Wheel Well
I won a spare wheel well of ebay to put on the new body as it has had the well cutout and a flat piece of metal welded in place. Picked it up yesterday, $40 + $30 postage.
The other white meat
So I was driving behind a white Audi A5 recently and I really liked the paint. I'm thinking now of maybe doing the Audi 'Ibis White" instead of the "Mazda Crystal White Pearl".
Guards
The new shell didn't come with any front guards. A member on VicZCar, Peter T, had just ordered a new set so his old ones were up for grabs. The headlight buckets were welded to the guards but I was thinking about doing this anyway to simplify all the lines on the car. I exchanged them for a new mechanical fuel pump I had ordered from Black Dragon but never used. Steve and I went to pick them up and ended up staying for a few hours having a good chat to Peter.
Welded Guards
Welded Guards
Rust on Guards
Rust on Guards
And a pic of the shell squeezed into is temporary home, out of the weather...
Guards Sitting on Shell
Wheel Testing
Greg gave me a loan of his new 16 inch Superlites to see what they would like on a 2+2. Steve also let me try out one of his 17 inch Rota RB's. Here they are on the car with a bit of photoshopping. I think I like the Rotas just because a bigger rim is needed to fill the wheel well on a 2+2.
16 Inch Superlites Trial
17 Inch Rota RB Trial
A New Body A New Colour
Well not an entirely new colour, just a new shade of white. I've wanted to do a white pearl paintjob for quite a while but I don't want it to look too 'bling-y'. After staring at cars during peak hour on my way to work I have narrowed it down to the current white pearl Mazda are using on their 2009/2010 range (ironic as I was originally going to paint my other project car the pearl yellow from the Mazda 6). The colour is called Crystal White Pearl (mica).
White Mazda CX7
White Mazda CX7
White Mazda CX7
Picking up the body
So I hired a ute and a car trailer to go pick up the shell from Lismore on the 7/3/10. Greg was nice enough to give me a hand and came with me to get the shell. We got to Lismore and it turns out the shell belonged to a guy we had met before. It also turned out that he still had most of the parts for the car but was hanging onto them, to sell separately I presume. He let me buy the doors for $50 and also gave me a front guard and some random bits and pieces like steering rack and gearbox mount.
The shell was actually in pretty good condition. The engine bay had already been painted nicely in black and you could see where the plates had been welded in in the rest of the car. The only real problem with the shell is that the spare wheel well was cut out to make way for a fuel cell I presume.
Anyway we got the shell home and under the house ready to commence work on prepping the shell for when we transfer the parts over.
New body for the White Knight
I received a nice little bonus for work so decided I should try and find a decent body for the car. The current body has rust showing through pretty much everywhere on the car, leaking water through the hatch hinges, major bubbling on the beaver/slam panel for the hatch, around the top and bottom of the actual hatch, around the fuel filler, the rear guards, sills, floors, roof pillars and the battery tray has pretty much disintegrated.
I put a post up on Vic Z Car looking for a body and it wasn't long before a bloke offered a free shell that he was going to pick up but never got around to. The body was in Lismore (about 3 hours drive from Brisbane) and I wasn't 100% sure on the condition. A previous post from the owner suggested most of the rust had been cut out and new metal welded in and that it was just a shell, nothing else. Seemed good to me and the price was right.
From looking at more previous posts I found these pictures...
Shell
Shell 2
