Other Cars (British & British-Inspired)

My son was the victim of a hit & run. He had backed into a parking space at a What-a-Burger and while he and a friend were inside someone someone backed into the front left of his car. Witnesses said it was a u-haul truck and it moved his car about a foot.

Driver fender, bumper cover, grille, headlight, left side skirt, left spindle, tie rod, etc. Left wheel just has rub marks.

He wants to change the color of his car & I thought this might be the ticket. Figured if we could find a rear end collision Mustang in the dark blue he wants for parts, swapped them over and got his ready for paint ourselves, he'd only have to get the doors back painted (his car is light blue so we were going to leave the engine bay and trunk alone). With seemingly millions of 06-09 Mustangs out there I was surprised to find none of the local salvage yards have the parts in any color let alone the dark blue. Even after radio calls to the affiliated yards.

Looks like after market parts and the same color now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/2013 08:41PM by rficalora.

Try ebay

Give "car-part.com" a try.
When you get to the parts page hit the dist. button to find the parts closest to you.
Cheers
Fred

Thanks. Found a body kit on craigslist with all the parts except fenders. Car-part and a few other sources seem to have good priced fenders.

Now the open question is whether we use this opportunity to change the car's color. It's currently a light blue and Drew would way prefer dark blue. Thinking we could get away with leaving the engine bay and trunk as they are. Would still need to do jambs and lips around hood and trunk lid. Son says let's do it. Wife says 'have you lost your mind?'. I've never painted a car but have wanted to. And I have a plenty big compressor and a few hvlp guns - cheap guns but they've worked OK for the little things I've done.

Existing paint is factory and in good shape so thinking prep won't be like doing an older car. And he has friends who'd likely have hun helping sand...

Scuff it up and shoot it. The bc/cc systems are very forgiving since you can cut and buff the clear to remove any sins from shooting.

Man, I don't know Rob! What's the car worth? What are his plans for it? If he's attached to it and plans to keep it long term, then I'd be fine with taking a run at doing the piant. Otherwise, an amateur paint job with a different color engine bay is going to absolutely whack the value of that car. Everyone knows I'm a DIY'er when it comes to piant, and I've pianted three cars now. But there's no way I could come close to a late model factory paint job. It's true you can cut and buff clear to try to fix mistakes, but you ARE going to run into issues that are hard to fix. You get runs and orange peel, so you sand. But oops, you're new to this so you accidentally sand through the base. Now you've got another problem to fix. You do that two or three times, then you realize you're starting to run out of base. If you buy more it won't be a perfect match. If it sounds like I've done this, I have! You're right, the prep would be pretty easy, but it's going to be a lot of work! I know you can do it if you choose to, and it's a skill you'll want to get better at and do again and again. At least I do.

Sounds like a great way to spend time with your son (and his buds). Plus you get to be the cool dad! The memories of this adventure will last a lifetime. Priceless!

Totally on board with Phil.
I've spent many hours working on stuff with my girls and their men.
And I wouldn't trade back a second of it.
Some of the stuff we've done is epic. Some of it is junk.
But the experience is worth it every time!
I would paint the car and enjoy the experience.
You will learn a ton and take on a challenge together.
Cheers
Fred

Haven't decided but am not worried about the car value. We got it cheap because it'd been stolen twice, 2nd time partially disassembled and recovered but not till after insurance settled with the owner. Has a State of TX applied replacement VIN. Net, the guy who bought it @ auction sold it cheap because everyone was afraid of it. I was skeptical at first, but have a buddy in the police force and he ran the VIN for me. His research tied with the seller's story.

And, existing paint is good, but not great. There are places where it was scraped off - especially around the windshield -- like they used wire to cut thru the seal/goop. Instead of fixing, those spots just have touch up slathered over them and there's some surface rust already setting in.

The only real question for me is whether we really have enough time to do it. Doing it in sections would make it more viable, if we buy enough paint, will the sections match if we do it in stages?

Solid colors work better doing it in sections than metallics.

Yeah, in that case it sounds like a fantastic candidate for a paint project! I've thought many times about painting my '03 tahoe (previous salvage title) because it is the crappiest shade of metallic grey/green. Ditto what Jim said, if you want to do it in stages metallic is out, and even then it might not be a perfect match. Probably very, very close though. Make sure the paint is mixed very well. This sounds like fun!

Quick update... have decided to do at least some (a lot) of the work ourselves...

On order, 2 new fenders & a body kit. We're going to fit the fenders & body kit & prep them for paint. Will decide if we're going to paint or remove & have painted once my son understands how much work it is. Also will decide wether to paint same color or prep the rest of the car & change color once we've done that first step. Pics to follow as we get the work started...

Project is under way. Bought fenders and grille from partstrain.com - was the best price we found. Fenders were $115 each including shipping -- I was a bit nervous about how they'd fit, but we decided to take a chance figuring it is labor time for us if they didn't fit well.

The fenders came in a few days ago and I guess my son didn't want to wait for the weekend. I got home from work this weekend and he'd already fit the left fender. He had to straighten a bracket that helps hold and line up the front of the fender and coax it into alignment, but I think he did a great job! There are only a coupe of spots where it'll take some tweaking for all the gaps and body lines to be spot on.

Rob, you have to put something British on the car.

Jim

Jim, why... there's not even much British left on my car ;) !!

We now have both fenders replaced and lined up -- just took some minor shimming at the bottom & a little twisting just below the A pillars on both sides. I'm pretty impressed for $50 fenders. The only area I'm not happy with is the traling edge on the left fender. The gap between the fender & door gets wider about 1/3 down & then narrows back up. Likely will need to weld some wire on & shape that area a bit. But, all in all I expected they'd need a lot more work.

His body kit arrived the other day too. Son pulled out all the pieces to check them & said they seemed well made -- we'll see when we go to fit them.

Since the fender flares & rocer covers cover portions of the body, we're thinking we want to paint the car before fitting the body kit. We're planning to change the color to a 2013 one called Deep Impact Blue (code J4). That way if something gets broken or has to be removed later, the light blue won't show thru.

Make sense?

Well obviously Rob, because it's a "British"V8 website rather than a "Mustang" website. Don't get me wrong here, I'm completely sympathetic with your goals of getting involved with your sons and it is true that we have a rather large following for the SBF and related things. But where is your sense of dignity? ;-) Can't you at least put one of Curtis' stickers on the car?

Jim

Ok, point taken... I've been thinking of this section as the "off topic" section, but just re-read the description & it's not positioned that way... will move the thread to a mustang board.

Rob, I'm not offended in any way by the post. Always interested in what other board members are doing and would like to see the conclusion of this project with your son.
Phil

I'm not offended either, and I understand now the confusion. It's not my place to police the website either, but it just seemed to me that a discussion on the BritishV8 website should have some connection, however tenuous it might be, with British cars. I dunno, maybe that's too much to ask but it seems to me it doesn't take too much imagination to do some small thing to at least nominally establish that connection. A window decal, a bumper sticker, some small item of British hardware or goods? At least then when someone (such as I did) wonders what a Mustang is doing on the BritishV8 site you could at least point to the widget and say, "Well, it's partly British!"

Without that we sort of erode all of the other guidelines of the site, such as the requirements of putting the price in the classifieds or of posting a HIWD before posting a car for sale, and eventually the advertising guidelines as well such as not using the free classifieds for business advertising without paying for a banner ad. So ultimately I guess this is all about keeping Curtis in business so he will keep the site available to us all, and it's not like that's any highly prosperous business for him. I still remember the early days when there was no website and no newsletter. I remember the days of turmoil before the newsletter went online as well.

I'm not trying to make you out to be the bad guy Rob, I realize you didn't see it this way. And if I'm wrong I'm not above being corrected. I'm just trying to get you to do one very small and minor thing that suddenly makes your boy's car just fine to be included on our site here. We'd all like to include him among us. It just doesn't feel right to me to be talking about Mustangs when it has nothing whatsoever to do with any British car in any way, shape or form. Is the fact that it is owned by a member's son enough? Then tell me, I'm willing to be re-educated.

Jim

Didn't the new fenders (wings) come from China? Hey, that's where MGs come from now! Maybe stamped in the same plant. A chinese british Mustang!!!