1982 300d Restoration Thread

[lbj.lbj]

So! I'm finally posting about my massive project.

I have a solid, nearly rust free (only spot under the battery tray) CA car with an absolutely BAKED paint job, fried dash, seats torn to hell, and grimy carpet.
She runs solid and I decided I was going to spruce her up with new seats and really work to clean the carpet, or possibly replace with a kit.

Things escalated quickly.

This is Steak, 195k on her, had this one about 2 years. Nice straight body, one dent above above a tail light and a scrape on the wheel well. Clearcoat is so shot that she bleeds red into the snow (never left her out again).



She's a....20 footer, or looks great when it rains! Paint condition much clearer here:



The warzone of an interior, with dash, already yanked the carpet that was toast from the leak under the battery:

[lbj.lbj]

So then I found a deal on another 82, rusted to hell from sitting in a leaky barn for 5 + years. The interior is as near mint as I've ever seen. It runs like a dream (wasn't running when I got it...last week? just the throttle bushing.)

Single owner. Every single service record. Heartbreaking that the body just crumbles when you touch it. The rust is in none of the usual places, never seen anything like it. (Posted on the parts for sale board, after the transplants, I'm parting it down to nothing.



So now I have



I don't want to kill my own eventual dramatic reveal, but just to compare my drivers seat vs the one I just pulled

[lbj.lbj]

So, the plan to date-and this is all just cosmetic as of now-

• Strip steak completely bare
• Chase and repair every damn leak
• POR15 the entire floor
• Transplant dash, center console
• Transplant entire interior, all interior panels, trim, pillar covers, carpet, door cards, the whole thing.
• Make new wind lace and piping, could transplant but its a *little* dingy and I sew, so I'm not too worried
  
• Swap out the headliner (really, really not looking forward to this)
  
• Swap wheels so I can do matching covers
  
• Remove all trim and sand and, fill, and prime the car for new paint (I'm of the school that a spray job is a spray job and if I do the prep work well, I don't need to spend crazy money for a good paint job)

I've found members posts about doing or tutorials for just about everything I'm planning to do.

I'll definitely have questions along the way. Ideally I'd love to get A/C happening...but that seems like a very expensive dream.

[t walgamuth]

Looks like fun!

[lbj.lbj]

So far I stripped Steak, found and repaired all leaks (firewall gromments, very minor and only leaked when blasted with pressure washer, one inch wide spot on front windscreen and upeer portions of door seals).

POR15-ed the hell out of it preventatively.





The rust spot under the battery tray:

OOF




By the time I cut away to clean metal it was a hole about the size of a baseball. I did a fiberglass patch in the engine bay and from inside the cabin, POR15 again and blasted with a pressure washer to test- not a drop of water from the patch....not beautiful, first time working with fiberglass, but sturdy, and had to be careful to keep the drainage channel open, but totally sealed up.




But did learn I need to replace just about all the rubber grommets in the firewall on both sides.

Donor car rubber is in great shape all around so I was going to pull and swap those today, but thats a bigger job that I anticipated, is there a good temporary fix for small cracks in those grommets rather than replacing immediately? It'll be a lot easier to pull the donor rubber when I've pulled from the engine bay of the parts car.


Would love suggestions on these.

[lbj.lbj]

Would also love to know why my photos are showing up so small.

[imgolden]

I am just now finishing up a fiberglass patch on that exact location, on an 82' 300D coincidentally..

The mistake I made was not pulling the wheel and fender liner and inspecting the drain closely from the other side. In my case, that side needed a good cleaning and some fiberglass as well.

Those seats are beautiful!

[lbj.lbj]

Thank you!

I lucked out as far as the other end of the drain. Think I can chalk a lot of the damage up to the time my alt overcharged my battery on a 10 hour drive and it boiled over....

Originally Posted by imgolden

I am just now finishing up a fiberglass patch on that exact location, on an 82' 300D coincidentally..

The mistake I made was not pulling the wheel and fender liner and inspecting the drain closely from the other side. In my case, that side needed a good cleaning and some fiberglass as well.

Those seats are beautiful!