Painting Engine Bay - First Coat

I unbolted the top of the fenders and slid them back a little bit to expose a little more of the firewall, and i also took off all the plastic around the windscreen wipers. Then i took the the engine bay with some 60 grit sandpaper, removing various brackets and whatnot as i went along, i also removed all the little plastic gromits in the engine bay. Focusing more on the areas that needed slightly more sanding, such as under the brake booster and master cylinder, i rubbed back the entire engine bay enough to leave it rather bare and rough enough for the paint to stick well. I finished up by getting an air compressor and blowing all the dust away.

Then i simply took to the engine bay with a can of plack gloss spraypaint, only a nice light coat as we all know runs are a bitch. Not really much else to write about here, hold button and point can at engine bay, whoopdeefuckingdoo. Oh yea but it's best to wear a mask when doing this, or you'll be picking black snot out your nose the next day, trust me.

The Weekend

On saturday I bought a carton and got a few of my mates over, we started by removing the tailshaft, which i think I did the hard way haha. As the car was up at the front it was impossible to get under the rear where it connects to the diff, so i undid the center mount and gearbox mount, then pulled the tailshaft out of the gearbox. We put some cardboard underneathe and after removing the exaust completely we slowly pushed the car off the ramps using the handbrake. Once the car was down we were able to jack the rear up and get the tailshaft off.

I hooked up the block and tackle to one of the beams running across our garage and then pushed the car under it. Ran 3 lines of chain down, one to the engine mount bracket on the intake side, and one to each end of the exaust manifold bolts. After the slack was taken up i finally undid the engine mounts and we raised the engine nice and slowly. By pushing the car back and forth as we needed we were all surprised how easily the engine came out, it pretty much lifted up in the perfect angle to clear the sump. Engine came up, pushed car back, had a few more beers all round, then lowered the engine onto a reinforced wheely table (how convienient). We The undid the gearbox and pulled that off, removed the clutch, and after some fucking around, got the pressure plate off too.

Next up i decided if i were to clean and spray the engine bay properly, i may aswell remove the main loom now, so i got in under the passenger side footwell and pulled out the ecu, then fed the loom through the firewall and got it free.

To finish the day off, we grabbed some more beers, headed down to the local supercrap auto, got 5 cans of black paint, 4 liters of degreaser, and went home to clean the engine bay up. We pushed the car out onto the road and attacked it with the degreaser and a hose and were surprised how well it came up. Apart from where spilled brake fluid has run down the engine bay and over time eaten the paint away completly, letting a little bit of surface rust set in, i'm ery happy with what i see. Not a single fresh weld make or resprayed sections, meaning no major front on impacts.

I spent sunday just sanding back and cleaning up the engine bay some more, i decided to fuck off the air conditioning as connecting it up and making it work was looking to be pretty difficult, and having it there was also going to make cooling the engine a pain in the ass, so i figured save the money, effort, and weight, and just rip it all out. i also removed the crossmember by putting the front of the car on blocks, then taking the front wheels off, undoing the suspesion from the strut towers, undoing the bolt on each side holding the lower arm on, undoing the 4 main crossmember bolts bolting it to the chassis, and unding the two bolts holding the steering rack on. The rest was fucking around with a leverage pole and trying to wriggle the fucking crossmember out, and hour later it was free and i think i had 2 beers. The car was now at it's most pulled apart stage!