Prince Valorum's 95 626 Build Thread

You want your suspension doing the articulation, not your frame! Just like a car. :D The front of the Yota doesn't flex much, as it's independent suspension, and has a sway bar, but the rear flexes decently for stock.
:(
Like I said, "I am no expert".
 
Man, I'm sorry to hear about the rust issue. I hope you get it fixed before it gets too bad.

It makes me want to kick myself, as it wasn't visible before this winter, and if everything had gone "according to plan" (which it never does) the 626 shouldn't even have seen this winter. I gotta get the Yota on the road so I can inspect the situation on the 626. Right now I'm just thinking I'll patch it up so that it doesn't spread without worrying about making it look perfect. I've been considering doing a kind of paint refresh on it eventually, but go-fast parts are first!

Like I said, "I am no expert".

No worries, we're all learning! :)
 
Sounds like you need to go ahead and do the paint refresh first to save the body of the car. Ohio winters suck!!!
 
Sounds like you need to go ahead and do the paint refresh first to save the body of the car. Ohio winters suck!!!

Yeah, that would be ideal, but between the repaint on the truck, and the ZE swap, I'm going to be pretty tapped. Maybe down the road I'll just look for a clean GE 626 shell from the south with a blown motor or something. At the same time, a P5 is tempting too, for the hatch. I guess the most baller solution would be to import a rust free GE 626 hatch from Australia and have the right hand drive, too. Going through drive thrus in reverse sounds like so much fun! :D
 
If you get a P5 that would be epic. We would have two ZE P5's within 15mins of eachother. Haha. Do eeeet.
 
I'm planning on selling my 626 later this year too, and replacing it with a Speed3. Btw, you wouldn't happen to be interested in buying the front and rear strut tower bars off it, would you?
 
I'll give you dibs on mine when I take them off. If you want them, they're yours. Shoot me a PM and I'll give you a price.
 
I paid the deposit on the Plug and Play MegaSquirt! The part acquisition process has 'officially' started for the KLZE swap!
 
woot woot. hopefullly we will have one none boosted KL for me to take a run against ;)
 
Almost ready to tow the Yota to the painter's (found a new one, finally!) and it starts hailing.... Today we've had cold temps around freezing this morning, rain, 68*F later in the afternoon, and now hail and thunder...
 
What painter did you decide to go with?

And what plans do you have for the 626 now?
 
And what plans do you have for the 626 now?

Um, probably just fix the few tiny issues (mainly de-modding it) and try to sell it for as much as I can...




So, someone from above definitely smiled upon me today.

The plan started, I was going to ask my neighbor with the F250 diesel if he could tow my truck to my house. I'd run to Uhaul and pick up the trailer, then we'd grab the truck and done.

I was on the way to Uhaul when my neighbor called me back and remembered he had 3 tows on his AAA insurance that would expire in April, so he said we should just do that. My dad gave me a phone number for a guy that does crazy restoration work. I hadn't called him before because I figured it would be stupid expensive since everything he does is custom. I called him and he said he'd work me in, though.

The tow truck showed up at the garage where I had the truck stored, and got it all loaded up. The guy's job was super easy since the truck runs and drives, I drove it right up to the ramp and he dragged it on.

I somehow managed to set my camera a few stops lower on the exposure so these are even darker than normal…

IMG_0309.jpg


I started talking to the new paint guy (last guy was so flakey (haha, paint, flakey, get it?!) that I said screw it, he doesn't deserve my business) and he really knows his stuff. He's built more cars than I've worked on, easily.

He said it won't be a problem to paint the truck, and it will likely come out a lot nicer than what I wanted, even. He said his guns are so tuned in that when he shoots the clear, it will be so smooth he won't even have to sand or buff it and it'll be nicer than a factory finish. And he said it will last just as long as factory paint, at least 20 years and it won't fade. It would have rust coming through it before anything happened to the paint is what he said. The durability is my main concern, so that's awesome news!

He started talking about some of the projects that he's done, and one of his project cars was signed by Chip Foose at a show! I couldn't believe it.

This is his site:
http://alteredmotion.com/index.asp

He started telling me about another guy in the next town that he knows that builds these crazy stage coaches and everything. It was really just overwhelming. I don't know much about old cars, but he was just going on and on, it was really cool. He definitely knows his stuff, and knows a ton of people that are masters at what they do. This was the other guy's site, I'm pretty sure he said he'd made something that went to Pebble Beach and sold for 1.6 million…
http://www.daleadamsenterprises.com/


So, he said he'd get to it probably by the end of March, which is fine with me. I'm not in a huge rush, after this project having taken so long. I can't wait to get it back, it sounds like it's really going to be a lot more than I'd hoped for since the beginning!

I can't believe how everything worked out today. It was really just a blessing. The weather was nuts, how it was freezing with rain this morning, it got up to 68*F this afternoon, and a little bit before I was supposed to tow the truck it started hailing! I was freaking out, but it stopped, and it was barely spitting rain when it was finally towed, it hardly got wet! And then the whole plan change, from the start when we were going to get a trailer and tow it to my house, so it could sit until I could get it over to Maaco, to getting it towed and having a legit restorer do the paint!

I still can't believe it. I'm dead tired.

Last pic, my truck in his storage space.

IMG_0312.jpg
 

Similar Threads and Articles

Back