Paint went on today. Had an issue that caused me several delays til I figured it out, but got it all laid out.

Its not perfect and I'll have to buff at least a few areas out. Got a few specs of dirt and had a damn bug land in the spoiler on the last coat of clear, but all in all I am happy. I need to fix the center reverse panel because I got a weird reaction, but I'll get it.

 

About 90% back together

 

Finally "done" with the car. I've had it together and driving it again for a few days, but just been really busy.





One of the (many) projects that kept me busy too was I promised my mom I'd clean up her range hood. It was looking rough before. The paint almost looked like it had paint stripped applied



After some clean up and sanding



Next project will probably be giving the DD Lancer GTS some attention.

 

[QUOTE=stealthee;4277264]Finally "done" with the car. I've had it together and driving it again for a few days, but just been really busy.




Good job man, she looks beautiful! I love the colour,
definitely one good looking 3000Gt!

 

My quarantine project yesterday was... testing my suspension and learning to go faster

Cooldown time

 

It sounded like fun. I am glad to hear you like your new suspension and hopefully, finding the right tire pressure was not too difficult with the heat.

 

That does sound like fun. I'd love to take one of my cars to the track one day...

 

It was a lot of fun! i just ran 35psi on the re71s and it felt great all day. You def should give it a go icrap, it's a great time and you learn what your car can do.

 

New old car! Of course this is taking allllll of my quarentine time to get it back to OEM+ spec. It's the same one I learned to drive in 14yrs ago. 235k on the engine, got it from my Dad who's philosophy is "if it ain't broke don't fix it". I am of the opposite mind, "Preventative Maintenance will save your *** 500mi from nowhereville".

The G is getting new parking brake shoes sometime mext week. Needs to pass safety (what dummy sets the standard at "parking brake prevents car from moving at 2000rpm in 1st and reverse gear"). Its a parking brake! 0rpm in no gear is how it's designed to work!

 

My project was getting the car to the dyno, got the ecutek, ARK exhaust, High flow cats, and with the (K&N) filters got 322 at the tire, (AWD). Now I just installed the Stillen stage 3 cold air, and it feels WAY better !!! Will wait for the throttle bodies and upper and lower intake manifolds upgrades !!

Can't wait to get that done, to remap and see what's the total gain

 

PS it's a sedan, and it feels good to run big cars with a family car LOL !

 

Haven't really done much with the 3000 because its been so damn hot, and it looks good regardless of what I need to do to "finish" it. I gathered a bunch of parts though to do some work on the DD Lancer.

List of things I'm doing:

1. Oil/Filter Change
2. Coolant drain, flush, and refill.
3. Brake fluid flush
4. Clean up and paint calipers, brackets, etc
5. New pads and rotors
6. Go over wheels to find and "fix" a bend or two, touch up paint, etcn
7. Go over suspension, wheel bearings, etc checking for worn parts

Most everything should be good. Car only has 86k miles, but the cause of the bent wheel may have also damaged the rear wheel bearing, so I figure I'll go over everything and make sure it is all good to go. Hoping to get the majority of it done tomorrow, but we will see how motivated I can stay with the sun and heat. I thought about pulling the car under the tree beside the house, but I don't know if I want it sitting on 4 jack stands there.

 

Low budget paint job;

 

Started on my list the other day, but I ran into a few problems when doing the rear brakes. The Lancer has an internal drum parking brake set up. Apparently it becomes an issue on them and I had a heck of a time getting the rear rotors off. It was trying to pull the parking brake shoes with it, even though I loosened the adjuster. I finally got enough force to get the rotors off using pry bars, but it pulled a locater pin through the backing plate on both sides.

I went ahead and ordered new shoes and parking brake hardware and just threw the rotors on until it came in. I did manage to got the coolant completely flushed and refilled, flushed the entire brake system, did an oil change, got the front brakes done and cleaned up and painted the calipers and brackets.

Started on the ebrake replacement today. The hardware kit left me a little befuddled. Before today I had never seen a locater pin without a slot like a straight head screwdriver would fit in. It literally had a 7 stamped on it and that was it. How the heck are you supposed to spin it to lock it in place? I "fixed" the backing plate enough hold the pin, then I ran into another issue. The shoe wasn't drilled properly for the pin to hook the ebrake bracket to, the hole wasn't big enough. I drilled the hole slightly larger for the pin to fit and I found out the pin long enough. It was about 1/4" too short. I'd never get the horsehoe clip on it.

Frustrated and just wanting to get done I decided to put the old shoes back on since they were still okay. Only reason I was going to change them was because I was doing everything else. Since the other pins were useless I used my old pins, and then I found yet another fun thing. The springs in the kit for the pin were longer than the oem ones. Its a spring, not a big deal right? Wrong, not only was it longer, but it was MUCH stronger. You couldn't get enough force on it to get the pin into the slot to lock it in place, so I also had to reuse my old pin springs. After all of that and wrestling the shoes and spring assembly into place I got the passenger side done.

I was irritated with all the issues and just called it a day. Tomorrow I'll get the drivers side hardware changed out and I think the only thing left from the list should be touching up the wheels and a detail.

 

Gave up for the interim on foglights and painting the headlights - needed to drive the darn car. Put the front bumper cover back on last night and took it for a drive to charge the battery.

WOW I've missed driving this car. My wife's CX5 is awesomely capable and handles decently for what it is but... just wow.

I know I didn't get the little bolt in the corner above the headlight back in - didn't even try. How the hell do you get that sucker back in there?
I also feel like there is another 10mm non-flanged bolt that goes somewhere that I missed... since I have 4 of them left.