Project "Good enough for who it's for"

you should throw an under hood shot in just for ***** and giggles. i'll never get tired of the sho engine compartment.

nice job, i replaced almost the whole front end of my explorer for under 200. and are those stock rims? and if so will they fit my 99?

Paint me!

So I talked with Monmix, and we chatted about pulling the metal, which I took into work and our mechanic helped me do- where we welded the little sticks on and pulled out as much as we could, but couldn't do much as it was right on the seam, so we filled in the rest.

Now, we're not professional body guys, and I'd have to say that the jellybean Taurus isn't an easy profile to work on, so I'm pretty happy with how I did.

We started here:



And got to here:







Now let's lay the first of the primer.



Here was my weapon of choice...



Then I feathered, sanded, and sprayed the entire quarter panel- with a spraycan. I was freaking OUT at this point. I loved this car, and I was hitting it with a spraybomb! Forge ahead!!!





Yes, ALWAYS maintain a clean workstation. (I do NOT advise this for dust control...



Ok. Primer is on. 4 coats. Looks good before sanding... Couple of high spots, but those will sand nicely.



I sanded with 320, and readied my spray gu... er, shook the can of Duplicolor black paint.

First spray:



Decent start. And the dust is on after it dried enough to dust off.
So I moved on, and laid down 4 more coats of black.

This is after coat #5:



Now to colorsand...
I'm using 800 grit and fresh Ice Mountin spring water.



Surprising how much swirl the camera flash picks up. It was actually quite smooth.



Now for the clearcoat.

More Duplicolor, standard issue clearcoat in the big can, because I'm using a LOT of it...

After 2 coats:



After 5 coats:



After the final coat, and after sitting overnight.



I'm feeling a LOT better by this point, as I know I can knock down the orange peel and buff it out. It's all good from here... <exhale deeply>

Next post will be the washing and buff-out...

Doubt Incarnate said:

you should throw an under hood shot in just for ***** and giggles. i'll never get tired of the sho engine compartment.

Click to expand...

For DI:

This is my old '97, it was a lot cleaner. I actually never got around to fully detailing the '99. As **** as I am about dirt, I never did.

removed stuff

It looks like it's coming out really nice. Keep up the good work.

thanks, thats awesome. i saw one at a pull&pay a few months ago, pretty much just stared at it for a while, lol.

Rub me out!

Ok, so now we've pulled, poked, prodded, primed, painted, and let the car bake outside for a week. Now it's time to make 'er shine.

First a nice wash:



...then the sanding starts.

***behold the power of the internet! In between this wash and the sanding, I moved 4 miles to a new house.

Anyway... First the 1000 grit.



Then on to 2000 grit sanding in ONE direction again- with more Ice Mountain spring water...



Then I pulled out the Meguiars G100, and the #83 compound, and started buffing.



After 3 applications of #83, I was left with this:





That's pretty f'n good in my book, so far...

So, on to have the windows tinted on the doors. If you're in the Grand Rapids or actually west of Lansing area- these guys are the bomb. They've done 9 cars for me now, I can't say enough about how good they are.



Back home the next evening, I hit with Meguiars #3 machine glaze, the after I ran out, a coat of #205 Ultra Polishing. Awesome stuff. I followed up with 2 coats of Meguiars NXT 2.0 Wax, and this is what I was left with:









So that's my story, and like I said- it was "Good enough for who it's for...."

Total bills:

(2) Doors and a mirror: $90.10
Tint: $42.40
Paint and sandpaper: $23.70
------------------------------
Total: $156.20


This was the last picture I took of my SHO before I sold it last week to one of the kids I coached in youth hockey a few years ago starting from when he was 8 until 13. THAT made me feel old...

That's great! I can't tell anything was done even with sunlight reflecting off of that area. You probably could have fixed the doors the same way like you fixed the rear panel.

Doubt Incarnate said:

thanks, thats awesome. i saw one at a pull&pay a few months ago, pretty much just stared at it for a while, lol.

Click to expand...

I was there. I've owned 9 of them now, and I lose money on every one. But I don't really care. The '89-'95's are raw fun, the '96 to '99's are refined luxury. I toss up a new Gen III ('96-'99 SHO) against any car in mass-production at the time. They're an awesome vehicle. I don't think I'll own any more as I now have a little guy at home...



...so I have some different priorities, but it was a hell of a ride all these years.

BrooklynBay said:

That's great! I can't tell anything was done even with sunlight reflecting off of that area. You probably could have fixed the doors the same way like you fixed the rear panel.

Click to expand...

It would have been too much work, and I needed new handles anyway- the signpost ran the whole side of the car, caving in the doors and beinding the leading lip of the rear door backwards. They were pretty bad off...



You can see the cave-in from this angle...



...and just how caved in the door was here



But I think it came out awesome. Couldn't be happier for a bunch of spray paint...

I was thinking that you could have swapped the glass to avoid having to tint the new windows. Did you save the old tinted windows?

BrooklynBay said:

I was thinking that you could have swapped the glass to avoid having to tint the new windows. Did you save the old tinted windows?

Click to expand...

Ah- I follow...

No, I was going to reuse them, but I was trying to get it done, and I figured I'd have messed it up somehow trying to extract the glass from the doors, and end up needing to get them re-done anyway. Plus, one of the doors had the worn dew wipe lines etched on them, so I figured it'd be a good time to replace it. I went for easy for the $40...

I took both doors back for the core deposits. A whopping $7 for both. Ha ha! (Figured into the price...)

I've never heard of a junkyard requesting your old doors back. Maybe the core charge is what they get for scrap metal value of their weight? You could have saved the glass from the old doors. I don't think the glass would have changed their core value (unless the yard wanted to sell the glass).

BrooklynBay said:

I've never heard of a junkyard requesting your old doors back. Maybe the core charge is what they get for scrap metal value of their weight? You could have saved the glass from the old doors. I don't think the glass would have changed their core value (unless the yard wanted to sell the glass).

Click to expand...

Yup- every part bought at a LKQ yard has a core charge up here. It's ridiculous. But yeah- it's all metal they "lose" I guess. I bought a plastic grille (the Limited grille I have for sale right now) and they charged me a $2 core charge. I had to argue with the guy about a $2 core charge to recover lost metal revenue on a plastic grille before he finally took it off. It was ridiculous, but I wasn't paying it.

I guess I didn't want to be bothered with trying to remove then reinstall the glass into the new doors... Plus, they would have b*****d about there not being glass. They even stamp the glass here so they know if it's the same glass you left with if you try to return with it. I don't much like LKQ, but it's a necessary evil now, as they've bought up nearly all of the west Michigan yards.

And here is a great Meguiars video showing the ultimate recovery...

AHHHH! You sold it!!!!!

Arghhhhh you should have kept her she was nice!

Nah- I had my fun with it. Now, one of the kids I coached for years can enjoy it as well now that he is driving. That's a win-win to me.

I won't depress you even more and tell what I sold it to him for...

Well since you killed me already, why not twist the knife around :