My '00 Facelift Corolla Sr Vvti

[Steven252]

Finally have the last workable item to finish the whole bodykit off. These are going to be cut to match the lowness off the front bumper, and the part that goes from the door to the rear arch will be raised again to match the front bumper lip.

Anyway a teaser picture ;)

The front bumpers got to come off to be repainted again as it wont polish up properally - due to it being sprayed outside. No biggy really as ill do it all in one hit :)

[Steven252]

Spent a couple of hours out in the sun today, got most of one sideskirt done before giving myself heat stroke :(

Anyway heres some pictures, bottom cut off

Test fitting to get gap right - 2.5cm here, but it was lower than the front, so gone for a 1mm gap

Revised gap fibreglassed in

I ordered fibreglass resin and matting tuesday this week and was hoping it would have turned up by now so ive run out now. Going to have to grab a expensive kit from halfrauds tomorro as i need to keep the progress going. Cars coming together now :D

Hopefully be finished tomorro night provided i dont keel over in the sun again :(

[PaulinhoT]

That looks really good Steven, well impressed with what you have done so far, and yes wasn't today lush.. sadly I was being dragged around Poole present shopping for my step daughter :( oh the joys lol..

I think the way you have squared off the bottoms of the skirts is 1000% times better than the oem fittment. It's really coming together now :)

[Steven252]

Thanks mate :) i know those joys all too often myself

No progress from there atm as i made myself ill from doing too much and needed some time away from the car/work/girlfriend so "chilled" the rest of my weekend and watched the F1 insted.

Went to halfrauds on lunch break today and they want £25 for a 500ml fibreglassing kit.... I can get a 1ltr "kit" (buying individually) with 3x's the amount of matting for half that price of the internet, so decided to order it online insted. Means i'll have to wait but gives me a bit more time to recover. I might have another crack at it next weekend depending on how i feel and what weather we have :)

[PaulinhoT]

Sounds like a plan, I've not seen the long term forecast, but I'm pretty sure it will be a nice day.

I agree with your comment about a certain high street car parts shop.. Every time I have taken my custom there way they haven't wanted to help, which is a shame. I now tend to use independants or shop online (if I can't get stuff through work).

[Steven252]

No progress bodywise am im still not feeling up to it, but i started fitting my audio :)

Got these for too cheep to refuse and there absolutely brand new ;) ill be getting rid of the orange on them (as i hate it) and spraying them the same colour of the car 3e5 super red, will look ubber cool then :D

There 12" 1800w and really punchy. Love having bass back in the car :)

[PaulinhoT]

Boom Boom ;)

Looking good, I thought about doing this, but my other 1/2 would moan about "where do I put my shopping" lol

[Steven252]

Funnily enough i sent a text to my other half containing that photo with "BOOM BOOM your cars now the shopping trolley xx" written underneath :D

Needless to say she wasnt impressed but thats the way its going to be :)

[Steven252]

Changed the drivers side engine mount this morning for a "good" used unit.... Which turned out to be more ****** than the original that came off it :( going to contact the seller on monday to see how i go about a replacement as it was sold as having "no play". Grrrrrr

[PaulinhoT]

I hate when you buy something that turns out to be duff :(

[Steven252]

Ive just rung them - fortunetly they work saturdays. They have said to return it back and they'll issue a refund as they dont have another one to replace it with. Hassle! They must have known it was shot as i knew it was as soon as i opened the packaging never mind even putting it on the car :(

Rung toyota for a price on a new one.... £156... Ouch.

Local motor factors can get hold of replacement refurbishing rubber kits for £56. so ive ordered one in and ill strip my original mount down as i have to use the original metal parts. Ah well gives me something to do when it comes

[Steven252]

Taken a video of how bad the new mount is just for a laugh.

Its supposed to be "mint with no play what so ever"

http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/qq7/steven252/750fb0e2.mp4

all im doing here is getting a mate to slowly release the clutch in 1st with the handbrake on, you can imagine what the cars like to drive with it this bad :( put the old one back on now!

[Steven252]

Some new photos - id tucked her away while helping a mate restore a mini for the day

I have 4 days off this weekend to finish the sideskirts and rear bumper off. Got everything here, just need to crack on with it :)

[PaulinhoT]

Cool, looks good, so we can expect a nice update next week :)

Hope the weather holds out for you, I've not decided if I will work Friday and Monday, I think I will as the money is always handy.

[Steven252]

Duplicate post

[Steven252]

Cheers paul. Im not working the friday but doing a 16 hour night shift on the sunday into monday afternoon to make up for it. The weather did hold out for me too :)

Right the sideskirts that i have been putting off for a long time, after a recent break up of my long term relationship amungst other things. I had lost interest in the car, and today i got back my spark for it again.

I started off by mounting the sideskirts to there position and then drilling the holes into the body for the screws to hold them on. Theres something really un nearving about taking a drill bit to the car but there was no other way

With that done i marked out the position of the edges that needed filling to match the bodylines of the car - for anyone looking to fit these sideskirts, the fit of them is shocking as you'll see below. I then took the sideskirts off and then masked below this line so not to get any filler on the body.

You can see how rubbish the fit is once i but them back on (might i add they were worse and ive felted them up to this point to try to reduce the gap to fill)

I then used a product called "chemical metal" to fill in the gaps. This is a really strong product once dry. (can repair metal granite etc with it!) you mix the two parts together and apply as you would body filler.

Once this set hard (10/15minutes) i pulled the skirts off the car

A quick sand down

I then put them on the car toake sure they were flush, which they were. The drivers side fits perfect now as does the passanger side but i had a little mishap with it basically the gap on the passanger side was too large to be filled and it cracked going back on :(

The bit that fell out :(

What im going to have to do is glue this piece back in, and then give it a layer of fibreglass underneath to give it some strength, then go back over the top with a skim of filler. Itll never crack again then :)

Thats as far as i got today as the wind picked up and it was absolutely freezing! Ill leave on this picture which is one of my favourites yet, looks as if its a rally car at service :D

[PaulinhoT]

Mate you are doing some top line work here, very impressed :)

This is going to be good, I can feel it. Love the photo of the car up on stands lol

[Steven252]

Mate you are doing some top line work here, very impressed :)

This is going to be good, I can feel it. Love the photo of the car up on stands lol

Once again thanks paul :) that picture is weirdly my most faviourte of the car atm. Ill have some nice progress photos when ive finished to go with the car

The funny thing about this sort of "work" im doing is.... Ive never fitted a fibreglass body kit, nor modified one, ever. This is the first one ive done and im just using my vastly bored brain to come up with ideas on how to resolve issues im having and how to stamp the car as my own. Im starting to think that im wasted as a van loader (most boring job in the world but pays well) for a major supermarket and thinking about packing it in to do something more... Well... Mind tasking and challanging to myself.

Theres been some progress today, didnt take many photos as its at the part where i seam to be doing loads of work but it doesnt look like ive done anything I gave up today as I got cold and was bored of looking at what seamed to be no real progress for the 3 hours i put in, that and the fact its friday and i fancy drowning myself in alcohol :D

Ive cut the drivers one and extended it down to the same points as the passanger side, fibreglassed both in and filled in the gap and holes on the front side. Not much left to do before i can prep them for paint now, just a tiny bit of fibreglassing to do - hopefully itll be warmer tomorro as it took ages to set today.

Maybe see some paint on my long weekend next week :)

[Steven252]

Been at the skirts today, finished fibreglassing them and given a skim of filler and preped for paint. Taken 8 hours to get to this stage :o

Just need to use a finishing putty to remove the HUGE amount of pin holes that is in the fibreglass as well the skirts are of a crap quality. Been an epic amount of work to sort them out :(

Would i ever fit fibreglass sideskirts again...... HELL NO

[Steven252]

Had an hour to waste on the car today, fancied cutting something up rather than sanding so pulled my straight finned grill out.

Plopped it on the car to get an idea of how it looked.

Then cut the toyota Badge out and filled the bottom ridge in

Does anybody have a scrap grill that i could possibly use to fill the slates in? If not ill think of a way to fibreglass it in :)

[bigshark]

nice work dude - the car is looking the nuts!!

I know exactly where you are coming from - i've resprayed my wing mirror and i am in the process of spraying my TRD spoiler using rattle cans and the prep that goes into it is just unreal! 90% prep and 10% spray i'd say... and like you im hugely enjoying doing all this and i have wondered why i didnt take this up ages ago?!

a quick question, when you were spraying the TTE spoiler, did you have any issues with blotches when spraying over such a large surface area?

[Steven252]

nice work dude - the car is looking the nuts!!

I know exactly where you are coming from - i've resprayed my wing mirror and i am in the process of spraying my TRD spoiler using rattle cans and the prep that goes into it is just unreal! 90% prep and 10% spray i'd say... and like you im hugely enjoying doing all this and i have wondered why i didnt take this up ages ago?!

a quick question, when you were spraying the TTE spoiler, did you have any issues with blotches when spraying over such a large surface area?

Thanks dude, ye the sanding can be a bit of a chore but i just do something else when i get bored ;) yep the prep work that goes into getting a good finish is unreal!

No ive had a fair bit of practice from previous cars/alloys that ive got pritty good with the spray cans. I use a double enamal acrylic paint purely as it suits my needs as it doesnt require a clear coat. Clear coat is so hard to do right with rattle cans, even more so when your not in a spray booth as temperature affects it really bad! The paint i use have the clear in them so it doesnt really require it (it would be better to clear coat it but i have never felt the need too and my finishes have always remained 100%)

The best thing i can suggest is to put loads of layers of paint on, then sand it back with 1200 then 1500 then 2000 wet sand paper. Once flat polish the shine back up. After this you need to give it a good coat of a hard wax to protect it. Both my bumper and spoiler look as good as the oem paint (in fact better as its new and not 12 years old!) and i know neither will fade or dull in time as the acrylic paint is very durable stuff and isnt affected by uv rays as much as water/2pac paints are.

[bigshark]

that is the sort of finish i want to achieve, it looks amazing!

spraying small objects such as my wing mirror and the two spoiler pillars was not too bad. the clear coat on my wing mirror came up sweet, really pleased with the result! i must;ve wasted 3x cans trying to get the paint righ on the spoiler, and that is just on the under-side and i just cant seem to get it right!

Where do you get the double enamal acrylic paint? like you, i do all my work in the garage and it is always cold in there (most probably the reason why the paint comes out blotchy!) and this paint sounds ideal!

[Steven252]

Hycote make it in 150ml tins and i usually get it of Amazon or eBay. Do a google search though as some times a website has loads of the colour you need and is shifting it off at a knocked down price. I know that 150ml cans dont sound much but they cover the same area as the 300ml cans.

Lit apply loads of coats avioding runs. Once dry you flat out the imperfections with the sand paper i posted before, then use a compound polish to shine it back up :)

[bigshark]

will order some this weekend!

top man!!