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This is my first SC400 but my husband's second (Subjug4tor).
Got this & a second engine for it at a great deal. Needs a lot of TLC.
This thing has rust in a few places and the interior is worn/ripped up, but she has the all power options (heated seats, traction control, everything) so we plan to breathe a lot of life back into her and give her some upgrades (like touch screen GPS/radio, replace steering wheel, swap interior colors from blue/grey to black/green & supercharge it.)
End goal is to have a fast, reliable, comfortable ride. I really like the exterior color (Royal Jade Pearl) so I'm going to try to keep it. Someone upgraded the wheels at some point in time to 17" 5-spoke GS rims so I'm definitely keeping those, at least for a while.
Current State:
-Top of windshield underneath the trim someone had glued rubber to it and it's rusted all the way through in a couple of holes, but most of the structure is okay. There's enough there that we can avoid welding. We'll see.
-Drive train appears to be in great shape. It does pull to one side while braking, and one of the brakes locks up while parked and releases later, so it needs brake work.
-Driver and rear seats all cracked, torn and flaking
-Some small cracks in door trim
-Speakers need replacing
-LED Panel in the climate control needs replacing
-Needs some superficial body repair and touch ups/maybe a repaint
-Sunroof gets stuck
-Trunk doesn't pop
-Needs new hydraulic lifts for the hood
-Driver's window regulator is toast
-Antenna doesn't retract completely (going to chunk it and swap for a shortie)
-Need to address rub from tire size
I gotta say, I am in love with this car. I've always got some project or another but MJ is one I can feel passionate about.
It got a wash yesterday, and Subjug4tor took a wire wheel to the rusty areas to grind out what he could with it. He's going to take a rust treatment on it to stop progression of the rust.
A little time, a little effort and she'll be good as nice! Welcome to CL, and check out the "stickies" up at the top. There's a ton of useful information available. GL and keep us posted on your project.
@Asha'man: Is it confirmed she won't be? I know a spoiler I won't say here so it's possible she at least existed at some point in time in the past (of the current films.)
@Maximo018: Fort Worth. You?
@lilSCsteve: Thanks! I will do that for sure.
As for where we're at right now, we pulled the backseats out and probably aren't going to put them back. We're talking about carpeting it and making a storage platform of some sort.
I took the phone out of the center console and plan on putting a covered board to line the bottom.
Subjug4tor buffed the exterior, pulled the windshield out, treated the rust and bondo'd it. He's going to sand and primer it tonight.
After I get all of the paperwork done we're going to take the front seats out and then I'm gonna pull the carpet and power wash it the way I did with my truck when I bought it. We might end up dying the carpet. But the carpet is clean looking with no holes so it will be good to keep using.
Going to get a new windshield put in pretty quick. We have all new lights coming in the mail so that's really the last thing we have to do before at least getting it inspected.
@Asha'man: Is it confirmed she won't be? I know a spoiler I won't say here so it's possible she at least existed at some point in time in the past (of the current films.)
PM with spoiler if you want. I haven't heard anything either way, but had just assumed she wouldn't since the books are basically not canon at all (AFAIK).
This is today. Got a new windshield put in yesterday and temporarily have a seat cover to cover the rips. The back seat has been removed with black carpeting put in behind it. Still have a long way to go but it drives great!
Oh and Subjug4tor put a new sunroof in from a junkyard so that is fully functional now!
man i thought my rust was bad on the roof, mine was only in the corners, how'd you guys go about fixing all that rust? i'm guessing cut it all out and then fill it with fiberglass? that's my plan at least.
Honestly the right way to do it would have been to find a wrecked car with a good roof and cut out the whole front section, then cut out the same bit on our car and weld the new piece in, then fill and sand it smooth before painting.
The easier way (which I took) was to remove the glass and trim around the area, then use physical means (wire brush on a drill) to remove all the rust that I could without removing what precious good metal there was left. After that I brushed a rust converter treatment and let it dry overnight. While it dried I spent my time cleaning the entire area that the windshield seals against all the way around. The next step was to fill in the roof line with bondo, using a couple coats and sanding it flat with a block in between. Honestly I could have gone farther with this step, but I was not aiming for perfection at this point, as sometime soon the whole car will be getting a respray and there are plenty of other body issues to fix- if I feel like going back and perfecting the trim line then I can do it at that point.
After the bondo dried then primer and paint followed- as the car is getting painted soon and I didn't have anything in a matching color, I mixed coats of forest green and black to try to get it a little closer to the stock color, but after it dried it was too far off to look good. I'm likely just going to do a black vinyl wrap on the roof until we get it painted since I already have the vinyl in the garage.
02-01-16, 11:46 AM
Amberlamps & Subjug4tor's "Mara Jade" '92 SC400 Build/Restoration
