All the relays, wiring, pedal box, etc. were removed. The bay was scraped and sprayed with flat black paint. The components were electrically checked and reinstalled. In retrospect, this was not the best choice. It's almost impossible to prevent overspray (when painting the body) from entering the engine bay and depositing a thin layer of paint on everything. By this time I was ready to take on a bigger job and I was getting rather depressed looking at this filthy old thing in my garage. (It was too much work to look at!) So I purchased a used workshop manual from someone on the net and proceeded to pull the chassis. As I remember, the manual does not show all the connection points holding the chassis to the body. Be sure to remove the seat belts and the two bolts by the gas tank (bolted to the strut towers.) After removing ALL the bolts I raised the body up slowly about 1 inch front to back so it didn't twist too badly. The rear strut towers have to clear the underside of the boot compartment. I removed the rear tires and lowered the suspension on to small dollies to increase the clearance. Somewhat unnerving to see the body raised that high only supported by cement blocks. Rolled chassis out. Lowered body and placed on dollies. Rolled body out AND COVERED. Too much work to look . I rolled the chassis back in and started on that. I rolled the body in and removed the bumpers and all trim, lights etc. I then sent the bumpers out to be rechromed. On the positive side, (other than the bonnet) she had only two real cracks that required repair with resin and matting: both were about 1" to 2" long in the wheel arches. I repaired these with fiberglass and resin but still had millions (no exaggeration) of small pin holes and numerous spiderwebs. I used the orange body filler from Walmart to fill these in. It dries quickly and easy to sand. I know this isn't the accepted method of repair but after four months the cracks haven't bleed through. No complaints so far. Next I applied several coats of epoxy primer. If the surface still wasn't smooth I put on more filler than reprimed. Sounds easy but took about a month and a half to get the car patched and smooth. The initial sanding to remove old paint was minimal since she still had on her original paint. Appeared to be part of the gelcoat. Certainly wasn't flaking off. Decided to paint the roof silver and main body red. A silver roof is not quite correct for a Plus 2 but was what I wanted at the time. Sprayed the roof first. Came out quite nice, metallic paint can sometimes be difficult to get right. Let the roof dry for several days, masked off and proceeded to spray the front half of car. Waited several more days and sprayed the rear half. Installed rechromed bumpers, moldings, lights and new gas cap. The rear bumper was rusted badly and needed to be repaired. The bumper should have a slight curve but when it was returned it had been straightened about 3/8" on each side. I made it fit but required redrilling several holes. Not sure how they did that... Sprayed the boot, bonnet and doors separately. The bonnet was badly cracked in several places and needed extensive refiberglassing. Removed the fuel tank. Someone had deposited several cups of sand and gravel in the tank. It's built in sections so it wasn't easy to remove. A lot of shaking. Finally painted and reinstalled. Cleaned out the boot compartment, washed down with a hose. Installed fiberpad with some light camel coloured Berber carpeting. Had to guess at the proper installation since I'm not sure what it should look like. Cleaned boot hinges and installed boot lid.

Last Updated: April 2002
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