One of a few updates to come...
 
Cars been great! Only a couple of minor interior rattles to get on top of and a recent developing gearbox gremlin…
 
Last weekend purple5ive and myself met with the larger Victorian MR2 club at a local meet to say hi before the convey of MR2’s headed off on a cruise to Sorrento. It was cool seeing so many MR2’s, each different and so many AW11’s. First time I see a two tone up close and an adub with an automatic gearbox.
 
What a morning… Had a small issue whereby the car got beached in the carpark and cracked the LHS side skirt…. gah….. and then driving home “randomly” pulled over making sure we weren't doing anything suspicious…. should’ve just joined the cruise to Sorrento.
 
Alas! With a damaged skirt to replace and a few small issues that was all I needed to get motivated hence this update, refreshing a few things, making everything nice and shiny before it is excitedly part of the MR2 club display at this year Formula One Grand Prix! 
 
From here forwards until lm done ill be repainting, cleaning, detailing, restoring, refreshing, and fixing a few ALL with the budget of approximately $0.00!
 
Challenge accepted.
 
Things to do:
 
Repaint wheels (Sand and respray).
Repaint rotor hats, calipers and brake shroud.
Clean/repaint under the wheel arches.
Replace Sideskirts (Clean/Refresh used spares).
Repaint OEM blackout marks on sideskirts.
Repaint / Polish all exterior black plastics.
Repaint/repair front spoiler (again….)
Repaint original wipers.
Polish taillamps.
Polish exhaust.
Detail interior.
Clean/detail engine bay.
Rebuild and inspect shift linkages.
High pressure clean/scrub/soak parts before assembly.
Try to cut and polish car myself?!
Get car to a presentable standard to represent the club.
 
Feeling confident (except for the cut and polish part).Will show before and after pics where applicable.
 
“I’ll be channelling my inner RdS”
 
Update #1
Chemical Guy soak and clean. Masterclass with purple5ive.


 
Sanding prepping of components.


Ideally Id like to powder coat the rims, 2pac exterior parts and paint/oven bake the numerous parts but until the funds allow this will need to suffice.
 
Seeing the rear wheel wells are painted/sprayed in the rubber deadener after a thorough clean I thought I’d refresh them with a suitable rubber restorer - PolyGlaze Tyre Black. Worked amazingly good.
Before:

After:


 
Wheelarch liners: 
Before:


After:

 
 Sideskirts:

Before/Right - After/Left.

Caliper, Brake shroud and rotor hats. Nothing loud just subtle and clean.


Thats all for now! More to do this weekend!

Big improvement already man, keep at it. that tyre black stuff is the goods..
dont forget the polish and stuff i have just find an RO from somewhere..

GP REFRESH - Update 2 
Car is in pieces with parts everywhere both interior and exterior and at various stages of completion! Its almost getting out of control. I almost don’t even recognise it in its current state!

 
A few days to go before the club MR2 display is set up. A few things knocked off the to do list and surprisingly a few new things added!Including removal of the rear glass to clean the rubber surround.
It looks like its got a similar growth to the boot rubber before the thorough clean.

 
Sanding and repairing the front spoiler continues.
Ready for repaint, new zip ties and fabricated some replacement alloy mounts with stainless bolts.


 
Washing as I go. Sanding and prepping for repainting/repairs.

 
With the parts scattered, some drying, some prepped in hi-fill and some covered up I’ve no idea how it will all look when it comes together!
Hopefully all this paying attention to detail on all the small things and taking time to prep and paint will show up!


 
Replacement used side skirts needed a recoat or seal for protection at the very least underneath. High abrasion wear from its previous life on a country and high dirt road kms adub.

 
Car looks good minus the skirts?!

 
Wheels 80% done.

 
Keeping to the $0.00 budget. I’m getting coverage from one can and sanding in between, saving the good stuff for the final coat(s).


 
Interiors getting sorted (My favourite thing to do if I'm quite honest!)

 
New used door cards going in. New OEM Recaro rails going in. Shortly.

 
If I have time I'd love to take the carpet out and paint these boss sections in soft touch black.

 
Cleaning behind the fenders and continuing to pull out leaves and lost tools from previous owners.

 
Still to worry about polishing the car… never done it before… that's next along with applying the final coats of paint on the assorted parts and then re-assemble! Thats it for now!
 

Very Nice
ill hire you to do my car next ahahahahahaha...
hey, i have interior protectants and stuff as well if you need them (chemical Guys of course)
feel free to come over and borrow the Box.
find yourself an R.O for the polishing part, i dont have one unfortunately. everything else i have..
cheers

GP REFRESH - Update 3
So much done today. Awesome weather helped heaps.In order as it happened:
 
Wheels sanded.

and then sanded again between coats (x3.

Looking sharp. Final coat tomorrow.

 
Inbetween coats managed to spray the front spoiler, underside of side skirts and both mask and respray the OEM blackouts on either end of the side skirts.

 
Removed and washed the B/C Pillar interior trims.
Needed to remove them to get the firewall carpet out.

 
Needed to come out so I could safely scrub that mould build up from the rear glass rubber. Alarmingly the build up was the same as what I found earlier on the rear boot rubber (So gross!). Set out to remove the rear glass but sadly couldn’t remove it without sacrificing the bolts attaching the rear visor (cabin side / roof) ...


 
Need to finish cleaning these tomorrow.

 
Sprayed exterior trims on car.



Turning out okay!



 
phew…!
 
Last day tomorrow to sort stuff out hopefully with time to spare to give a final clean/cut/polish etc…

Almost done!

looks great man,
i ahd some stuff you could have borrowed which would have made the paint better in no time.
we will do that for the next prep and polish
cheers

Post GP Refresh - MR2 Display The morning of the hardpark was still a mad rush to get everything back together! Vacuumed interior, detailed interior, final exterior polish and finally we were away! Made it. Phew.
 
Not before taking some snaps of the resprayed wheels, calipers and rotor hats. After a drive around the block they had “machined” any over spray clean off. Originally the Work Miester S1R’s originally had a polished lip and a black face. Behind the face, where the rim meets the rotor hat has always been unpainted. Now it, along with the lip is painted and when installed just looks so much cleaner for it.


 
Off to Salford’s fittingly opposite Toyota, then onto the circuit and display spot in convoy.


Driving to the circuit, through the gates, around the circuit to our spot was filled with awesome.
 




 
The original spot was too dusty and with the chance of rain, likely to get churned up with all the foot traffic and become a right muddy mess. So we drove around the circuit to another spot

 
And here we stayed, behind T10

Amongst the many other clubs on display lining Lakeside Drive. Immediately opposite us were some Ferrari’s.
 








 
Was seriously happy with the rim repaint

And the kind lend of tyre foam from G_Man.

 
With the weekend having super hot temps, backed up by random storms, I think we all battled to keep the interior cabin temps down.

Sunroofs open, windows down.

 
It looked great! and it was well worth the solid few days, cleaning, prepping, painting and polishing.


 
And that was that. It was a solid weekend and Id encourage anyone thinking to display their car next year to do it. Meeting some cool fellow MR2 enthusiasts I’d never met before! Everyone helped everyone if needed, and a few of us even got to meet up here and there over the weekend! Setting up on the Wednesday before race weekend was probably one of the best things I've ever been privileged to do. At the circuit after hours with so few people around whilst an awesomely sounding V10 2 seater Formula One car did some laps. Bliss. Thank you.