1977 Opel kadett C1 resto mod
Discussion
Rewind to 1984 when a young jeffc was a lad of 14, my pal rocks up in his mams 1977 Opel kadett 1.2 coupe we went for a drive up to hamsterly forest and gave me a drive of it, always had a soft spot for them since then but rarely see them come up for sale .
Fast forward to 2020, covid hits and Boris has locked us down, not allowed to leave the house , spending weeks sat in the garden, drinking beer and eating crap, I was quickly in danger of becoming a 20 stone alcoholic, I needed a project to keep me sane , surfing online stumbled across a couple of Opel kadetts ended up buying them both , keeping the best parts of both and starting with the best shell .
I commenced on a restoration very unsure of which direction I was heading with the project . In a previous life I was a time served painter serving my time in the 80"s and always kept my hand in over the years and since moving house am now set up at home to do this type of thing with a decent size workshop at the bottom of my garden with a spray booth on the end so it gave me something to do whilst Boris was out partying .
The shell was really tidy for something that is over 40 years old , the only welding required was the spare wheel well two rear arches and the sills had been replaced by the previous owner, floors and everything else all original and solid , it had then been dry stored for a number of years before I bought it .
I ve hundreds of pics of the resto , there are some on my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/jeffc_cars_?igsh=cmQyd2l...
if anyone is interested but will add a couple here just to give you an idea how it ended up and what it started as .
As we were locked down I blitzed through the resto, from pushing into the garage to driving it out under its own steam so was done in weeks working on it 12 hours at a time, I did trial fitted a Honda k20 on itbs from another project I was on with but bottled and ended up fitting a Minster built 220bhp XE Vauxhall lump concluding it was more in keeping .
So I ve used the car as it is for the last couple of years but am just starting on upgrading everything so I can use it as a fast road / light track car rather than the garage queen it seems to have turned into .
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/udbuFe7U[/url][url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/GxLgmTje[/url]
Fast forward to 2020, covid hits and Boris has locked us down, not allowed to leave the house , spending weeks sat in the garden, drinking beer and eating crap, I was quickly in danger of becoming a 20 stone alcoholic, I needed a project to keep me sane , surfing online stumbled across a couple of Opel kadetts ended up buying them both , keeping the best parts of both and starting with the best shell .
I commenced on a restoration very unsure of which direction I was heading with the project . In a previous life I was a time served painter serving my time in the 80"s and always kept my hand in over the years and since moving house am now set up at home to do this type of thing with a decent size workshop at the bottom of my garden with a spray booth on the end so it gave me something to do whilst Boris was out partying .
The shell was really tidy for something that is over 40 years old , the only welding required was the spare wheel well two rear arches and the sills had been replaced by the previous owner, floors and everything else all original and solid , it had then been dry stored for a number of years before I bought it .
I ve hundreds of pics of the resto , there are some on my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/jeffc_cars_?igsh=cmQyd2l...
if anyone is interested but will add a couple here just to give you an idea how it ended up and what it started as .
As we were locked down I blitzed through the resto, from pushing into the garage to driving it out under its own steam so was done in weeks working on it 12 hours at a time, I did trial fitted a Honda k20 on itbs from another project I was on with but bottled and ended up fitting a Minster built 220bhp XE Vauxhall lump concluding it was more in keeping .
So I ve used the car as it is for the last couple of years but am just starting on upgrading everything so I can use it as a fast road / light track car rather than the garage queen it seems to have turned into .
[url]|https://thumbsnap.com/udbuFe7U[/url][url]|https://thumbsnap.com/GxLgmTje[/url]Edited by JeffC on Sunday 25th December 12:04
Edited by JeffC on Monday 1st December 17:34
king tidy! Great work!Thanks !
I pretty much bare metalled the shell, made new door bottoms inner and outer by hand from sheet metal, repaired all the holes where the old plastic trim was riveted down the side, filled the sides with filler then long blocked the full car and coated the body in spray polysester filler then guide coated and long blocked again, the 4 coats of high build primer and long blocked again , repeated to be sure as I was going gloss black wanted it to be as flat as possible with no ripples.
once all the inside was painted I then wet flatted the full car with 1000 w&D , painted the full car yellow , I went for a totally different shade to the original GTES using the colour to match one my other cars an s1 elise so the top is lotus mustard racing yellow . After half an hour flash off I then painstakingly masked out the car , the stripes are all painted so the masking has to be perfect there is no second chances ! 3 coats of basecoat black followed , half hour to flash off then unmask , I then hit it with 2 coats of ultra high solids clear coat for a gun finish .
Few pics from along the way ,
Btw is there not a way of adding multiple pics at once ???
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/vGkLLPcm[/url]
I pretty much bare metalled the shell, made new door bottoms inner and outer by hand from sheet metal, repaired all the holes where the old plastic trim was riveted down the side, filled the sides with filler then long blocked the full car and coated the body in spray polysester filler then guide coated and long blocked again, the 4 coats of high build primer and long blocked again , repeated to be sure as I was going gloss black wanted it to be as flat as possible with no ripples.
once all the inside was painted I then wet flatted the full car with 1000 w&D , painted the full car yellow , I went for a totally different shade to the original GTES using the colour to match one my other cars an s1 elise so the top is lotus mustard racing yellow . After half an hour flash off I then painstakingly masked out the car , the stripes are all painted so the masking has to be perfect there is no second chances ! 3 coats of basecoat black followed , half hour to flash off then unmask , I then hit it with 2 coats of ultra high solids clear coat for a gun finish .
Few pics from along the way ,
Btw is there not a way of adding multiple pics at once ???
[url]|https://thumbsnap.com/vGkLLPcm[/url]Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff