Resurrelica

Below are some pictures of the disassembly in preparation for painting.  I’m having it painted by students at a community college.  I wasn’t quite sure I wanted them pulling and yanking on things to remove them, and further, the risk of leaving out clips and screws when putting things back together.  I have no idea whether they would be lax about this or not, but to avoid the risk I’ve done the disassembly myself.  The professor said it would be fine.

The biggest job (and it wasn’t that big) was to remove the front bumper.  The tutorial here was an excellent source of confidence.  Many thanks to the guys that created it.  A friend of mine helped me do it last night.

The main reason for taking the bumper off is that it’s the only way to remove the headlight fixtures.  An issue I’ve had just about as long as I’ve had the car was that the rubber trim around the low-beams was no longer glued to the fixture.  It wouldn’t fall out, but it also didn’t quite stay in place.  I imagine that this is a common problem.

The only feasible way to repair that is to remove all dirt and such from the perimeter of the headlight and glue around the fixture again again.  I also wanted to fill a couple of rock pecks in the driver side low and high beam lenses, but I found that I can’t easily separate the lens from the fixture without breaking a seal.  So, I may just try to fix them from the outside if I do anything at all.

Also, the professor at the college said it might even make it easier to work on the bumper if it were removed.  So, I’m going to have it in sitting in the back when I drive it in.

Additionally, I’ve removed:

• projector fog lights (my own addition)
• front reflector lights
• front and rear windshield wipers
• cowl
• tail lights
• center brake light
• antenna
• spoiler
• Toyota emblems

The front bumper removed

No tail lights. The rear Toyota emblem is gone; it's just the glue left behind that's visible. And I've stuffed a white plastic bag where the middle brake light goes.

Yep, dirt under the spoiler

All the removed stuff for paint prep.

Oh, and that long cardboard box contains some raw fiberglass side skirts.  The college professor said it wouldn’t be a problem for them to trim, mount and paint those.

Not in these pictures, but I also went ahead and pressure washed the gunk away that they’d have to clean off anyway.

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Uncategorized by ddurham