Paint Quotes

I suppose I should talk about this process since it took an entire day and much of my energy. The first place I check out was a place up by deer valley airport which had been referred to me by my neighbor who had some work done on his old 914 there. They were awesome and super nice but wanted $3,500, which is just a bit out of my range. If I had the money I think I would go there but it is hard to justify when I only paid $2,100 for the car. The next place I checked out only because my father made me basically. Select Auto, down on Camelback. This guy came out and said "I won't paint it because I didn't do the body work." Basically came out to look at it, calls my work crap, calls sherwin williams paint "bug spray" and talks about wet sanding at 1000 grit and using paint product that is only used on $100,000 dollar cars. I won't even mention where their bottom of the line price starts. Last place I went was back to Maaco who remembered me, and welcomed me back. He showed me a few cars that were just being finished and made a quote at $1,300, which is quite a bit better than the $2,300 that was quoted before the body work. 

And with that, Maaco it is. At this point, how could they screw it up?

More Just In:

Today I received a few more items from JBugs which included:

-new padded dash cover

-three rear interior panels

-two interior door panels

-headliner

Paint... either tomorrow or friday, at latest next week. Tomorrow I am going to check on a guy who may clean up all my wiring and make sure my harness is perfect. But I very well might take it in to get painted tomorrow.

Rear View Mirror

So I guess you just get that thing a good yank and it comes right off. Hmm.

1st Half of the Order

There was a small package at my front door yesterday. 

Rotate your head.

Glass Out

It is all out. Every single window is out. I finally went ahead a took out all the glass. The door windows and such was a little bit of a challenge but some of the pieces just took a bit of persuading. I just looked up in my book how to do it but it didn't help me much, I just sort of took out every bolt and screw I could find and ripped everything out. Under the rubber of the windows there was chipped paint and bare metal. This means I need to go buy another can of acid etching primer before I take this thing in to get painted... ugh. What a pain in the butt.

What Turn Signals? (pics)

What Turn Signals?

The holes are patched and I waiting on seals to drill new holes for the new signals. But here is what I have done so far. I put the car up on jacks and took the front wheels off just to have more room. I bent a couple of pieces of metal to the general shape, and then traced the opening on them and cut them to shape and bent them in to pretty much the right shape. Once that was done I taped them in spot with duct tape and tack welded them in the right spot, took the tape off so it wouldn't burn and welded a few more spots. After that I took my grinder and ground down the welds flush with the other metal. Hit the metal around a bit, re-welded a couple spots, same with the grindings and then applied the bondo. I taped the back of the patch so that the bondo wouldn't fall out the back, once it was set up I took that tape off. I also re-enforced the back of the patches will small bits of steel. I primered the inside of the patches with black primer. At that point I put the wheels back on and its back to sanding and filling and sanding and filling... etc... once that was done. I painted them up and this is where I am.

I DID IT!

I made the order. Jbugs had everything I needed. Ended up being a $1,300 order. Everything but the seat, panels, and headliner will be here soon, the rest will be here in 3-4 weeks. Hopefully my car will be painted by then. That means, in one month my car is going to be painted and will be in the process of being put back together. I am so excited right now. Never in my life have I been so excited about spending $1,300. Except maybe when I bought the car. 

Things included in the order:

-interior kit, seats, padding, panels, headliner, carpet

-all new rubber, all windows, hood and hatch seals, turn signal seals

-new side mirrors

-wiper blades

-sun visors w/ mirror

-dashboard

-fender beading

-tail light lenses

and I also just bought heat and sound insulation

Tail Lights

I removed the tail lights for paint today. I think I am going to arrange one more day for me and my friends to get the final stuff done before paint. I am working on the the front turn signals but they aren't quite done yet so hopefully that will be the next post. But that won't be totally finished until i get the rubber seals for the turn signals and I am not going to order those until I make my big order of everything including interior and new rubber. So it is still going to be a while. Maybe I should just order the rubber seals now and deal with the few extra dollars shipping. I think i may do that. Anyway.

I took off the tail lights. labeled all the wire and took note of where they go. I also took the windshield wipers off. So close. Once again the picture won't post vertical, deal with it I guess.

Samples

I just put in an order for interior samples from Jbugs. I had emailed them a couple weeks ago and never heard back from them. So today I finally called and they said sure thing and they are sending the samples out. So once they get here I will decide what is what when it comes to the colors of the interior.