It wouldn't be so bad if it was my project... but alas, it isn't... it is just one of the many cars my brother picked up to flip. He's out of town for another week or so, so I was gonna be cool and get it all done for him. Merry Christmas. Little did I know just how jacked up this thing was.

Make a list. One step at a time. You'll be pretty impressed with yourself once you actually start knocking things off of the list. The engine swap is actually going to be one of the more easy things you do. I always find the interior work to be the biggest pain the ass.

 

^Huh? Interior stuff is my favorite stuff to do. Doesn't get me all sweaty and I can take my sweet time with it.

 

I hear what you saying Phil. Its not that its hard to do interior work, its just hard to make it look "right".

And David, you have a point too. Give me interior work, like changing out a seat or stereo over the knuckle dragging wrenching under the hood or chassis any day. Of course if you have an A/C'd garage its all good.

-Royce

 

Here is what I've been up to today...


Above is what I'm starting with, a half finished painted engine bay thats devoid of harness.

So, next I removed the hood, bumper, and fenders...along with the flip light assembles:



I used Simple Green and 3m Scotch Brite to prep the bay for paint.

A closer look @ the battery tray revealed some serious rust but this isnt an issue since I run a rear mounted battery. When the motor is dropped in I'll want to have the spot opened up for a cold air intake eventually. I also run a shortram right now so The rotting tray has gotta go...



Now with the cut made I'll need to finish up the edges with a die-grinder or something along that line. I might pumb some sort of duct work from the front vents to the opening...but thats a project for later.




I'll post up some comparison photos of the passenger side front end difference/damage between Jane and the blue hatch. Tomorrow I snap some from the same angle so you can understand part of the reason why I'm doing the swap to the Jane shell.


More updates soon.

-Royce


PS,

If you know of anyone that needs some brown/tan interior let me know. I'll be selling some of the cheap soon.

 

Still feeling in the holiday spirit I thought it might be interesting to wrap one more gift. So i taped off the car with the only decent paper I had laying around...





And progress...





End...



I know its not perfect, but I wasnt going to spend a ton of $ on this part of the build anyway. I think its about as good a engine bay painting that a $300 shell deserves.

My friend Gary had the spray gun and offered up his compressor as well. I touched up a few spots that I couldnt seem to get to with the gun by using a rattle can. All in all its a big improvement from what it started out as. On to the swap!!

-Royce

 

i was going to buy that shell for a friend of mine, but decided not to because of the condition it was in (he wanted to daily it). but from what it looks like your getting off on the right foot, making progress.

 

For sure Pollo...if this was something you were just going to jump into and put on the street I cant blame you and your friend for staying away. In my case i'm taking 2 and making one. That gives me the chance to see which parts are best and use them for my daily. The rest will go into a semi-rolling shell that I plan to either sell as a cheap drift missile or use it as a weekend play toy for myself.

My next step is to pull a very ugly brown dash and swap in my own once I repair the cracks. I'm not sure if I can run my car without a dash or not while I'm repairing it. I'll put this question out in the technical section too. But feel free to drop a line here if you know?

-Royce

 

You can drive it without a dash. It'll feel sketchy and look very ghetto and trashy, but if you must then there's no reason why not

 

hmmm... a warm day. Might be enough light to squeeze out my dash this evening. We'll see.

-Royce

 

Dash Pulling progress...

Pulling the brown dash out of the "new" shell for disposal....


The black dahs on its way out for repairs from the "old" hatch...








As the blue daily sits now..."wrapped up" until I get the dash cracks address for installation int othe new shell...




More to come as I set off to repair those typical cracks.

-Royce