SeventhSon
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Posts posted by SeventhSon
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Not much to report on the Avanti front. The paint shop has had it for a good 2 weeks and Mr. MAACO keeps mentioning 3 weeks for the paint job. So, maybe another week? I plan on a visit to the shop, hopefully tomorrow since I will be in the same county working. Maybe I can slip by at lunch.
Good news on the rear bumper that I sent away for re-chroming - it's boxed up and ready to come home! I sent the check this morning, so I will await with anticipation. Maybe the bumper and the car will come home at the same time? I hope so - I miss the old Avanti.
Last weekend there was a All Stock Drag racing event in Michigan which drew a few Studebakers. Nimesh Solanki and his brother Deepish made the trip from Georgia to the track hauling Nimesh's very nice Avanti for its first tryout on the strip. Did pretty well too - turned about 13 seconds flat at about 112 MPH. The car is an R3 clone and has monster horsepower (it dyno'ed at 500 HP), but getting traction is the problem. Tires spinning all the way down the track - if they could get the rear tires to stick Nimesh may have to install a parachute on the back, because he would be flying. I had a chance to go, but I passed up on the chance - I won't let that happen again. I'll make my hotel reservations for next year before the end of this year. My brother Brian sent me the link below, which includes some of the participants discussing the races along with some pictures. Looks like a lot of fun to me!
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Really gotta keep after these 50 year old cars, eh John? High maintenance, like most girls (whuups!
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You're right Ernie - the car I tried to buy locally is an R2 automatic. And one of the main reasons I bought mine was because it is an R2 4 speed. That basically swayed the decision for me.
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Thanks Ernie - I will try to pace myself, especially in the heat. After all, I want to be here to enjoy the Avanti!
Below is a picture of a local Avanti, the one I tried several times to buy. Still sitting out in the weather, deteriorating (I first saw it 10 years ago in the same spot). Oh well, I got the one that was meant for me - happy for it, too.
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A few more pics....
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Ha! We're in the big time! Back here in the little time, I have been holding the fort down at the job, which has been particularly difficult the last couple of days. The heat and humidity have worn out their welcome for this year as far as I am concerned. Yesterday wore me down, then this morning the brutality continued. About 1 PM I finished the first job of the day, then eyed the next folder. I did the math in my head, half hour for lunch, half hour to get to the site, half hour to set up all the equipment, well that would barely leave enough time to get anything done! So I made the command decision, I'm going to MAACO! And with that I was on my way to the paint shop, AC blasting in the truck. One of my better decisions, I believe.
About half an hour later I rolled into the MAACO lot and as I cruised by the open bays I spied the old girl. Wearing some new primer! I headed into the front office and the owner took me back into the shop. He proudly showed me the progress they had made. I was happy to see the old Avanti and even happier that they were working on her. Half the left side was primed, a fair amount of stripping had been started and the first layers of a repair had been accomplished on the fender crack. I was happy. I met the lady who runs the shop side ( I've gotta get these folks' names) and talked to her for a while about the car and what I had done to the car so far. It was a good visit with the shop owner and foreman (forelady?) - I didn't get to see the painter, he was at lunch. I did notice that some serious overspray of primer had gotten on the exhaust extensions and I pointed that out to the owner. He said he was glad I showed him that - he would ask the painter to mask those. I had thought about removing them, but since they are tied in with the hangers I left them alone. Figured we could cover them with some paper and tape. Didn't happen, but I'm not complaining. I am just happy to see progress - let's keep it going!
One thing I notice, and the shop lady agreed with, was that at one time the car was red! I hadn't noticed any red peeking through anywhere, but there it is under the stripped maroon. Unless it was red primer, but it didn't look like primer. Maybe you can tell from the pics.
Also, I sent an email to Jerry Forrester about the rear bumper re-chrome. He replied this morning and said he wasn't in the shop but would contact me tomorrow. Hopefully with news that the bumper is almost ready?
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Hmmm...looks like the last 5 days or so worth of posts have gone AWOL. Ah well...I did see a post from Ernie, which I read on my email, but am just now getting to reply to, as the paying job keeps me running. Ernie mentioned that he would rather do business with a shop that has been a going concern and not to worry too much about the time it will take. As usual, good thinking on Ernie's part - I hadn't even thought about the shop having closed for 6 months and then re-opened. Might be having trouble staying afloat.
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Wow - maybe we all need some classes in safe trailering! As for religiosity, I was giving thanks that the Avanti came to a stop and wasn't in the street after it took off!
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Hehe - I wasn't using very religious language in my mind as the car bolted off the trailer
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Thanks Bill! Yes, my wife is smart and keeps me pointed in the right direction (mostly;)). Have fun in Tennessee and I'll have some more cake!
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Thanks Ernie, for the birthday wishes and your thoughts on things. I always enjoy reading your take on things - very informative. And you're right - folks want what they think they want - until they get it. I just fear the mission creep more than anything. We'll see - I'll let everyone know how it's going right here. And in the meantime I'll take your advice, I'll (try to) relax and I will have that piece of cake.
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Thanks for the encouragement John - I'll keep my fingers crossed!
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Hey Pat - I like that color! Thanks for those pictures - that is the first Hawk GT I have seen in that color.
Ernie - I took it as far as I could, not sure where it will go from here. When the painter came out to look at it he said he would strip it, as there is serious checking in the old paint. Fair enough. After he retreated into the office and the owner returned he described what would be done, how the jambs and edges would be painted and that the painter advised removing the headlight buckets. The butterflies began to flutter in my stomach - whenever I hear "mission creep" I start getting nervous. One thing leads to another and before you know it I have a car stripped down to the frame and a 20 thousand dollar invoice in my hand. As it is, the "estimate" went up by $700 from Saturday to Monday. Which is what scares me more than anything else, when all I really wanted was a car that looked presentable driving down the street or flying by on the interstate. I don't plan on showing it, trophies don't do anything for me, and I doubt that it will be parked in one spot for long enough for regular folks to nitpick the paint job. Even if it is, I couldn't give a rip if they do.
I am not ashamed to say that I spent the remainder of yesterday and last night with my stomach in knots and unable to really sleep. I wavered between going back first thing this morning and retrieving the old car and bringing her back to the safety of the storage unit. I was utterly convinced that I had made a huge mistake and I was headed down a path that would lead to me losing my beloved car that I had worked on so hard and spent way too much money on. I envisioned the folks tearing the doors off, headlight buckets out, removing the glass (ahhhhhhhhggggghhhh!!!) and telling me at each step that it was necessary to "get a good job". I was at the edge of sanity this morning when my wife reeled me back from the edge, telling me to let it go and not ruin my birthday over it all, that it would be all right, just to keep an eye on it and say no to any extra work. I guess that will have to do - I will pull the plug if it starts straying from the original mission of just getting a fair paint job on it. I already told the owner that it can't go over the quote he was showing me on the computer screen. If they can't get it painted for that then it don't get painted.
For the folks who follow John Feser's thread here, I guess you know that the old girl tried to get away from us as it was sitting on the trailer and John was un-tethering it. A bit of mis-communication (isn't that what causes all catastrophes?) and she was headed for the street. My first reaction was to grab the wheel well lip, right where a small crack resided, leading to a much larger crack. I gave up on stopping it that way and took off running in pursuit, considering pulling the door open and going for the brake (not a good idea, as I may have turned into a speed bump). I opted for grabbing the car at the left rear corner by the tail light and sliding my feet across the pavement, the whole time thinking I wasn't going to be able to stop her. Once she got down off the trailer she slowed considerably and came to a stop. I looked back at John and saw that he had hold of one of the tether straps - so we had a two man braking system going. Tragedy averted. But hours of anguish (most likely self inflicted) lay ahead.
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More....
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Thanks Ernie - I think it's a good color, I just hope it looks good on an Avanti. We're about to find out!
Today - The Battle of The Century. I knew it was going to be an all day affair - lots of stuff to remove, most of it has never been removed in 50 years. So, it has kind of become attached to its spot on the car. Hence the battle. I started by taking off the vent screen and door and removing the 2 pal nuts holding the "Surercharged" emblem from the side panel in front of the doors. I moved on to the door panels, removing those along with the door handles, interior light switches, door sills, etc. I headed to the front bumper but could not figure out how to remove the bumper and leave the brackets behind. So I removed the corner bolts and figured that MAACO could mask the bumper and paint around it. Hey, they're MAACO, they're used to doing that! I went to the rear bumper, which I knew I had to remove because I have a re-chromed one soon to be coming my way. I hope. So, the real battle of the day became the rear bumper - just about every bolt on the bumper wrung off. Which, as my wife said, "Good!" Out of the way. It became apparent that I would have to remove the rear wheels to reach the corner bumper bolts. So, after going through the work of removing the wheels I was able to get to the corner bumper bolts and promptly wring them off. Which is good. The last Queen of Spades was one of the vertical bumper piece bolts - I had a time getting a socket on the nut inside the bracket so I could remove the bolt holding everything on. After an hour or more of fighting and sweating she gave up and the bumper pieces were off.
I found out that the carpet adhesive I used in the trunk was something akin to Super Glue, holding the carpet tighter than I had ever expected, which kept me from accessing the tail light assembly screws. I finally had to ruin a section of carpet on each side to get to the screws holding the lights. But they're out - the carpet will be fixed later. I removed the tail light lenses and had to get rough with the license plate holder, basically ripping it from its mooring. Not too much damage done - all in all, everything is fixable. After paint is applied to the car. Oh yeah, I also drilled out the "sail" emblems (after I cut one in half)
Whew, I'm whooped!
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Thanks John - she's a beauty! The silver I am looking at is very unusual - it almost seems to change color in the light, going from a light silver to almost bronze. When I saw it on the road a couple of weeks ago on a Z4 I said, "That's the color!" My wife liked it a lot too, so it was chosen. I hope it looks good on the Avanti!
Here is a youTube link to a Z4 with the color, and, if I can, a couple of pictures:
2009 BMW Z4 sDrive30i in Orion Silver - YouTube
Well, I better get to it - the trailer will be here in 24 hours to pick her up!
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A few more pics....
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Well, things seem to be falling into place hopefully. I had hoped to try to paint the old beast myself but since I am pulling double duty at work it looks like I won't have the time to make any real progress. So, the next best thing is having a pro work on it - I've taken the advice of a few folks on this thread and checked out MAACO. It won't be a perfect job, but I am not looking for perfect. Maybe a nice 10 (20?) footer
will do - just something that is all one color and presentable. The old car runs really nice and it would be a pleasure if she looked as good as she runs.So, to that end, I headed over to the storage unit and brought her home to prep her for the paint shop. I started pulling various pieces off, like the light covers, headlights, turn signal lenses, grille, mirror. I started on the front bumper - I am hoping to pull it off the bracket rather than unbolting the bracket from the frame. I hope I'm not going down a blind alley, but it looks like the bumper will come off that way. I already got 2 of the nuts off and will begin tomorrow morning by working on the rest of the bolts and nuts. As for the rear bumper, I have no idea how to remove that - I'll just have to get in there and see what things look like.
I made good progress tonight - I'll hit it again tomorrow morning so I can hopefully have it ready to go on Tuesday morning. John Feser (unimogjohn) has graciously offered to haul the old girl to the paint shop - that's a huge help to me and I am very grateful. Thank you John and Alice!!
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Thanks John! I'll getting moving on it!
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Ernie, your advice is excellent, as usual, and I'll heed it. Many thanks!
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When I first start cranking the engine after a prolonged period of several days it'll start cranking slow, then speed up until it starts. Today, I headed over to the storage unit to take the car out to the paint shop for a quote. She started pretty well - only cranked about ten seconds and she roared to life. I headed over to the gas station and put in some premium with half a can of SeaFoam. It didn't take me long to get to the MAACO shop that I had chosen and before long the guy was typing away on the computer. He had given me the standard paint book and I focused on the "silver" zone, then I asked for the BMW paints. I found the one I picked last week (Orion Silver Metallic) and that's the one that went on the quote. I asked when they could start on it and he said Tuesday. Well, I better start pulling the chrome off this baby then! Now I have to worry if I'm doing the right thing, if he'll do right by me, if, if, if. I guess I worry too much - just take it as it comes.
When I went to leave the shop I cranked the engine, didn't touch the gas pedal, then put it to the floor. Neither way helped. So I sat for 5 minutes and cranked it with my foot just resting against the pedal. Just like the other times she fired right up. I took her out for a cruise, logging about 50 miles total for the day. She runs nice, she should look nice, too, I believe. So tomorrow I am going to fetch her and bring her home so I can pull the various chrome off. I believe unimogjohn will be getting his trailer ready to lend to Greg, so I may just remove most of the chrome, then drive it to the paint shop and remove the bumpers and tail lights, license plate holder etc. Gonna be busy the next couple of days.
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Darn! I was going to ask you to haul my Avanti to the paint shop on Tuesday. I stopped by MAACO today and got a quote - supposed to pull the chrome off and get the car over there Tuesday. Of course I'll have the usual worries and trepidation about whether I'm doing the right thing, is the guy charging too much, should I make him sign the estimate as a firm quote, etc. etc.
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Thanks Ernie - I did try that, but it didn't help. The only thing that seems to help is letting it sit for 5 minutes, then it will usually fire right up. Except last time I took it out. We'll see how she does tomorrow.
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Hey Bill - I did purchase a paint chip card a while back but it was basically a copy of an original, so the colors weren't too rich. I saw a BMW Z4 the other day with a nice color on it - I am going to ask about that when I take it to the paint shop.
Feel free to discuss Avantis all day long on my thread, but if you want to start your own thread you can copy and paste any of the conversations you want to comment on to your new thread. At least I think you can do that. In either case, I look forward to reading all the tips and tricks about Avantis that are out there.
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Avanti Rescue
in Our Cars & Restoration Projects
Posted
Well, a disappointing visit to the paint shop today. I dropped by at lunch today, hopeful that much progress would have been made in the week since I last stopped in. The car hasn't been touched that I can tell. The picture below is from last week - the only difference today was that the floor jack was gone. I guess they needed it somewhere else. When I saw that nothing had been done I said, "Well, I guess I'll call the tow truck." Mr. MAACO implored me to leave the car where it is and they would get to work on it right away. Back and forth we went, I was an inch from calling the tow truck. The MAACO man convinced me to give him to next Friday to have it done - he said he would work the painter late at night and on Saturday. As I left I told him that I was going to come by every day - I don't care what it takes to get there. And I will. I tried the path of giving them "space", now I will be in there every day to remind them to keep working on it. So, we will see.
Halfway home I pulled off the road and called him and said I was coming to pick it up - I was serious. He talked me out of it again, saying that when the painter came back from lunch he told him to get on it and to give him a couple of days to show progress and if there was none then I could tow her out. We'll see....