In the last 7 years, the condition of the body and paint
on my car have gone downhill, so to
speak. I guess it all started when my sister rear ended some guy when I was a
freshman at college and didn't have my car, and got worse when I brought my car
to LA, didn't wash it, and the paint started to fall off. Here are some nice
detailed shots of my dented up bumper and fender:
Not so pretty. The truck tire I hit that took out one of my driving lights made
that dent in the hood and cracked the grille.
Recently, a guy in the Valley was parting out a turbo legacy and I decided to
grab the bumper and grille. Here are some pictures of that:
The whole bumper and fenders all come off together with little hassle. Looking
back on it I probably should have taken both fenders instead of just the
passenger side. And the closed deck 2.2 turbo, ecu, and wiring harness.
So anyway, all that left was to take my fenders and bumpers off and put the new
ones back on, and hope that the rest of my chassis was straight enough for all
the bolt holes to line up.
Beep Beep
New vs. Old:
yeah that's where that goes I think:
I was worried these bolts wouldn't line up, and they did, so yay for me:
I found it was best to bolt the fenders to
the bumper first, because the two bolts that attach them are hard to
reach when stuff is on the car:
Alright all done mostly. There are 4 bolts along the top of the fender, two
under the door, two behind the door, and those two in the previous image. Then
four big bolts attach the bumper to the chassis.
Then all that was left was to put the headlights, battery, and grille back in
place.
Unfortunately it seems the grill radiator support/light mounting part is bent a
bit. Plus my grille, headlight, and turn signal are messed up anyway, so I had
to use tape to hold things together for now.
I'll buy a new turn signal, headlight and grill, and try to hammer the support a
little more back into place, and all should be well.
I'm thinking I should just go ahead and buy a bunch of randomly colored doors
and body panels now. It can be like that multi-colored VW golf they made, except
crappier.
Now I just need to make some sort of a light bar for my driving lights, because
I don't really want to dremel holes into my nice new turbo bumper cover. I
suppose some paint would be nice too.