Thought its about time I added a progress thread for the refreshing of my Impreza turbo 2000!! Shes been off the road since March 2008 and after two house moves was starting to look a little neglected. First phase is to straighten and refresh the bodywork. Second will be suspension and brake work, and the third and last phase will be to up its power, so let the work begin!! Bear in mind this is by no means a big spend project, most if not all of the work is going to be completed by myself on what is probably going to be a very tight budget. And squeezed in round my very busy family and work life!

Heres a pic when I first got her. (i've added the clears and my reg plate!!)



on the move (for the second time!!)



How she looked before going into hibernation for the winter



Started to strip her down in preparation for her respray, the white circles show the accumulation of car park dings over the 12 years of her life!!







Start of shortened number plate mount, all plastic welded up. Piece taken from a bumper I paid 99p for!!! Good ol fleabay!!



Headlamp washer jets removed, and plastic welded up



The stripping will hopefully be finished this week with the prep work starting in earnest (hopefully) next week!!!

Thanks for looking and comments/suggestions welcome.

 

good on ya, tackling it all yourself, would love to have soom room to even do the little jobs!!

 

Cheers Made sure the latest house we bought had a garage so i could crack on instead of waiting on the weather all the time!!


Managed to finish stripping off the passenger side, no less dents here then!!!




Welded up all the bodykit holes on the drivers side
Before



After



Even had a chance to roll the drivers side rear arch whilst I was at it!!!

 

looks like it's been shot at!!!

 

i like the number plate aperture work...good luck

 

Can I ask what make is that rear exhaust box please ?

 

It has Powerflow stamped on it. Might be changing it as I'm not fussed on it!!

Cheers Trails, took a bit of patience cutting the new surround to the correct size, and an age plastic welding it. Think it'll be worth it in the end!!


Small update.
Had a small rust repair to do at the back of the sill where all the crap had sat under the skirts, but thats sorted now. DS is all straight and flatted off in preperation for sealer and a few coats of primer, which will then give me more sanding to do!!

 

Subscribed!

 

Put me first in the queue for that back box IF you sell it please .
And good luck with the rebuild (Y)

 

Will do fella

 

Had a couple of hours to play with today.

Fill, sand, fill, sand, fill, sand.............



Just a quick dusting of primer to make sure its still got that 'factory look' to it



Still a bit of work to be done here but its getting there!!

 

looking very tidy

impressed witht the work ethic!!!

 

your doing a great job there especially the rear number plate surround

 

Cheers guys

Completed all the welding, inc the boot lock
Piece cut for welding



Welded



Ground back



Skimmed



And finally primed



NS Rear arch rolled



Just the passenger side to flat off now then its nearly ready to have doors, wings, boot, and bonnet removed for sealing and priming!!

Slowly getting there!!

 

Its looking good mate
are you gonna paint it yourself or do you know a tame painter ?

 

Love the work on the rear bumper.

 

Looking very good fella. Really hate not having a garage.

You'll appreciate her more when she's finished knowing that you've done most of the hard work.

 

I'm going to have a crack at it myself. I did an old Orion a few years back and that turned out ok!! So fingers crossed I still have the ability [/COLOR]
[COLOR="Blue"]Cheers guys

 

Good work mate. Although it will be abit of a pain in the a*se when you go to sell, and the new owner wants to put a regular plate on it.

 

Doubt I'll be selling it so don't need to worry

If I do though, it'll get a square plate

 

or sell me your bumper

 

It always makes me wonder why the jap models have the huge plate apperture but a square plate. On my last 2 classics I've cut the bracket off and put a normal plate on. But this would look so much better and keep the square plate.

 

Maybe I should make a few and flog em!!

Yeah its always baffled me as well!! Maybe they knew most of them would end up in the UK hence the UK size number plate apeture!! The US have shorter apetures tho

 

do it!!

 

Get a mould made. Speak to ABW he may be interested in taking a mould from it to be able to use it as part of his kits.

 

Is he on here??



Well I've been busy again!! Most of the PS is completed ready for primer. Thought I'd attack my front bumper today. When I first fitted my front mount intercooler it protruded slightly from the bottom of the bumper by about 1". I initially got round this by putting a P1 style splitter on the bumper.
When I decided to remove the bodykit, for the 'RA' look this became a problem. As I had removed the skirts etc putting the splitter back on would have looked rather odd so I had to come up with another plan, made harder by the fact I want it to look factory, the kind of mod only seen when its either pointed out to you or when you really take a close look!!

The soloution really was quite simple! I decided to extend the bumper down by approx 1.5"

I marked up where I needed to split the bumper with red tape.



And removed the bumper, ahhhhh naked car



I then cut the bumper in half



Made some spacers and plastic welded these to the bumper



I then plastic welded the piece back on in its slightly lower position.



After it was in place I filled the gaps, plastic welding in pieces of my remaining spare rear bumper.



It took me about 2.5 hours to fully weld both inside and out Got there in the end. This is how it stands now, all welds ground down ready for a skim of filler and more sanding



It now hides the bottom of the fmic perfectly but still imo looks factory (well will once its finished!!)

Comments?

 

that is ace!!!

definately sell those, i'd lovemy front bumper that bit deeper and then add one of ABW's TA splitters

 

looks like a fine job u are doin there fella . pretty quick to

looking forward to the finished result


best colour car to imo

 

that looks sweet

 

This is a good project, fair play to you doing the work yourself

I cant believe how many parking dings you had though!