So long overdue for an update. Lots of stuff has been going on, been working on a few different thing including
Changing this
to
it's actually the same color carpet, just the lighting has made it look different. A panel out of 4.5mm mdf was made and a spare boot carpet was sourced from HellBM which was then glue/tacked on and put into place. Not totally finished yet as it is only wedged in but that will be fixed this week.
Some new window washer piping was sourced from super cheap, the old stuff leaked and looks terrible in the engine bay. New clamps were put on and generally tidied up.
The exhaust was next on the list. One of the previous owners had welded on a couple of hideous end pipes and welded the bracked straight onto the exhaust. It was ugly and you couldnt remove it which was going to be an issue with the future work I needed to get done.
This
Went to this after dropping it off to the boys at Woolf Mufflers. new end pipes were added, a mounting bracket was formed and they sprayed it a matt black to clean it up. Well beyond expectation and really reasonable (I highly recommend these guys)
and
Because of a rust spot in the drivers foot well I had to remove the carpet, upon doing so I realised how messy it was. It was given a serious water blast which pulled up a pile of dirt and suds from a previous clean.
it was clean, but I wasnt really happy with the color, so i decided to dye it. After reading about on the net I found everything I needed to dye my carpet. Total cost for everything was around $27.
You will need two packs of Dylon black dye, table salt, a hard nylon brush, a mixing bowl, funnel, metal spoon (plastic will melt and deform), plastic gloves,a spray bottle and old clothes.
Half a pack of dye, a table spoon of salt and250-300ml of boiling water was mixed up and placed into a spray bottle.
and then applied to the carpet, I did it in three layers to build up the consistency of the color, After the initial application the carpet looked like this
and
It looks inconsistent as the dye hasnt reached into the carpet fully, this is were the brush comes in. Using a hard nylon brush you brush the carpet onlong the grain, this fully mixes the dye into the carpet.
After 3 coats, the color came out like this
After all that I gave it a wash and wax which made it look great but bought up a number of little imperfections in the paint work which I will have to deal with.
Additional things I have done but dont have photos of include
repainting the chrome trim, it was previously painted black but wasn't sealed properly so I taped up the car and did that, repainted the window wiper grills, installed e36 window switches (ill take photos and do a mini write up of this) fixed the idle on the car by cleaning the intake, replacing an oil return hose, replacing a dodgy ICV, changed the rego as the previous plates had been modified (ends cut off) and swapping out the cracked sun visors.
I am getting the rust cut out on Wednesday so hopefully I can put the carpet and sound deadening back in by this weekend.
Future list of things include
Fixing the lateral play on the shifter (anyone got any suggestions for this?)
Replacing the rear end bushings with urethane ones from the group buy
Sourcing two 3 inch lips for my bbs rims will have 2 inch on the front and 3 on the rear
Dropping the car down a little and replacing the shocks
Getting the interior recovered.
Sourcing two driver seat adjusters so I can replace my slightly mangled ones in atm
Rip the rear lights off, sand back and finish properly
Either take off the rear wing and repaint or remove completely
Install a second boot light
Finish painting my valve cover and install (and also get rid of the noisy lone tappet)
