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I think you got lucky, little further back and you would have been here stripping the interior to remove the soft top rear moulding to repaint/blendthe quarter with a new door
Do you plan on replacing the driver side headlight with a brand new one
I wish I could. But at almost $800 it's not in the cards right now. I paid out of pocket to have the rear wheel refinished with the accident-damaged front one. It had a bit of minor curb rash. And the hood touchup is out of pocket too. I am going to have to make do with having the left headlight polished and hope it matches pretty closely. It's barely got some clouding on the top part of the lens, not bad.
have you consider having 3M Clear Bra or Expel applied to the front?
I have. Considered it, I mean. I have no idea off the top of my head where to get that done around here, or how much. (I'm lucky to get a screen protector on myself without bubbles). A fellow member of the "Old Guyz with Convertiblez" (who are returning today from their bourbon trail run that I had to skip out on (another $500 down the drain), given that my car had only three wheels at the time) has one on his XK8. It might be clear, but you can still see it. At least the edges.
Ever thought of running dedicated summer performance tires? not trying to bash, just curious why the all season tires?
Yep. Sure have. Seeing as the car is stored from November to at least March if not later (depending on the weather) I don't need all seasons. As to why, thats what the dealer had put on it when I bought it three years ago. They were new, and I couldn't see throwing away new tires and buy new. Either this year or next spring when it comes out of winter hibernation there will be a new set of tires in the works.
(probably Firestone Indy 500 because they are good, and cheap). Tires are huge with this car.
Why not the S04s? Those seem to be the top of the line, and pretty well recommended. The plan was to get through this year (lots of unexpected expenses already this year) and replace the tires in the spring.
little further back and you would have been here stripping the interior
I don't envy you. I've been telling myself the last three weeks that I got off lucky. It could have been a whole lot worse.
You did all that work yourself? I'm impressed. I don't have that kind of skill or talent. That's why I took it where I took it. To a small body shop, where the guy who owns it does the work, and takes the time and care to make sure it's done right.
It should be ready to pick up sometime the first of the week.
I picked up my car the other day. At first glance in their shop I thought there was an awful lot of texture in the new paint. But in retrospect maybe it isn't any worse than the the original areas.... (ignore the fast that it was raining out)
Newly painted fender:
Fender and original hood:
I took it in this morning to check the alignment, even though the body shop had aligned it. Glad I did, it was apparently off:
Now all I have to do is resist the urge to wax it for the next three months. But I need to do something to get the water spots out from driving in the rain today. Any suggestions that won't mess up the new paint curing?
Oh, and while they managed to save the bumper cover, they painted over the VIN tag, so I guess I lost two
A good paint job is worth the effort! Or in my case worth the expense.
Earlier this month I had the thousand stone chips removed from my front bumper cover by a local paint and body shop. They removed the complete bumper cover from the car, removed all the scoop covers and grill fittings, and sanded it all down to Baby-Bottom-Smooth(tm) before painting. Even though the owner told me they would not paint over the VIN tag I personally taped over it and wrote "Do Not Paint" in the tape. Didn't leave that to chance. They also installed the NOS OEM Honda front spoiler I still had in the original box since 2015 when I declined to mount it myself because of all the stone chips.
Paint on plastic rarely perfectly matches paint on metal even from the factory but this looks good to me. Also freed up a lot of storage space in my shed where the boxed front spoiler had resided for 4 years. Not a 100-Point restoration. The repaint matches the factory painted body and OEM spoiler to my satisfaction. Will do this again as necessary.
04-17-2019, 01:18 PM
I almost said blinker fluid
