here we go, part 3. i didn't feel like waiting for a finished bumper for this. holy shit, can't stop taking pics of this car now (more at the end).
i drove another 100 miles and decided it was time to GET GOING. never had a more satisfying 2 weeks of work. let's see...
step 1: rust. this bash bar looked pretty bad. the rust was all structural, and it was so bad the license plate screw holes no longer had any thread, and the license plate light bracket was shaking when i drove the car. picked up a new bar and bumper, and got to work...
picked up a new bracket, painted it. on the right you can see the junk that came off the old one just from taking the lights off.
then came the exhaust hanger. this was not fun at all and killed 3 dremel wheels, but it actually worked. $80 worth of ebay later, and a lot of sanding, grinding, cutting, and really annoying angles with locking pliers because 3 out of 5 bolts were stripped...
painted the bash bar, reassembled, cleaned the trunk and the surrounding trim, here we are. i do need a new spare tire cover to support the carpet, but that's low priority.
coolant leak! got under the car and figured out why i had consistently needed to add coolant for the past few weeks.
this is not a good sealing surface for a thermostat housing gasket. previous owner slapped a ton of RTV on here and called it good. when i did the job earlier this year, i "cleaned" it off. that meant cleaning it off the housing, but not the mating surface, and not the RTV inside the depressions in the flange of the housing.
i got it, or at least i got it good enough. sealed much better. thermostat weep hole at the 12 o clock position!
what about the rest of the cooling system?
obvious rust residue inside the radiator. but it didn't take much flushing to get this out, coolant was all green, and i felt much better than when i drained it on page 1 of this thread.
coolant stuff back together! added one more washer to the power steering pump. now only the return hose leaks (because it's 30 years old and getting porous). i can live with that.
and then for my favorite part. as promised, now that i finished messing with the mechanical shit, i get to mess with the looks. i think it looked good before this, but i hated the wing, the ride height, the tire size and the way my tires audibly scraped around turns.
getting real close and personal with the bumper on the way to the wrap place
gotta do what you gotta do, with offbrand "Super Stable" coils. removed the bottom 2 spring collars on the front 2 shocks, dropped the springs all the way down. lowered the rear 2 springs. adjusted all other necessary crap to ensure i had sufficient shock travel and wasn't being dumb....
mocking up the skirts, which fit GREAT. the flanges just need some help. i'll heat them up and stick them on properly later.
i put the car back on the ground and my taillights wouldn't shut off. helpful people told me to check that the brake pedal switch was being actuated by the rubber stopper on the pedal, which it wasn't, because it wasn't there.
the actual worst job i've done working on the car, not kidding. i had to glue a rubber stopper on the backside of the top front facing part of the brake pedal, directly between the steering column and gas pedal. whatever.
the last and best step here was smaller tires.
215/40 and 205/40. best $300 i've spent on the car, it ended up significantly improving how it drives, lowering it to the actual height i wanted, completely erased any fender scraping, and they look great. i hit really nice backroads on the way back from a car meet, it'll sound dumb, but for coilovers i've never heard of, it drives great.
oh, and it looks great. need a tonneau cover!
sorry about my bad quality pics. haven't really mastered getting them uploaded. what do y'all think?