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EYY's 95 VS Statesman

EYY

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So I just pulled the battery out of the new stato and the battery tray is really badly rusted. I'll weld in a new battery tray sometime in the next few months if I get around to it.

Did a bit of searching too and found that the wheels are from a VR Senator, which is nice.

Started it again today and the air con even works much to my surprise. Starting to look more and more like a keeper.
 

EYY

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Drove the stato with Sandman to Heathcoat for the Street Machine Drag Challenge a couple of weeks ago. Was a great day and a few cars produced some surprising (to me) results. The majority of cars there were blown chevs, but there were still a few aussie v8's there too - there was even an old ford wagon sporting an LS.

Sandman's handy work:
12246989_1274990302518481_161567225664825687_n.jpg


Just clicked past 400,000km last night too :p
I made some new transmission lines for it last week due to the old lines leaking. Also pinched the fog lights off the s3 stato. They're not wired up, and it'll probably stay that way - I just like the look of them. Surprisingly, I didn't even need to remove the bumper to fit them at all. The most difficult bit was drilling/cutting out the vents for the fog lights.

Next on the list is to replace the steering rack and tie rod ends and get a wheel alignment. Finally replaced one of the air con lines and had it regassed (again, for the third time in my ownership), so hopefully this time it'll continue working for more than 6 months.
 
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EYY

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Finally decided to fix some of the peeling clear coat on the passengers rear 1/4 panel and thought I'd share how I tackled it. I've only sprayed a handful of times, so I'm open to criticism and suggestions from others as to processes/techniques etc. :)

The panel has been resprayed at some stage and it looks like the job was given to the apprentice - the filler work wasn't even nearly straight and the 1/4 panel didn't line up properly with the door.
JCUpDw2.jpg


This is what I found from the previous repair:
6EtdbOR.jpg


There was a high spot here too, I was hoping that it would just be filler, but I had to tap the panel slightly inwards:
sadOEXn.jpg


Started with the filler.
sEBnHTS.jpg


Looked like this after a few hours, all sanded with 220. I bought a $30 5" DA sander on ebay, and I honestly don't know how I did any body work at all without one. They're a must-have for anyone contemplating this sort of work.
Hzt3k73.jpg


Primed with 2 pack high build primer and sanded with a long block with 240.
Uw6kkY9.jpg


Primed again and sanded with 400 using the block and then up to 600 which brings us to this point; almost ready for paint. I sanded the first 100mm of the rear door with 800 and from there sanded with 1500 until about half way through the door (about where it's masked to).
pZgCKRb.jpg


After cleaning with wax and grease remover a number of times and wiping with a tack rag, I sprayed the first coat of colour - spraying just past the 800 scratches in the rear door and progressing a tiny bit further with the following 2 coats.
iHaYpBb.jpg


Basecoat done.
8gmHcm0.jpg


After the first coat of clear, I sprayed the clearcoat past the basecoat on the door, into the 1500 grit scratches and then used fadeout thinner (sprayed through my gun) on the final coat to 'melt' the new paint to the old paint to assist the transition. The first coat was a medium coat so you can see a bit of orange peel, the following coats were sprayed wet.
BSZySOU.jpg



Clear finished. I ended up spraying 3 coats using a medium hardener since it was a hot day, although at the expense of a little more dust landing in the clear.
7demZAC.jpg


bdMoGzx.jpg


I ended up getting a bit of orange peel which i'll sand out shortly and post a few more pics of the process/finished product. Still waiting on some polishing attachments I ordered online, hopefully they turn up soon and I can finish the job :p

I had a few problems with image hosting, so it took a tad longer than it shoud've to write this post. Fingers crossed it's all good now lol
 

VS 5.0

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I'm no spray painter but it looks like you done some good work there.

Keen to see how the blend on the door turns out.
 

sleepa

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Nice work. I love seeing how other people do things like this.
 

EYY

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Keen to see how the blend on the door turns out.
I'm not too confident with that, but I'll try sanding and buffing it and post pics. If the panel was good I would've sanded the whole door and cleared over the whole thing. It has a few little dints along with the other 3 doors, so I'll remove them all shortly and spray them at the same time.

The front end was replaced about 10 years ago when someone reversed into it, and the paint's better than the rest of the body. So I still need to do the doors, roof and rear bumper.

Thinking about removing the trolley strips altogether, I'm still not sure about it though.

Nice work. I love seeing how other people do things like this.

Cheers sleepa, same here.

It's certainly not easy to work out how to do things, everywhere you look someone's telling you something different. I suppose everyone has their own style :p
 

EYY

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Managed to get a fair bit done over the past few days.

I wet sanded the whole repair area with 2000 - i wanted to try and get the orange peel to match the rest of the car, so I didn't sand it too far. Just enough :p
IcHuqp5.jpg


Then I used meguiars ultimate compound over the whole area with a firm pad on the orbital polisher (there are MUCH better products for this job, the ultimate compound isn't very abrasive so it probably took a little longer than it should have. Then I used meguiars ultimate polish with a soft pad to remove the fine swirlmarks/scratches.

From the 1/4 panel just above the rear wheel:
vW0VOv1.jpg


Put the trolley strips back on (it's pretty dirty so I'll have to take some more photos when I clean it. Can't tell where the old paint ends and the new paint starts, pretty happy with that.
24guOR2.jpg


Finally changed the power steering rack since it started leaking very badly. Got one from the wreckers for $50 and cleaned it up and fitted it. The variatronic steering works now, it feels like a different car. Way too effortless in carparks lol. I'll update this post soon with more pics cause my internet's being dodgy atm.
 

Jecs

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crap.... you did an awesome job man! haha
 
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