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

[SlimKlim]

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:


Missing clear and sap on roof:


Most recent wound:


Sap and scratches from a poorly adjusted sunroof:


Sap glamour shot:


Sap and spider webbing on decklid:


Bubbling clear on mirror:


Immediately after the polish:


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


De-sapped roof:


Polished decklid:


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.


mmmmmmmmmmmmm



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.