You're doing it all by hand?? Wow. Looks like the spoiler came off pretty hard. I guess i cant really tell from the pics but is it completely broken?

Hey man looking better and better everyday. Let me know when your gonna be down there sunday? Emily and I will definatly go out there and help you out.

This post has been edited by celiracer: Dec 14, 2006 - 8:50 PM

Thanks ya'll, and yeah it's all being done by hand, I guess I should be grateful that I atleast use to work out. Jim, no I didn't break the spoiler at all, although I was pretty close to using a hacksaw on it, all that white crap on the bottom of the posts and the deck is adhesive.

Alright alright, so I haven't updated this in a couple of days, here are some more pics of the work.

Here is the left side, it is pretty much all sanded


Another shot of her naked butt, what an amazing coincidence that both spots where the paint was starting to peel off is where the last body shop had done bondo work on her


Matt (celiracer) came out today with his girlfriend and hung out. I of course put him to work and we got the hood done


Here is the passenger side, this is where I left her at today, I should be able to finish off tomorrow


And good news, I finally got a DA that works, and it is a NICE one, the passenger side and rear bumper took me about an hour compared to a couple of days for the drivers side .

nobody has love for the splitters I put on my vert. i think they look better than the ssIII ones although they are less obvious.

Good work man. Let me know when the next time you'll be out there i'll come out and help out again. Cars looking good everyday man. can't wait to get it done so we can mob around lol.

I had the day off of work today so I went out and got some work done on her, she's coming along very nicely I'd say.











Tomorrow I have to be out there for most of the morning anyway because the utility company needs access to the inside so I am going to resand all the bare metal areas and spray them down with primer to protect the metal. Then I am going to start doing the bondo on all the dings and scratches and begin fitting the different kit pieces on. Thats the plan anyway, I guess I'd be happy if I just got the bondo work down . I also decided I'm not really that sure about using screws to hold the kit on, especially into metal because I don't want to worry about rust, so I went and bought some of this stuff...


Supposedly it holds like no other and I was told it would work perfect, anyone have any experience with it?

Looking good. Can't wait till you guys start working on the sideskirts and stuff. thats when the cars going to start making you want it done.

So I didn't get nearly as much work done today as I planned on. I got out there about 9am and it was too cold to do any work so I promptly fell asleep inside the truck which I had parked inside with the heater on to stay warm. I got woken up around 11 by the utility guy calling me to let him inside. He got everything fixed though so I did a little bit of work, mostly more sanding of a few spots that I didn't get down to primer and some primering of a the driver side rear quarter panel and door. What I plan on doing is spraying primer down on the whole car then going over everything lightly with the sander. After everything is sanded any spot on the car where there is still a spot of primer will indicate to me a low spot in the body that I need to fill in. That's the plan anyway.


Here's the drivers side after spraying it this morning then going back tonight after work and sanding it back down.

I also started doing some pre-fitment work on the kit.




One of the Hiro rears placed up for marking.

These things fit perfect, line up awesome with the lines of the quarter panel and bumper, I highly recommend ChrisC for anyone looking for this part. My plan is to attach the pieces using mostly the adhesive I posted about, and then filling in the gaps between the fiberglass and body with expandable adhesive foam to make sure they don't come off or crack. I will only be using screws to secure the pieces into plastic or urethane parts (i.e. bumpers).

Your doing things fast. Looks great man i can't wait to come up and help out again lol. Holidays are busy for me tho lol so after christmas i'll help more.

I started doing the bondo work tonight. I'm pretty much finished on the right front fender.

Before


After


That was one of the worst areas that was damaged, next up I'll be doing the passenger door and then the hood.

I also finished up the left rear quarter panel.



Btw, I used 80 grit sandpaper to rough up the areas of the body that I needed the bondo to grip too, then sanded it smooth with 180 grit sandpaper. It seems to be doing the job nicely but if anyone has pointers I'll gladly take them .

Looking like your project is going pretty fast. Good work!

man this guy is not messing around!

i keep checking back, glad to see somebody's project chugging along so well.

keep it up!

Man your really wanting to have this done in 2 weeks. i hope i can make it up there one more time before you get it done.

Merry Belated Christmas all. I haven't worked on the car in a few days due to extra holiday hours at work and leaving town for Christmas so tonight after work I went out to the warehouse. I only planned on staying a couple hours but here it is 5 am and I just got back . Anyway, I finished up the passenger door and the hood.


Here's the passenger door with the bondo on it before sanding.


And after sanding the bondo down. On my way out I was inspecting it better and I definitely need to run back over it again with the sander to take off a couple more layers.


This is the hood with the bondo on it before sanding.


And after sanding. I'm really happy with the way the hood work turned out.

I think I'm using way too much bondo to cover over the dings, because I am having huge piles of bondo dust left over after sanding it smooth. I guess too much to start with is better than too little at the end. And what a great feeling to rub my hand over the hood and not feel a ton of dings everywhere .

I also did most of the sanding on the front bumper.


That devil is the last thing on her that lets you know she's a Toyota, it was almost too much to take it off, plus it's on there like a bastard and I didn't really feel like tearing it off this late so I'll take it off later when I do the rest of it.

cool, love progress pics!! :-D

Thanks Daniel, keep watching and hopefully I'll keep making progress .

Keep it up man. I'll be in omaha sometime soon hopefully lol. But i'll let you know.

WOO HOO, finally finished up with all the repair work on the body today.


Passenger rear quarter panel.


Trunk lid.

After finishing the sanding of that bondo and also a couple of touch up spots else where on the car I started work on the body kit. I set up both rear extensions and started measuring so I could ensure they will be lined up perfect.


This is pretty much where they will both be placed at, I would have gone ahead and used the adhesive to hold them into place but I didn't have any clamps with me and I really didn't feel like sitting there for 6 hours holding them on until they held. I'm also comtemplating mixing fiberglass fiber in with the adhesive to give it some added strength (my dad's idea). I'm not too worried about doing that with the rears though. The sides are another story. They fall about 1/4 inch short so what I am thinking of doing is cutting one end off then screwing in the other end and using that adhesive all along the body. I'd then use some bondo with fiberglass already mixed in to make the cut end flush and to mold the skirts on uniformly. I guess that'll have to wait for another day.

Good work man. Get your rear and your front done first don't worry about them sides till them are done. The sides are going to be the hardest to do. When my bodyman did my sides they were a little short. And we had to exstend them. Hopefully when you are getting ready to do your sides, i can come up and help you out a little bit.

Looks great. Have you guys had any snow in Omaha yet? Still nothing in Lincoln. When you finish you could probably keep driving it through the rest of the winter.

This post has been edited by hitcachi: Dec 28, 2006 - 1:48 PM

Unfortunately we've had mostly clear skies. It's iced over a couple of times and I think snow might have fallen once for about 2 minutes but other than that nothing. You wait though, the day I finish everything we'll get a big snowstorm.

Any updates man? this snow that we got sucks. I havn't drivin my car for 3 days since there has been so much snow and gravel on the ground. Don't know when i'll make it up there next. But i'll let you know.

Realized I haven't done an update for a while so I figured it was time to add one in. I have the right sideskirt and rear extension mounted and held into place. Initially to mount them I used that adhesive material. Then to further stiffen them up I filled in the spaces between the body and the kit with an expanding adhesive foam. This seems to be doing the job nicely as they are basically immovable and when I push/pull them the whole car moves, should be enough to hold them in place. Unfortunately the fitment on the right sideskirt was crap so I ended up cutting it into four pieces. Add to that the fact that my experience with fiberglass is nil and that makes this a fun experiment for me.

Some things I have learned so far:

Fiberglass is itchy
Taking off gloves > having to scrape off the top layer of your skin with a knife because foam went all over the place
Too much sanding is just about enough
Measure twice cut once
Permanent mounting can only be done once
Fiberglass is itchy

Some pictures


The right side, you can see the gap in the sideskirt here.


An underside shot of the foam filling up inside the rear extension, I sanded down the foam so it all sits inside the extension and can not be seen from any angle outside the car.


My third attempt at fiberglassing the bumper to the body to make the whole rear smooth. This part is a huge pain in the butt as I have no experience with fiberglass work. Hopefully a buddy of mine will be able to make it out here this week to help me with this because right now I'm fresh out of ideas and running low on fiberglass.


The left sideskirt. Length wise this side fit fine but I still ended having to cut off both the front and the rear where it went up on the body because the angle was horrible.

what problems are you having with the fiberglass?
adhesion?

No, the problem I am having is because the bumper and rear quarter panel do not sit flush (the quarter panel sticks out maybe 4-5 mm farther than the bumper) I cannot get the fiberglass patch to sit flush and then fill in evenly. You can kind of see in that picture at the bottom of the bumper how when I get bumper smooth the quarter panel is down to bare metal. That causes the edge of the fiberglass patch that sit against the bumper to angle out. I tried to keep adding layers (I got to 3) but I got frustrated because the same thing kept happening.

Hey man looking good. if your out working on your car today me and em might be in omaha. Let me know.

Well first, the most exciting news...WE GOT SNOW . This is why I live in Nebraska.


Taken outside the warehouse, it's been snowing for a few hours and doesn't look to be stopping anytime soon.

Of course, I also have an update on the car. Both rear extensions and both sideskirts are now mounted in place and not going anywhere.


Passenger side. The rear extension has been molded on and I now have to wait for my dad to come and place a carbon fiber patch over the gap between the bumper and quarter panel and that will be all done. I also need to go get some more expanding foam to fill in the side skirt and then I can mold it to the body.


This is a picture of the foam inside the side skirt. This foam is solid and will hopefully make sure that the side skirt doesn't go anywhere or crack if I accidently rub it.


Driver's side. The rear extension is molded on here too, but again I am waiting to get more foam later on today to fill in the sideskirt before I mold it on.


The rear extension fiberglassed up before I sanded it down.


After sanding down the rear extension.

I also decided that I want to mold the front splitters. To avoid the problem of not being able to remove the bumper I am cutting the front splitters in line with the gap between the front bumper and fender. I will then mold the back part of the splitter to the fender and mold the front part to the bumper. I think that will look a lot better than having the rest of it molded and those just bolted on. I guess I'll find out.

This post has been edited by JonMarkos: Jan 15, 2007 - 4:57 AM

Looks good man, keep up the good work

I didn't get as much work done last night as I'd hoped. I got out there late due to watching adult swim and left early so I can go out to breakfast with my brother before he goes to work, but some work is better than none.


The top of the skirt fiberglassed to the inside of the door.


While waiting for the fiberglass to dry I decided to line up the rear of the sideskirt with the lip inside the wheel well, I thought it looked alot better.


After sanding it down. Dremel = best tool EVAH

The more work I do on her the more I can't wait to see her finished. Although I'm grateful right now to be driving a truck due to the snow yesterday, I miss her .