Hi chaps, this is our shop project for the next month or 2, its a Supra twin turbo, JSpec. I bought this car ~5 years ago as the first UK owner, before i was in the trade. I did your usual BPU (basic performance upgrade) mods to the car, so its running ~380bhp and 1.2 bar of boost, full blitz nur spec rx exhaust, double decat, fitted new UK Spec brakes all round and had it resprayed a gun metal colour by a very well know japanese tuning company, who i travelled down to take it too. Unfortunately this was a horror story, it went back twice for water bubbling under the paint and an all round very shoddy job, then to top it off it got broken into causing damage to the paint work on the door due to the glass smashing.......
So now looking with a trained eye quite a few years on, heres the list of faults with the paint work and why im doing a proper job on redoing it.
1. Bumpers and 90% of the trim were sprayed still on the car, leaving terrible cracked paint on removal and a whole bunch original of factory silver under them, and an all round sub standard finish.
2. Tons! of scratches under the paint and general defects blown over and scuffing under lacquer in places + runs!
3. Car isnt 6N0 Gun Metal as i requested, its *something* ,its a case of some sh*t thrown in a cup to bulk up the paint so they could do it on the cheap.
4. After break in i had door resprayed by same company, they blew directly over the chips without removing.
5. Paint is completely failing on front bumper and has been for several years
+ alot more, you wont believe how shoddy it is for the 2500 grand i paid at the time, and the reputation the said they had for doing good work in the jap scene.
***************
So, whats going to be done by us........well a complete glass out, dash out, resprayed and 90% bare metal strip down and refinish. All interior / exterior plastics refinished potentially recovered dash panels.
Things that need to be addressed, 1 dent on the rear arch, done by my old next door neighbour several years ago, even tho he later denied it to insurance. (swine!)
So heres as she is now......before the strip down, JUST LOOK at the match to the rear 1/4 to the drivers door......oh oh oh, not even the company who sprayed it could match the paint when the defects were corrected after the first spray, the price you pay for sh*t in a cup!.
So obviously all the crappy jap plates have got to go, all the badges holes will be filled and all badges / writing air brushed on........................
So, ive made a start in stripping it down, and ive had our local trusted guy take out all the glass, i started on the drivers side rear 1/4 as there was some rust in the rear filler cap area (there are a few areas on the car, but for 19years old its in great condition rust wise). Unfortunately, this has uncovered some bodging...........
FILLER in the 1/4 noooo, right where the rust is........dearo dear
So not the end of the world.........but it gets worse....
Yes thats right, thats filler all the bottom 1/4 and over the arch and all around the filler cap area......its all got to come off and we'll start over.
Now! heres the shocker, the line over the arch had completely been built out of filler, as i stripped the whole thing back to bare metal to uncover, what is a not too bad of a dent ,thats been pulled out etc i actually uncovered the original arch line. It had been completely covered up with filler, from what i can see for no good reason, as the area where the dent is, is acutally where the line end, going by the other side. There was over 1 cm depth of filler all over the 1/4 under the filler cap and over 70% of the arch, crazy........and very time consuming to remove.
Now i can hear some of you thinking.......if it visually looked ok, why the hell am i removing it?
1. Well heres the main reason the filler has been put direct to bare metal with no rust prevention, so this is the reason water had got under the filler area and various other areas and rusted. The bare metal areas before filling should always always be sealed off with an anti rust epoxy, as this is one of the few primers you can put filler direct to and will mean that the metal will be protected from damp from the off.
2. The passenger side arch line is ~60mm high, the drivers side ~40mm......if your looking for it you'll see it, and theres no need for it to be like this as the factory line on the drivers side is mostly spot on, it was just lost with filler.
Ok so im bored of filler / paint stripping for now, so ill take off some trim peices and start to pull out some of the dent on the passenger side 1/4
Access was a bit of a bugger, but i managed to get at it from the brake air ducts, its mostly out so it only needs a light filling now.
So next ill have a break from paint stripping, as i think it will be a all hands to the DA next week to get the car mostly to bare metal so i can seal it off ready for filling.
Next day and 4 hours later......front bumpers stripped off the car, the seats, all trims and the dash out........which is a pig of a job........
Just the nasty carpet to remove.....wash and then dye black.
I've also source a replacement rear bumper, without the crap import style fog light cut in to it, and ive stripped it back to bare plastic. I dont want any old paint, screwing up the job down the road.......
Now you can see the nasty paint failure on the front bumper......you can see they had a mare painting it, as that isnt the factory silver under it, that looks like its been attempted more than once to me.
Finally the 2JZ-GTE baby!, probably one of the best engines of its time ......obvious i have plans for tidying up the engine bay, but power wise she will have to stay on stock tubbies for now. The delivery on these engines is staggering, i took this too a supra specialist before it was BPU , he thought it may of been cammed already as he couldnt believe how quick she was when it was only running 0.9 bar of boost with all the cats in, so mechanically wise shes a good one ive been told.
More to follow!
So now looking with a trained eye quite a few years on, heres the list of faults with the paint work and why im doing a proper job on redoing it.
1. Bumpers and 90% of the trim were sprayed still on the car, leaving terrible cracked paint on removal and a whole bunch original of factory silver under them, and an all round sub standard finish.
2. Tons! of scratches under the paint and general defects blown over and scuffing under lacquer in places + runs!
3. Car isnt 6N0 Gun Metal as i requested, its *something* ,its a case of some sh*t thrown in a cup to bulk up the paint so they could do it on the cheap.
4. After break in i had door resprayed by same company, they blew directly over the chips without removing.
5. Paint is completely failing on front bumper and has been for several years
+ alot more, you wont believe how shoddy it is for the 2500 grand i paid at the time, and the reputation the said they had for doing good work in the jap scene.
***************
So, whats going to be done by us........well a complete glass out, dash out, resprayed and 90% bare metal strip down and refinish. All interior / exterior plastics refinished potentially recovered dash panels.
Things that need to be addressed, 1 dent on the rear arch, done by my old next door neighbour several years ago, even tho he later denied it to insurance. (swine!)
So heres as she is now......before the strip down, JUST LOOK at the match to the rear 1/4 to the drivers door......oh oh oh, not even the company who sprayed it could match the paint when the defects were corrected after the first spray, the price you pay for sh*t in a cup!.
So obviously all the crappy jap plates have got to go, all the badges holes will be filled and all badges / writing air brushed on........................
So, ive made a start in stripping it down, and ive had our local trusted guy take out all the glass, i started on the drivers side rear 1/4 as there was some rust in the rear filler cap area (there are a few areas on the car, but for 19years old its in great condition rust wise). Unfortunately, this has uncovered some bodging...........
FILLER in the 1/4 noooo, right where the rust is........dearo dear
So not the end of the world.........but it gets worse....
Yes thats right, thats filler all the bottom 1/4 and over the arch and all around the filler cap area......its all got to come off and we'll start over.
Now! heres the shocker, the line over the arch had completely been built out of filler, as i stripped the whole thing back to bare metal to uncover, what is a not too bad of a dent ,thats been pulled out etc i actually uncovered the original arch line. It had been completely covered up with filler, from what i can see for no good reason, as the area where the dent is, is acutally where the line end, going by the other side. There was over 1 cm depth of filler all over the 1/4 under the filler cap and over 70% of the arch, crazy........and very time consuming to remove.
Now i can hear some of you thinking.......if it visually looked ok, why the hell am i removing it?
1. Well heres the main reason the filler has been put direct to bare metal with no rust prevention, so this is the reason water had got under the filler area and various other areas and rusted. The bare metal areas before filling should always always be sealed off with an anti rust epoxy, as this is one of the few primers you can put filler direct to and will mean that the metal will be protected from damp from the off.
2. The passenger side arch line is ~60mm high, the drivers side ~40mm......if your looking for it you'll see it, and theres no need for it to be like this as the factory line on the drivers side is mostly spot on, it was just lost with filler.
Ok so im bored of filler / paint stripping for now, so ill take off some trim peices and start to pull out some of the dent on the passenger side 1/4
Access was a bit of a bugger, but i managed to get at it from the brake air ducts, its mostly out so it only needs a light filling now.
So next ill have a break from paint stripping, as i think it will be a all hands to the DA next week to get the car mostly to bare metal so i can seal it off ready for filling.
Next day and 4 hours later......front bumpers stripped off the car, the seats, all trims and the dash out........which is a pig of a job........
Just the nasty carpet to remove.....wash and then dye black.
I've also source a replacement rear bumper, without the crap import style fog light cut in to it, and ive stripped it back to bare plastic. I dont want any old paint, screwing up the job down the road.......
Now you can see the nasty paint failure on the front bumper......you can see they had a mare painting it, as that isnt the factory silver under it, that looks like its been attempted more than once to me.
Finally the 2JZ-GTE baby!, probably one of the best engines of its time ......obvious i have plans for tidying up the engine bay, but power wise she will have to stay on stock tubbies for now. The delivery on these engines is staggering, i took this too a supra specialist before it was BPU , he thought it may of been cammed already as he couldnt believe how quick she was when it was only running 0.9 bar of boost with all the cats in, so mechanically wise shes a good one ive been told.
More to follow!
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love Supras and the 2JZ GTE is an awesome engine!!
