engine and drivetrain the po man's restore

[rdeeble]

chapter one: wash the damn thing.

chapter two: replace all the trim that fell off over the years with ebay/faq purchases.

chapter three: degreased the engine till you could eat on it.

chapter four: painted the stock wheels with aluminum paint & replaced emblems.

chapter five: bought a carpet from esty - then realize my floor pan is rusted out. bought a dash cover to hide dash cracks, shoe glued vinyl rips in seats and headliner

chapter six: ordered a bunch of missing nick nacks... door latch rubber, brake and clutch pedal covers, visor latches.

chapter seven: got those dingy pink brake & run lights working - Cleaned all contacts. replaced thermal flasher with electric, put in red LEDs on brake and run lights (full spectrum so they light up more of the lense). Sprayed light housing silver and glued mirror sheets to better pop the whole lens.

chapter eight: cleaned dome and door sensor contacts. Got the dome light working correctly (passenger door still is a bit iffy). Neighbors think im a bit nutty opening and closing the doors constantly at night. Fixed wipers, installed vdo bottle, cleaned out the squirters and bam! its like a frigin water pistol.

chapter nine: took out instrument cluster, cleaned it, getting new bulbs from a friend, getting new speedo cable from Blunt, and dreaming up some new possibilities for the fake lame wood panel bmw resorted to on late models.

chapter ten: redid trunk. cleaned it top to bottom. found a ton of water in the spare tire well drilled a single hole to keep it from rusting. Took out trunk boards and recovered them with new vinyl on clearance at craft store. Found a big rust bubble under rear window where the rubber shrunk exposing metal - caulked it with black silicone.

chapter eleven: (my amps go to eleven) found another 76' with an almost rustless core garaged in salem on ebay for $530. Repeat chapters 1-10

[MarkDavis]

Every restoration thread should have pictures. Lets see them

Mark

[Guest Anonymous]

chapter eleven = Bankruptcy ;-) Fittingly...

Yes, pictures please !

[poonker]

"shoe glued vinyl rips in seats and headliner "

Can you elaberate more on how you did that?

[THE1ST3]

Great post!

[HarryPR]

We are terrible readers here, so....

[ArdenK]

chapter eleven = Bankruptcy ;-)

Please keep in mind.

You can't drive your house BUT you Can sleep in your car!

:-P

[rdeeble]

ha! pictures coming... let me get that instrument panel back in first.

as to elaborating on the shoe glue question... nothing fancy just goo'd the tears back together to keep it from getting worse. -rd