment over the holiday and get some work done. I ended up doing a good deep wash, A full polish with extra cut compound, a second pass with swirl remover and a walk around paint touch up. My dad came up with a pretty clever trick to try and seal up the patches of missing clear and keep them from continuing to grow. We used a 1.5in brush to brush some clear over the problem areas, let it cure for about 48 hours, then wet sanded and polished again. After that I applied a coat of Poorboy's sealant. I also detailed the interior, scrubbed the grime out of the door jambs, and cleaned and re-blacked the trim.

On to the iPhone photoshoot! I forgot to bring my real camera with me, so you're just going to have to deal with it. I might do another coat of sealant sometime this week, and try to do a little photoshoot, considering the old girl looks better than she has in ages.

Before:

Flaking paint on the bumper:
[Image: AzmoS.jpg]

Missing clear and sap on roof:
[Image: BloBZ.jpg]

Most recent wound:
[Image: 0EtAB.jpg]

Sap and scratches from a poorly adjusted sunroof:
[Image: 1ldO9.jpg]

Sap glamour shot:
[Image: A0T3s.jpg]

Sap and spider webbing on decklid:
[Image: AZ8Hy.jpg]

Bubbling clear on mirror:
[Image: 8XNmJ.jpg]

Immediately after the polish:
[Image: bx0m0.jpg]

Touched up areas (probably not going to last all that long, but I've got some touch up paint kicking around somewhere):
[Image: KRRe2.jpg]

De-sapped roof:
[Image: KkuNw.jpg]

Polished decklid:
[Image: suOfl.jpg]

Mirror:

Roof, it ain't the purdiest thing in the world, but at least it stops it from increasing in size until my dad and I strip and respray.
[Image: Ya5Uw.jpg]

mmmmmmmmmmmmm
[Image: uCOrd.jpg]

I was supposed to be putting a set of 18" BBS RC 303s on it today, but the guy I was trading rims with had some unexpected stuff family stuff to deal with (sounds familiar) and couldn't justify the shipping expenditure. C'est la vie.

Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - V1GiLaNtE - 11-28-2011

Oh Joey,

She looks muuuuucchhh better.. Nice job man

Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - WRXtranceformed - 11-28-2011

Wow that looks great man! Nothing like a little ingenuity and elbow grease!

Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - SlimKlim - 11-28-2011

Thanks guys, its refreshing to have her not looking like a huge heap of crap.

Now that the mileage is starting to really get up there, I'd like to tackle some of the weird issues. The knock sensor is acting up, which involves removing the intake manifold, and all the other stuff you might-as-well-replace, the VANOS rattle is getting louder, and I might have to do a front wheel bearing. I'll have to evaluate what's worst, and what I'm doing with the Miata, before I decide what I can tackle on this.

Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - SlimKlim - 01-29-2012

Started swapping from H&R Races/Bilstiens to Koni Adjustables and H&R Sports at DJs place, which is like E36 heaven.

I started the car in the street, took off the rear wheels, popped out the rear shocks and found out I have rogue engineering solid mounts installed in good condition. Score! I popped in the springs, and went about reassembling the shock mounts on top of the Koni's. A quick trip to home depot for the right thread pitch on the shock mount nut, and we got the rears back in.

[Image: HgvCg.jpg]

Didn't really have a lot of time to take detailed photos. By the time the rear of the car was on the ground it was 4:30, and I was starting to lose daylight and was supposed to be home for dinner with my better half's sister by 7:00. I did get a few shots.

[Image: ZmOMz.jpg]

The fronts took everything I had to swap out in 2 hours. As usual everything was stuck together and harder to reassemble than you think, but I got it done and got the f*ck home by 7:05 somehow.

This morning I wiped the car down and vacuumed her out for a little parking lot photoshoot with the new rims. Big Grin

Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - premiershine9 - 01-29-2012

NICE!

Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - V1GiLaNtE - 01-29-2012

Gorgeous..

Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - ScottyB - 01-29-2012

i'm a fan of your work and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - Jake - 01-29-2012

God those wheels. Unfff. Thankfully I live remarkably close to this car and can see the gorgeousness in person.

Oh, and I think you actually made it home at 6:55 Tongue

Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - SlimKlim - 01-29-2012

ScottyB Wrote:i'm a fan of your work and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

I'll try to keep them coming. I'm replacing the knock sensors and rebuilding the vanos in the very near future. 8)

Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - Ken - 01-29-2012

Wow, came out really nice Joey

Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - D_Eclipse9916 - 01-30-2012

I really like the new wheels!

Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - Goodspeed - 01-30-2012

Those wheels are tits. Much better than before. I always thought those looked just as good if not better on the E36 than the E46's they came stock on.

Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - SlimKlim - 01-30-2012

She seems to be a crowd pleaser now. Driving around on Sunday I got sooooo many second looks, thumbs ups and even a few all out enthusiastic waves and nods. I'm really glad I stuck it out and went for the CSLs, they aren't the lightest out there but for around town wheels they'll be just fine.

Switching from the Bilsteins/H&R Races to the Sports/Koni Yellows has fundamentally changed the car. It went from being a twitchy, obnoxiously stiff, rattly car that bottomed out when you passed over the painted line of an intersection to a car that can actually absorb a few road hazards while still handling incredibly well. Also having brand new tires and a non-failing wheel bearing installed, its actually quiet enough to have a conversation on the highway.

Next steps are to replace my knock sensors, rebuild my VANOS unit, and replace a few of the smaller bushings on the front end. I've got a lot of small stuff to sort out on the interior, and I'm considering some bigger indulgences in that area. My latest kick with my vehicular future is to buy a sensible and reasonably priced daily to drive and spend the next year rebuilding this car. Might just do it too. 8)

HUGE thank you to Mike and DJ for their vast expertise, facilities and tools. Without them showing me what to do it would have taken a week to swap all that stuff, not a weekend.

Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - SlimKlim - 01-30-2012

Dropped the car off this morning at Dulles Auto Clinic for an alignment. I chose them cold because they had good reviews on Google, seemed friendly on the phone and are only a couple minutes from AOL. I drop the car off and only feel better, mom and pop kind of place, everyone is full of smiles and nice to meet you's etc, etc. When the guy calls me to let me know it's ready he says they billed me for the "Standard Alignment" at $89, then another $120 for the "extra work" required on the rear of the car because one of the adjustment nuts was seized on and its "not OEM."

I informed them that the car has been "not OEM" for all 30k miles I've owned it, and I've personally seen and even helped guys take a torch to it to get the adjustment nuts loose, yet none of them had ever felt the need to charge me over twice the flat rate. I bitched enough to get them to knock $20 off, but I'm still pretty disappointed. I think my mistake was telling them I installed new suspension yesterday, so they thought they had it in the bag. What they didn't realize was I was actually raising the goddamn car, and I wasn't born yesterday.

All of that being said, business is business and if they can present a half baked argument as to how they spent billable time, I gotta pay them. Doesn't mean I have to agree with the way they conduct business, and it also means I can express myself all over that pretty little google page of theirs.

What's more concerning to me is I heard a clunk a few times after I picked it up. Its possible it was just my tools rolling around and I'm being hypersensitive, but I swear I didn't hear anything this morning. As soon as I get home I'm going to check/lock my rear shock mounts, empty out the trunk, drive it again and even jack it up and wiggle things around if I have to. When i first bought the car it had the right rear camber adjustment loose and produced a clunk, if it turns out they charged me double AND didn't even put it back together, I'm going on the goddamn warpath tomorrow.

Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - Evan - 01-30-2012

Yeah I got that shit from the alignment shops when I was setting up my WRX while tracking it. (and it was brand new, no seized bolts or stuck suspension parts)

The best was at currys, I sat and waited in the waiting room for 1 hour for them to finish, and then they tried to bill me 3 hours of time.
Then there was tires plus in chantilly, who quoted me a price, then after it was done they doubled it. I refused to pay and got into a cursing match with the service writer and told me to get out and never to come back. Smile

Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - SlimKlim - 01-30-2012

Evan Wrote:Yeah I got that shit from the alignment shops when I was setting up my WRX while tracking it. (and it was brand new, no seized bolts or stuck suspension parts)

The best was at currys, I sat and waited in the waiting room for 1 hour for them to finish, and then they tried to bill me 3 hours of time.
Then there was tires plus in chantilly, who quoted me a price, then after it was done they doubled it. I refused to pay and got into a cursing match with the service writer and told me to get out and never to come back.

I got that same bait and switch. Friggin sleazeballs. If I'd had a little more fight in me maybe I would've stuck my ground more. I'm headed out of the office now to lock my shock mounts and make sure that clunk was something falling over and not something left loose. If I paid twice what I should have AND they didnt even put it back together, livid won't even begin to describe me. :twisted:

Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - Ken - 01-30-2012

Like, Joey snapping a railing in two pieces mad?

Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - Sully - 01-30-2012

I marked every bolt with a grease pen after I torqued it so I will see exactly what has been done when I get my alignment done, but I trust my local alignment shop. They are regarded as one of the best by the bodyshops in the area

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

Re: The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebagger - SlimKlim - 01-30-2012

Ken Wrote:Like, Joey snapping a railing in two pieces mad?

Throwback.

So I jacked the car up, shook everything, looked at the lower shock mount, checked all three nuts on the upper shock mount, all tight. The only thing out of ordinary is the hub sagged down just far enough for the spring to slip off the upper perch. it was still lined up and presumably settled right back into where it was supposed to go when I let it down. I take everything out of the trunk, wedge a sweatshirt behind the subwoofer so it can't move and go around the block, throwing the car around pretty good to try and shake it down. I got it to make the clunk at least twice when I turned sharply to the right, distinctly coming from the left side.

When I got home I jacked it up again and this time the spring held onto the perch and the wheel didn't come down as far. Gave it a second go over and still didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. The only odd thing was the spring slipping off the perch, but I feel like if it was somehow installed incorrectly it would be pretty friggin obvious something was wrong with the car when I was driving it.

I guess I'll see what happens on the way to work tomorrow, if it keeps happening maybe I need to pull everything out of the trunk including the sub and spare tire, and really give it a good going over to try and run it down. I can't point my finger at the shop because I can't tell if anything is really wrong. Its possible that the car is just so much quieter and less rattly that the noise has been around for a while and I could never hear it and I didn't notice it before the shop, and maybe I was just hypersensitive to the car after I picked it up. :dunno:

I unno.