The body
A lot of work has gone into the body and chassis of the car. The car was build back in 1988 and as thus already has a whole life behind it.
I looked the body over before I bought it and knew where to look for the weak spots on this car (wheel arches, sills, etc.). But you just can't spot everything on a car with the sideskirts and interior still in place. But what I saw then wasn't all to bad.
When I started to dismantle the car I found a few rusty area's, but all in all, the body was pretty sound rust wise.
Rust is the big Achilles heel with these cars and I've seen some horror pictures of rotten through panels on various forums etc.
But when I really started to work on the body and chassis, some things didn't add up and I discovered that the car has had some damage somewhere in it's past.
It was professionally repaired, but you can't get a banged up front like that 100% straight again. And when you try to get some new body panels on there again, things start to go south.
But the damage it had sustained was more substantial than I first thought and couldn't be fixed with just some new panels. The chassis itself would need some work.
How I went about all that work can be read on these pages. You can get to the pages you want to read via the links below. There you can see all the pictures and read the whole story about what I've done.
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The dismantlement of the entire body.
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When working under the hood in the dark, it would be nice to have a little light under there.
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My first attempts on some repair work to the body.
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De auto had van zichzelf nog geen mistlampen. Daar was natuurlijk wel iets aan te doen.
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JDM Sprinter Trueno Zenki front bumper
The car got a new JDM Sprinter Trueno Zenki front bumper.
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I installed a automatically extending and retracting antenna.
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JDM Sprinter Trueno Kouki rear bumper
With a nice new JDM front bumper, the old rear bumper had to go as well.
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Hoodlifters are so much nicer than that ugly stick to keep the hood up.
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The car sustained some damage to the front in the past. The best way to get rid of that damage is to replace the entire front of the car from the firewall.
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In a effort to try and improve the stiffness and structural integrity of the body, I stitch welded all the panel seam of the body.
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To make working on the car a little easier, it was placed in a rotisserie.
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There was a lot of welding to be done when the plans for the car changed.
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There are things that couldn't be included in the other pages or that wouldn't have filled their own page.
So if you can't find it on the other body pages, it's probably on this page.