S2 Avant -93

[Antsa]

I used the 3M 08800 as a coating on top of a epoxy primer. After that, I used 3M urethane sealer on the body seams. If I recall corrctly, it took about 12 bags of the 08800 to do the underside and the wheel housings.

The sills are just painted since they will be covered inside plastic trim.

[YELL MAN]

Your rebuild is looking damn good. I am doing a but of a refresh on mine too although not quite as through.

Couple of questions if you don't mind,

Did you use the 3M 08800 as a seam sealer or just as a coating? I had thought to use it for both but maybe it would be better to use a mastic gun type for the seams?

How many bags of 3M 08800 did you need?

What are you doing with the sills? some sort of charcoal stonechip paint?

[Antsa]

Rear suspension also ready

These rubber rings that go between the rear strut and spring were past their best. So I got new ones. Weren't cheap for what they are.

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New springs and and shock absorbers

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[Antsa]

Some recent installs


Old wiper linkage out

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And new one in

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Rear brake line got the last part

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Procon-ten system also in its place



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Then it was time to refurb the shifter. New ball joint ant boot.


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[Antsa]

Well the clearcoat seems to harden ok, so no repainting needed. But I did buy a 5kw heater to my garage so that I can raise the temparature a little when painting again.


Yesterday the car was flow coated. And just when I thought this is all the paintwork done, I found door and headlight trims that are going to need paint


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Today I fitted bushings to the rear wishbones. Old upper arm bushes were worn out so I had to buy new ones.



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Done. Also all new bolts. I was missing a couple of washers so installing will have to wait a little. So satisfying to work with clean parts and new hardware after all the work that has been done.


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Replaced the rear sunroof drain pipes. Now I can extend the hose past the vent so no water enters the boot.


Old

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New


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Rear diff in. I forgot to send the rear carrier to the vapor blasters so it looks like this I think I can live with that.


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This hole under the rear seats has been bothering me for months. When car was laying on it's side I could not find a suitable chassis plug for it. Also the hole is a little odd size so I never even got to finding a general plug for it. Only today when I started the install the rear diff, it was all obvious. The hole meant for the diff lock actuator lines


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[Antsa]

Two days spent painting with some success and some setbacks. Rear bumper got a strange paint fry when I was sanding the first clearcoat, so it has to be completely painted again.



Here is my setup. Bumpers and boot lid have a wet on wet primer to make a solid foundation for basecoat.


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This is the bonnet after sanding and flow coating. The paint has quite a lot of dust in it, it's just really hard to capture in a picture. But it looks good nevertheless. It will be sanded once more and polished.


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I tried my best to capture how the dirt looks on the paint. This is the front bumper around the indicator hole.


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I was wondering why the first clearcoat felt a little soft while sanding, even though I gave it enough time to cure. (TDS says it takes between 12-16h and I gave it 24h). I have never measured the temperature inside the garage, since I never felt cold when working. Only after everyhing was done I thought that cold temperature might be the cause of the soft clearcoat. And this is what I measured. Way too cold for painting and I don't even have any heaters I could use. I will have to see if the clearcoat will ever cure to full hardness of if I have do every panel all over again. Really should have measured before, but here we are now


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[Antsa]

I actually need a couple of heated mirror glasses if you have them?

[rxl]

i have a few spare mirrors if you need

[Antsa]

Long time since the last post. I've been preparing the bumpers, mirrors and bonnet for painting. Now everything is ready and hopefully tomorrow they will have a fresh coat of paint.

I managed to break one of the mirrors motors while preparing them. The motor is attached to the base with two of these toothed bars with a ball at the other end.

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New ones can be bought but genuine items seems to be something like 100 euros. Since I didn't want to spend so much on a mirror motor, I got lucky and found this mirror base from an Audi A3 for only 30 euros, and it carries the motor with it.

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However the motor was not a direct swap, it needed these metallic studs to be changed over and the rear cover had to be taken from the old motor and modified.

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Then it was time to connect the motor to the existing wiring in the mirror. I used these crimp connections and covered them in a heat shrink tube.

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Here it is fitted. I tested with some leads from an old battery and everything works now


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[Antsa]

So the clearcoat has now been sanded and the car will now wait for flow coat until I get all the panels painted and clear coated the first time.



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Then I moved on to prepping the bonnet and boot lid. Rust had gotten under the seam sealer in places. I did my best removing it.

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Ready for etch primer, finally. Finding new rusted spots one after another has been frustrating since it feels I'm never going to get to the actual painting stage. But now everything looks promising



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Next these will receive sanding primer and then it is time to move to the bumpers. Hopefully the won't need any primer, just a quick scuff on the old paint before base coat.

[Antsa]

Yesterday evening I painted the car. My spraybooth got fresh and clean paper on the floor and a little additional light in a form of a led strip.


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Base coat


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And clearcoat


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Overall I'm quite happy how it turned out. Couple silicone holes and one run, but nothing that sanding and flow coating won't fix. Once that is done I'll have do the boot lid, bonnet and both bumpers. So a lot more painting related stuff to come

[Antsa]

Lately I've been sanding the primer and fixing some small issues that the surfaces had. After all sanding is done I have to a thorough cleaning for the garage to get rid of all the dust and dirt. This should help to keep the basecoat and clearcoat relatively dust free. It will not be perfect the first time and it will need sanding and flow coating, but I have to do my best to keep the dust away as much as possible.

My parts are ready at the vapor blasters and I should have them next week. Look how clean they are

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[Antsa]

Sanding primer was sprayed today. To keep the overspray from getting everywhere, I bought a small gazebo and set it up in my garage. I guess it's a poor man's spray booth now



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[Antsa]

Good work. I once did the same, and it made a difference.

Nice work

[Antsa]

Sound deadening install is now complete. Next I will have to sandblast a couple of small parts and give them a coat of etch primer. Then it is time to set up some kind of spray booth inside the garage and start spraying sanding primer



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