My car is back to it’s pre-accident state. On with painting!

After working with the insurance company since the 10th of December, repairs finally began late last week for my car. It was difficult for them to accurately determine the value of the car and the first adjuster missed a bunch of damage in his initial estimate. But everything seems to have worked out after the threat of totaling the car and Kwan at Beyond 2 now has it at his body shop. Once the bodywork is complete, he will keep it for a bit longer so it can also be painted. I figure that while it’s gone, it might as well get the remaining of the exterior work finished.

Also, I supposedly have a new, crack free dash showing up any day now that I can install when the car is returned.

I should have progress photos of the car in a few days.

I was rear ended on the way to work today on 880 south in Hayward. My neck is really stiff and I don’t know what it’s going to take to repair this. The car is going to Beyond 2 this afternoon to assess the damage. Hopefully the insurance company for the woman that hit me will cover it. It’s a good thing I installed that new seat yesterday with a proper headrest.

I tracked down a pair of E21 Recaro seats on the 2002 FAQ site. They were recently recovered, but never used after that. Overall they’re in excellent condition. The latch to drop the driver’s seat forward is not working, but other than that, they’re perfect.

Since my car is also my mobile storage unit for parts, the bulk of my trim is in the passenger seat at the moment. I did want to get the driver’s seat in because I have been riding on the springs and scooping out stuffing every few days. Sitting in a new seat makes the car 100% better.

Pulling the old seat was very easy. I took a few tips from the writeup at my2002tii.com. Re-greasing the tracks really helps, too. Tomorrow’s drive to work is going to be great!

The next major step in the restoration of the Silver Bullet was to have all the minor rust spots and small sections of rot on the body taken care of, the dents removed and the body sanded and primed. Since I’m still commuting in the car, I couldn’t wait for the whole paint process to be completed. This stage should have taken a week, but I didn’t get all of the trim off before I had to drop the car off, so that added an additional week of downtime. The body is in amazing condition now. It’s perfectly straight and there is now no rust on the outside of the body. There is extremely minor surface rust on the backside of the nose panels that I noticed, but that can be dealt with easily. I also noticed that I do have some rust developing in the spare tire well that I need to fix before it gets out of control.

I also had new window seals and chrome lock strips installed in the front and rear.

I’m leaving all of the trim off for now since it will go back for painting in January. I’ve reattached the rear bumper, but I’m having a lot of trouble getting the front bumper back on. The driver’s side bracket is slightly bent, and getting everything to line up is a real pain. I’ll probably just wait until after it’s painted and only go through the process once.