93 opalescent mark VIII 43k original miles look what i did to it!

no i didnt tear it apart!!! this is my buddies new mark. when he picked it up it wasnt too bad looking, but it did need help. i dont have any before pics i wish ii took some, but i had this in my shop for almost 2 weeks and alot of hours into it. i did all kinds of stuff to it, heres a list...
entire front suspension rebuild, uppers, lowers, end links, inner and outer tie rods, strut rod bushings, one front strut, oil change, tranny service with a flush and fill with merc 5, modified the intake tube, took off the dented early 93 tube and put on a later tube, cut off and molded over the air silencers on the tube, sanded and painted it, put on a beauty cover ( original missing ) changed the antenna, changed the rear shocks to sensatracks with new solid mounts, put in factory 94 style woodgrain ashtray/ cup holder and shifter and eatc bezel, changed eatc to 95 hard button, removed all interior trim pieces, removed sticky rubber coating, wet sanded them all down with 1000grit to get the factory satin look, not too shiny, not too dull, fixed the console arm rest lid, removed all the seats and cleaned them with a magic eraser, conditioned all with lexol, shampoo'd the rug, fixed some scratches on the body, then i clay bar'd it and waxed it then i put on a coat of polish. cleaned the wheels and shined up the tires. lots of hours went into this baby! he just had it aligned too now we have one problem with the abs to solve. this thing looks incredible. check it out.

Clean looking mark VIII. Rarely see them in this shape now . Why did you swap out the entire front suspension? Only 43k miles on the car..? All those parts usually don't fail until 100k+

Also that car would look great with some wheels and tint.

the front end was shot from sitting, dont forget it is 14 years old. if it was mine, it would have tint on it already, thats clean bright white looks sick with black tint. and yes it does need wheels bad, some octastars would set it right off.

Hey Jamie! I'm pickin up another CE tomorrow - will you do the same thing to mine if I bring it to ya?

of course i would. i love doing this, i dont know why someoen who can tear them apart with no regret or feelings for it, can spend so much time doing the complete opposite to one of them. i get some kind of satisfaction being really anal with them too. like my green 93 i recently bought, tomorrow is that cars day for some love, new rear bags, new sensatrac shocks, coolant flush, putting a hood on it , the hood on mine is not nice, its been painted and you can see all the urethane rings in the paint, and its cracked in 2 spots, but i just took apart the same color combo 93 and the hood is mint, so im taking it. if anyone saw how i transformed my blue 93 from when i bought it, its obvious i have a serious love affair with these cars, most of you think i live to destroy them, but if that was the case i wouldnt be on my 4th one!!!

That looks great Jamie!

A couple of questions if I may though:

What's the story on that quarter panel repair?

Also, I'm curious how the green hood paint will match from one car to the next. I'm wondering how different paint batches and/or fading will affect the color. Could you let us know how it looks when you're done? I'm pretty sure that it would be better than a repaint anyway though.

the quarter panel had deep scratches in it, so i took dupont touch up paint in a bottle and brushed it on heavy, so it filled in the scratches. let it dry, then wet sanded all the excess paint off with 2000 grit, end result is very faint touch up paint and the scratches are hardly seen now and you cannot feel them at all because of the wet sanding. its so much better then slapping on clumpy touch up paint and leaving it like most people do. it ends up looking worse then the scratches, but alot of people are not willing to take sand paper to their paint!
as far as the hood goes on mine. we'll see how close it matches from one green car to the next. i'll repost on that when i find out.

When I read the title of this thread, I cringed and nearly shat myself. But I do forget how much love you can show for a Mark. Great work Jamie! If you ever got your hands on my daily driver, there would be black Gen 1 parts for all!

Great job.
I see the lasagna effect on the rear window rubber. Will that get replaced as well?
HID's in the future?

scotty96lsc said:

Great job.
I see the lasagna effect on the rear window rubber. Will that get replaced as well?
HID's in the future?

Click to expand...

i dont know about the window or hid's, it isnt my car. but if he decides to do it im sure i'll have pics!!