Belgian AW11 - full nut and bolt restauration

I have another awesome update!

The first part in dark blue pearl (8E3) is a fact! We sprayed the frunk ourselves ... because, well, it's a frunk.
We'll also be painting the trunk and the engine compartements by ourselves. Maybe some other non-visible parts as well.
The exterior of the car will go to a bodyshop.

This is the first time I saw the colour in good condition in person. I have seen a really faded car in 8E3 and I saw many pictures of it and it seemed a super nice colour.
Now I have seen it in person I'm so happy I went with it. No picture can capture how nice it is. It's a dark blue in the shadow, but when it gets some light, it comes to life in an amazing way!

Anyway, here's some pics:

DECEMBER
update time!

Now that the frunk is done, we also cleaned the engine compartment. What a job! Routex was royaly sprayed at the bottom of the car, and a big chunck of it got in the engine compartment. After cleaning and sanding we put on a nice primer. After sanding the primer the engine bay got a lick of paint.




Also some other small parts got some colour. For example the mirrors, but also other little bits and bobs. The piece of sideskirt wasn't done well enough, so has been sanded back and will be resprayed.




We also put a guiding coat on the body of the car and started sanding the primer down.

JANUARI

The entire body of the car is thight! A guiding coat was applied and everything has been sanded smooth. The body itself is ready for the painter. We will not be doing this inhouse.





So now it's just all loose parts. The end of sanding is near! Did you guys know that an AW11 has 35 parts that need painting? I DO!
What's not included in these 35 parts are these lines that we painted anyway, just to be thourough.

And now for something extra

My father is figuring out the answer for a problem many AW11 owners have. The sidestrips are nowhere to be found in fantastic condition, so my father decided to just go and reproduce some.

He invented a tool to cut the lines at the exact right spot. So first he puts tape on the entire strip, than stripes will be cut and painted. He removes all the tape (this stage is what you see in the pictures). After this he will paint over the entire backside in the bodycolour of the car. So all the colour is on the backside of a transparant strip, just as the original.
The latest step is rounding the strip. We tried this a while back and found a way to do that.
We're testing different materials to check what works best. More info will follow.





This is an old picture of the first time we tried rounding the strips. We did a better job later on, but I have no pictures.


Furthermore I got some goodies in the mail. I bought a set of the limited production keychains from SeanMRTwo for our family. I couldn't pass this up because the colours matched our cars to well. I will have a blue one, my father has a white-silver one, my sister has a white one and my brother in law has a green-golden AW11.




And finaly, I couldn't withold these pictures.
TWO MR2's are being restaured at our shop. In the background you probably noticed the white AW11 of Stefan, a friend of the family. This is the car that will recieve the red 4AGE that you saw next to my yellow one. Well, this white MR2 has just been painted and it looks awesome. Rebuilding can begin.

FEBRUARI-MARCH

Even more sanding, but it's almost over, I swear!
On april 1st the car goes to the paintshop, so that's something to look forward to!

The engine-lid is fully sanded. The stickers were a real pain in the backside to remove.
The caps next to the lid are also ready for some paint.



Some elbow grease went in the fenders and the doors also.




Some smaller pieces got some attention. fuellid, the top of the pop-ups and the piece before it, ...



Finaly, the bumpers. We've been putting of prepping these because ... well, because they're plastic, and that makes it harder to work on than metal.
But they're done and that's what counts.

MARCH/APRIL
This is a big one! The car has been at the painter and is now blue!
The pictures will tell the story about what happened, all in order offcourse.

The AW11 is now on a custom made cart. It has been attached using bolt-on points that are present on the car itself. The car is ready to be transported.




Ready for take off. The weather was bad though.



At our arrival we took off all the big pieces of the car, and put it ready for paint. The result is awesome!




The car went in too.










And when all was done ... we went back home.

APRIL - continued

Once the car was back home, we immediatly started with greasing al the parts your hands can't reach. We used Dynax S50 for this. A British anti-rust product.


So then the reassembly could begin. Cables, piping, electronics, radiator, ...








In the meantime I've been cleaning the bottom. Piece by piece because this job sucks and after a few hours you really don't want to go on anymore.


There's also progress on the outside. The back window and the small side windows are in (kinda) and the T-tops have been fitted. We have nicer T-tops, but we'll have to switch the blue and black plastics. The headliner is also in.







And when I'm at home, I just go on. Cleaning plastics and stuff.

This was how she looked at the end of the month.

MAY pt1

We started putting in the dash. Sadly enough there's a small tear in the corner. We've been looking, but it is the nicest dash that's available in the vicinity.




The elastic of the glove box was worn (as I believe it is in every AW11 by now). After a short inspection we came to the conclusion it's the exact same elastic that's used in clothing. So went to a tailor and bought 2cm wide elastics and fixed it up nicely. Really guys, don't buy an expensive 'refurbishing kit'. This costed me less than €2.




Seatbelts and more cabling



The previous owner has done a hideous crime! He chopped this hole (not even round) to put this ugly button on the centre console. That is ofcourse a No-go, so I found this temporary solution. I have this period correct, old school toyota pin that covers the hole nicely. I'll 3D-print a holder for it that fits in this stupid hole. It will not be perfect, but a lot better!
We're thinking of doing a road trip to Neil Jones in the UK when the car is done. Once there, I hope to replace all the imperfect pieces with decent parts. They're nowhere to be found in Belgium.



We have discovered that the floormats of an AW11a and an AW11b are different. We have both a's and b's in the shop, but we never noticed. While looking for the best mats we had laying around we came to the following conclusion:
The AW11a has floormats in the same fabric as the mat against the back wall. Also it has a hole in the place of the dead pedal. The dead pedal is a plastic piece that is screwed on to the chassis.
The AW11b has floormats in a different fabric. There is no hole, because there is a rubber piece in the shape of the dead pedal that comes on top of the dead pedal shaped by the chassis.
The mats have been brushed, vacuumd and steamed.

MAY pt2

The wheelwells and the bottom are sprayed with an underbody protector. Once the car comes of the cart, it'll get another coat.




I've cleaned the doorwindows. Unfortunately there's a lot of scratches on the drivers side window. We're looking for a better example, but these are not easy to find. The passanger-side window is in. We totaly forgot that we needed a powersource to make them go up and down, because we're used to roll-down windows. Easy fix though because my dad had the right tool.



Shortly after the window install, we allready regretted it. The doorhandles would've gone in much more easy without the glass.
The passenger side door had a lock of a different car, so we needed 2 keys. We didn't have that key, and I don't want 2 keys for this car anyway, so down another rabbithole we went.
We opened this cilinder + the cilinders of 3 Corolla's we had laying around. All the plates were taken out and we started puzzling. In the end we found the correct code for the MR2, and we only had to file down one plate very lightly. The key works like a charm now.



The steering column is also in it's place. She's starting to look like a car again!
Once again, we acted a bit quickly here, because we want to replace the sportpedals with normal pedals, and a bit more room would've been nice.


YOUR OPPINION PLEASE!
I also started cleaning my doorcards (first pic). I am not sure what to do with them however. Do I keep them as is, or do I get them retrimmed? Will they clash with my seats?
I would like to retrim seats. I have a set of red tipped seats and I would love them to be yellow-tipped as in the picture below (seats in picture are not mine, found on internet). I would also like the retrim to be in leather.
What do you guy's think?

• retrim the the doorcards or not?
• seats in leather or in cloth?