1985 svo rebuild (56k don't bother)

[plazma]

I'm not even sure what to say to start this thread. I've drag raced and daily drive this car for several years. I never went very extreme in the drag racing because I didn't want to give up the cars exception balance and handling. I did remove the sway bar and installed non-solid uppers and lowers. Mostly though the car was just fun to drive on the street.

On Christmas day years ago I was living in an apartment that I had just moved into here in FL when some jackass swiped the front of my car. It tore off the front plate and cracked the bumper cover. It took some paint off the front bumper but wasn't anything to serious. Not to long after that the paint on rear passenger fender well started to bubble and crack. Within a few months it cracked the paint in that area and the rust started to really show up. I painted it black and tried to stop the rust until I could get the area repaired.


This what the car looked like at this point.









It took awhile to find someone to paint the car. We did finally find a guy that i'd seen repair alot of cars and he was always quick and the cars always looked pretty good. (not perfect but good) I'd seen this guy because his shop was next to a friends and he was always onto a new job everytime I saw him. So I took the car to him and let him see it, he gave me a price and a time frame (2 weeks but being that he is a body/paint guy i figured 2x or 3x that time) so we made a deal. I needed to repair some things on the car and wanted to refresh the motor anyway so I pulled the motor and trans and we hauled the car over to him.
He worked on it and was making pretty good progress when he found the inner frame rail in the engine bay was rusted and needed repaired. Also found the hatch was rusted and since he had to blend into that area if I wanted to replace it now would be a good time and it would only cost a few hundred more. Well long story shortened up a bit after he found some problems that I never noticed and we decided to repaint the car completely as well as replacing the 2 front doors. He figured it would take about a month extra to scuff and paint the car. I came by several times and removed parts for him so his job would be easier.

At this point the car looked like this:
















Thing were moving along pretty well and the guy just up and disappears. I took about 3 weeks to finally get ahold of him and his story is he went up north and ended up getting into to trouble as well as his rig broke down and it would be a few weeks before he got back.
Fine not much I can do about it so it was on hold for two weeks. That isn't really a big deal because I have keys to the shop at this point and my car is just sleeping there. When he does come back he let me know he was going to get right back to work on it and should have it wrapped up in a couple of weeks. At this point he starts not really showing up to his shop regularly. He tells me he is there everyday just in the mornings and thats why I have not seen him. I can tell he isn't working on car because it looks the same as it had for weeks. We start not being about to catch each other. He stops taking most of my calls and his "wife" starts answering saying he is busy and will call me back. Finally after a few months of this bs and him being behind by alot I go to check on my car and find out the gate code is different and now the area my car is in has a different lock. With my superhuman xray powers I was able to look into this locked and area and see my car is sitting in the same place untouched as it was last time I saw it. I called and called and finally got ahold of him and wanted to know what the hold up was, he gave me several bs excuses. At this point I told him I was going to come get the car and wanted to know when would be the best time. He told me the time like 2 days later at 3 p.m... I got my brother in law to haul the car for me to his shop. I told him what time and we set it up. Called the painter that day and told him I would be there like we agreed and he told me that was fine he would be waiting for me and to bring money because he wanted to even up on the bill! I told him no problem I would bring cash with me
I know this guy is pretty flakey and want to make sure I can get my car. I call him at 2 and tell him I'm going to be there at 3 and to have my car ready (at this point i'm about 5 miles from his shop planning on being early) He tell me he is going to have to leave at about 2:50 so make sure i'm there a few minutes early. I told him to just hang out till 3 and I would be there for sure, he told me again he had to leave about ten minutes ealry but was getting all my stuff together while we were talking and making sure he didn't miss anything. As we are talking about him gathering parts I pull into his shop and low and behold he isn't there. I ask him again what he is working on and he gives me the same bs about my car. Obviously I have to ask him where because i'm at the shop and he isn't. At this point he hung up on me and ive never talked to him again.
When I got there I spoke with some other people and they told me he had not been to the shop all day. My car and all it parts had been sitting in the parking lot since the day before. Needless to say I wasn't to happy and then ontop of that alot parts weren't there. I used another one of my powers to find my parts that were inside of his shop and remove them. In the end this guy is a homo and I hope he has a long and painfull life. I've been by that shop a dozen times and never seen him or his truck there. Not sure if he closed up shop or what.

In the end it cost me more money then I should have given up front/middle and took over 6 months to do the month and half long job.

End part 1

[79 pace car]

nice svo, not many left around. good thing you had those powers . can't wait to see the progress

[plazma]

Well after getting the car back I had to find someone willing to take on a half done project. I spoke with a few people about it but wasn't able to get anything lined up to do what I wanted for a price that wasn't pretty high considering money already spent. Can't say I blame them but then again things weren't hurting nearly as bad a year ago as they are today. Might have been a different story now.

In the end a friend of mine agreed to do the work. Originally he didn't want to do it because he had other projects that were already waiting and he couldn't put me in the front of the line and be fair to them. After the way this whole thing worked John was able to move some things around and get to the car before some others. (thank god)
He let me know he would only be able to work on it in his spare time and it would take ahile. I didn't mind because I knew it would at least be done right and I wasn't going to left hung out to dry a second time.
John had told me for the car to be straight and last he was going to have to take it down to bare metal because he didn't know what work other people had done or the materials used. I think it is safe to say at this point neither of us had any clue about what kind of things he was going to find.
The original painter had the car skim coated and blocked out and was nearly ready to paint, so it couldn't be too bad. Yeah fucking right!

Here are a few pictures of the car getting all the old paint taken off it. There were several coats on it.

































You can see how much dust there is off the car. With so many layers of paint you can't really tell what is what. With the way he decided to paint it he took the whole car apart. When you remove everything that you can unbolt you really see what is underneath the surface. As he was removing fenders, doors, ect he found some problems.

Things like this started popping up.








Thing like this aren't good.







The worst thing is the more you dig the more you find. Seems like when you think you have it all found and taken care you run into even more bs. The bad thing is riding and driving in the car you couldn't tell any of these things were an issue. Here are a few pictures of things once they were really cleaned up and inspected.


This is the floor boards. Sad thing is in the earlier pictures with the factory sound deadner on the floor it looked just fine.












After finding issues with the frame rail he decided to remove the entire front suspension. This allowed him room to repair and inspect.












K Member bolts






Here is the repair starting to come together.
















After even more work John finds that behind the dash board there is still more rust to be delt with. He removed the dash assembly to find and repair this.










Finally after repair the frame rail,floorpan,rocker panel,upper dash and upper outer cowl and who even knows what else he was able to start getting the car ready to start looking good.

One of my favorite things he did was smooth the jams. It makes them easier to clean and really makes the car look good when you open the door to look or get in.

















Here are a few pictures of the car in primer















Finally here are a few with the first stages of paint. The car has not be sanded or buffed yet.



















Here are a few more pictures still not finished yet. No buffing or anything at this time. This time they were taken outside with a better camera.










These are the very most recent pictures of the car getting some suspension goodies to make it back into a roller. The car also is being sanded to get it ready for the final finish. I snapped a few more pictures of the jams since they were actually still shiney.





Maximum motorsports suspension with tokico d spec coil overs
























The brakes are mostly going to be upgraded to some 13 inch cobras along with some powder coated caliper and zinc washed rotors. I had how the brakes look all rusty and crappy while everything else is new and nice looking.
This car has along ways to go and will most likely be set up motor for road racing and street duty then drag racing. I'm pretty sick of waiting an hour to make a pass that takes a total of less then 60 second start to finish. Hoping to get the handling and power up to what I expect them to be and go rip around some corners at Sebring.
A big thanks goes to John and his dad for all the help! Thanks also to all my friends/family that have lent a hand at one point or another.
Let me know what you guys think and any ideas you have.

[Raz Racing]

Wow. That car had alot of rot for a fox body? I'm guessing it's a north eastern car?
I commend you for your perseverence wit this project. Looks like its been an uphill battle but you're doing a fantastic job. Keep us updated.

[79 pace car]

wow, car is looking good. must have been a northern car.

[svojohn]

A big thanks goes to John and his dad for all the help!

Your welcome. Hopefully you'll have it back soon.

[MiDiablo]

Great work SVOJohn! Keep up the progress and keep us updated Plazma!

[Stealth Mode]

cars lookin great man. rep 4 u mang

[Iraq&Roll]

Kudos for keeping at it and saving the SVO.

Too many people like me would have sent it down the road because of the cancer.

[460 TZILLA]

That is alot of nice work and effort to save a svo fox...bravo. Great pics and and allsome work detail....Hats off to you and your friends for a nice project..

[DarkHorse]

damn lookin good, i would love to c it make a pass

[Na306StAnG]

Always liked this car, Keep us updated!! She's looking good!

[**CHRIS**]

Very nice body/paint work svojohn.

[Hurstmeister]

That looks damn good man.

I love black.

Good luck with your project,.. I love it!


Hurst

[TurboRanger91]

lookin good, levi! wish i still lived there to give you a hand with it. she was always such a pretty car and now will be even better. nice job, man.