Labour of love

It's amazing how things turn out if you end up being patient and chipping slowly away at them. After landing back in Kiwiland, I decided to hit the ground running and get cracking on the things I had left on my to do list. 

First things first was to put the spoiler I had gotten while in the US from the car. Thankfully my mates came to the party, so I gotta thank Scott, Shaun and Charlie for helping courier it down from Auckland for me. I'd always fantasized about having an SW with an Autopista rear spoiler for shits and giggles, and when this came up for sale, I was not gonna miss out on it. The hemispheric and continental difference in location wasn't going to stop me! Unfortunately the seller was a bit shifty, and what was advertised as a mint condition refurbed spoiler turns out to be something that needs a bit more finetuning to get it to my goal. 

Nonetheless, champing at the bit, I did a quick fit on the car, and have left it on for 2 weeks now, and I absolutely love it. It may not be to everyone's tastes, but judging from my choice in dream car, obviously I don't care about people's opinions on my choices lol. It will be sanded back down, the mounts redone, and will be primered and painted before I do a final install on the car. Hoping to have this done before the new year.

The car is getting very close bodywork wise to the image I had in my head when I first bought the car. Which is excellent as this project keeps getting better by the day!

However, a major stickler and hurdle in the project for me is, and always has been its lack of suitably special rims. The problem with taking your time with refurbing rims, is that you have to roll on lame ass shoes for a while. Thankfully, this is a major motivator for me, and my first refurbed set is now all painted, cleared and bolted together. They are 95% finished, and just require new valve stems and a tire to be put on and I will be able to run em. Alas, it is not a full set, so it will have to be a pair at a time, but it is a start in the right direction. 

With verve and gusto I managed to get my Sebrings fully painted and cleared within the 2 weekends I have been back in NZ with Matt's help. Rather than explain it all again (which was covered in this post - Blood, sweat and fumes), here's some timeline pictures to do the explaining instead. 

Sadly no in progress painting pictures, nor polishing pictures but we all know what paint and autosol looks like. 

Centres painted, prior to being cleared, and barrels yet to be polished.

 Centres cleared, and barrels polished, pre clear. 

I got hassled by one of my mates the other day for always having my feet in a picture, but I defended myself by saying, "you know it's a Lush Garage picture if there's a picture of my feet in jandals". Looking thru my posts and uploaded photos, there is an element of truth to that statement lol. 

Centres fully bolted up, and awaiting valve stems.

Not a bad turn around at all if I do say so myself! So naturally, being a wheel whore, what else was there to do but roll the car out of the garage and have a test fit? 

 The wheel is on the hub and the wheel nuts are on, but I didn't lower the car completely as I was lazy, and there were no valve stems or air in the tire, so to do so would have been a waste of time. A preliminary test fit shows that the sizing is perfect, and i just love how badass the big tires look. I have always had a propensity for big tires and small rims, and these 225/50/16s are just that.

Saweeeeet! Looks spot on right now, and I don't think I will have to lower it much, if at all thanks to the big tires. Which is excellent news as the last thing I want to be doing is dragging the exhaust haha. Not in this car! Perhaps a couple mm should do it, but atm, it is all just idle thoughts as the car hasnt been lowered fully on them yet. 

In other news, I've managed to procure a full other set of Sebrings thanks to incessant trawling of Yahoo Japan. Sadly the sizing isn't the same as my current rims, but it could be an excellent beginning to a staggered setup. They are 16x7 +33 so they should be absolutely spot on for the front of this car, and couple with a 205/45, would be a perfect grip setup for the MR, which is notoriously picky for wheel and tire sizing. Now I just need to decide on a colour scheme. But I'm getting ahead of myself, as the container isn't expected to arrive in NZ till about late February hah!

So the next update for the blog will be a boring but required one. Top of the list is giving my GTS a full service as I'm not comfortable leaning on this car without putting in something I know of. So with the next paycheck will come new brake fluid, new plugs, new oil and filter, new clutch fluid, and most importantly new gbox fluid. Coming a close second to this would be the parts to fix my GT to get it running as I wold love to get it legal asap and flick it off. It's currently sitting unloved and is taking up space which I would like to have back lol. Stay tuned for the next post though as it's not going to be all service and repair related. I'm also going to be showing you all a few tricks to improving your driving experience as well as sharing some feedback. Till the next post, stay safe and out of trouble!