Null's ultimate Dream Car Thread - A CV8 Monaro in Austria
Discussion
Time for a big spring update! The car is still safely garaged, but i want to get it back on the road soon.
With the help of my dad, I spent countless hours working on various projects over the Winter.
First off, I proudly present: A fully restored front bumper! Completely sanded down to bare plastic, new primer and color matched paint.
I am so glad I finally found a good automotive paint shop - In a tiny village 30 minutes from my home in the middle of nowhere... They did an outstanding job!
With the paint now looking flawless, I came up with a new license plate mounting solution that uses the existing recess for the small Aussie front plates.
The front bumper is already back together with restored upper grille, lower grille, fog light surrounds and a new gloss black Holden lion badge in place.
It was about time I got to restore all the faded black exterior plastic parts. I wanted a permanent solution - So I cleaned, sanded lightly, applied primer and matte black paint with rattle cans.
I am very happy with the result. A rich, uniform, matte black tone similar to what I imagine these parts must have looked like when my Monaro left the factory in 2005
The grey washer fluid sprayer nozzles always bothered me. So I sanded, primed and painted them with an off-the-shelf Duplicolor red that is pretty close to the original Sting Red of the car.
The wiper arms and battery tray were completely stripped with a wire brush drill attachment, sanded, primed and painted matte black.
The B-Pillar trim was really starting to show it's age - It also got the sand/prime/paint-treatment.
Another project was the engine cover. I decided to go the more difficult route - I and wanted the raised lettering to also be red.
After watching a couple of "How to paint raised lettering"-tutorials, I felt confident enough to give it a try with the off-the-shelf Duplicolor red.
The result is "good", but not perfect. Maybe I'll give this another go in the future. I learned a lot from it and think I can do even better next time.
Restoring the headlights proved to be challenging. The lenses were wet sanded with 600, 1000, 1500, 2000 and 2500 grit, followed by compound, polish and a final pass with a super soft pad.
The passenger side headlight came out looking really good, but the driver side headlight showed little improvement even after completing the whole process 3 times!
By then, it became obvious it had some sort of smudge on the INSIDE of the lens. I could barely believe it. This meant having to put it in the oven multiple times
to heat up the butyl sealer and disassemble everything to clean the inside of the lens.
What a mess... the hot sticky butyl was absolutely everywhere. I seriously hope I never have to do this again!
One more thing to do before I can put the driver side headlight back together is refinish the low beam an turn signal reflectors, as the ultra thin OEM chrome coating is starting to peel.
Oh yes, and figuring out a way to permanently seal it up again. But I am confident this will also be done soon.
A couple other things are left to do: I have finished sanding, priming and painting everything except the cowl cover - It is mounted with those dreaded plastic "scrivets" and they have become very brittle with time...
I will have to drill them all out to get the cowl cover off and figure out a new mounting solution.
The rear diffuser & fog light insert are also finished, but the diffuser is mounted with plastic "scrivets" from the factory...
You guessed it, of course a few of them broke when I carefully tried to remove it...
Re-mounting the diffuser with different mounting hardware will be the very last thing to do before I put the car back on the road.
With the help of my dad, I spent countless hours working on various projects over the Winter.
First off, I proudly present: A fully restored front bumper! Completely sanded down to bare plastic, new primer and color matched paint.
I am so glad I finally found a good automotive paint shop - In a tiny village 30 minutes from my home in the middle of nowhere... They did an outstanding job!
With the paint now looking flawless, I came up with a new license plate mounting solution that uses the existing recess for the small Aussie front plates.
The front bumper is already back together with restored upper grille, lower grille, fog light surrounds and a new gloss black Holden lion badge in place.
It was about time I got to restore all the faded black exterior plastic parts. I wanted a permanent solution - So I cleaned, sanded lightly, applied primer and matte black paint with rattle cans.
I am very happy with the result. A rich, uniform, matte black tone similar to what I imagine these parts must have looked like when my Monaro left the factory in 2005
The grey washer fluid sprayer nozzles always bothered me. So I sanded, primed and painted them with an off-the-shelf Duplicolor red that is pretty close to the original Sting Red of the car.
The wiper arms and battery tray were completely stripped with a wire brush drill attachment, sanded, primed and painted matte black.
The B-Pillar trim was really starting to show it's age - It also got the sand/prime/paint-treatment.
Another project was the engine cover. I decided to go the more difficult route - I and wanted the raised lettering to also be red.
After watching a couple of "How to paint raised lettering"-tutorials, I felt confident enough to give it a try with the off-the-shelf Duplicolor red.
The result is "good", but not perfect. Maybe I'll give this another go in the future. I learned a lot from it and think I can do even better next time.
Restoring the headlights proved to be challenging. The lenses were wet sanded with 600, 1000, 1500, 2000 and 2500 grit, followed by compound, polish and a final pass with a super soft pad.
The passenger side headlight came out looking really good, but the driver side headlight showed little improvement even after completing the whole process 3 times!
By then, it became obvious it had some sort of smudge on the INSIDE of the lens. I could barely believe it. This meant having to put it in the oven multiple times
to heat up the butyl sealer and disassemble everything to clean the inside of the lens.
What a mess... the hot sticky butyl was absolutely everywhere. I seriously hope I never have to do this again!
One more thing to do before I can put the driver side headlight back together is refinish the low beam an turn signal reflectors, as the ultra thin OEM chrome coating is starting to peel.
Oh yes, and figuring out a way to permanently seal it up again. But I am confident this will also be done soon.
A couple other things are left to do: I have finished sanding, priming and painting everything except the cowl cover - It is mounted with those dreaded plastic "scrivets" and they have become very brittle with time...
I will have to drill them all out to get the cowl cover off and figure out a new mounting solution.
The rear diffuser & fog light insert are also finished, but the diffuser is mounted with plastic "scrivets" from the factory...
You guessed it, of course a few of them broke when I carefully tried to remove it...
Re-mounting the diffuser with different mounting hardware will be the very last thing to do before I put the car back on the road.
Thanks guys.
Getting the car closer towards the vision I have for it is a slow, but steady process for me, I am constantly learning as I go along. There are some people out there who manage to rebuilt their whole engine over Winter - that's out of my league currently
There are still so many improvements, upgrades and maintenance things that I want to do. I am certain even the current list of plans will keep me busy for a looong time... But then again, we all know with a car like the Monaro, it probaly will never be never truly finished - rather it evolves and ages with you.
Getting the car closer towards the vision I have for it is a slow, but steady process for me, I am constantly learning as I go along. There are some people out there who manage to rebuilt their whole engine over Winter - that's out of my league currently
There are still so many improvements, upgrades and maintenance things that I want to do. I am certain even the current list of plans will keep me busy for a looong time... But then again, we all know with a car like the Monaro, it probaly will never be never truly finished - rather it evolves and ages with you.
Edited by Null.Performance on Wednesday 20th March 22:17
We are back on the road after 169 days!!!
All the parts are back on the car, new EFB battery is in and it fired right up with no issues. I fueled up with 100 Octane and took it for a gentle 65 km spin around the Alpenvorland hills.
I must conclude that after such a long time, I am a bit rusty and need to learn how to "adequately" drive the car again.
The "new" bumper and the restored matte black parts make it look a few years younger, as do the headlights, thankfully - these cost me quite a few sleepless nights!
Now I really need to get the flaking door handles and wheels sorted sooner than later, they stick out even more now.
I'll soon polish the tail lights, drill out the broken plastic scrivets on the cowl cover so I can restore that too an maybe I can do something about the off-center shutlines on the driver's door.
Some pictures of a freshly detailed Monaro:
All the parts are back on the car, new EFB battery is in and it fired right up with no issues. I fueled up with 100 Octane and took it for a gentle 65 km spin around the Alpenvorland hills.
I must conclude that after such a long time, I am a bit rusty and need to learn how to "adequately" drive the car again.
The "new" bumper and the restored matte black parts make it look a few years younger, as do the headlights, thankfully - these cost me quite a few sleepless nights!
Now I really need to get the flaking door handles and wheels sorted sooner than later, they stick out even more now.
I'll soon polish the tail lights, drill out the broken plastic scrivets on the cowl cover so I can restore that too an maybe I can do something about the off-center shutlines on the driver's door.
Some pictures of a freshly detailed Monaro:
Thank you Roger and John
Got some more things done last weekend - restored cowl cover and polished taillights.
On the cowl cover, the before and after is like night and day, and I only had to drill out two of the six scrivets to get it off
The taillights are so shiny now that the cellphone camera has trouble focusing. I'll get some better pictures soon.
Got some more things done last weekend - restored cowl cover and polished taillights.
On the cowl cover, the before and after is like night and day, and I only had to drill out two of the six scrivets to get it off
The taillights are so shiny now that the cellphone camera has trouble focusing. I'll get some better pictures soon.
On May 1st, I joined the friendly folks at Amerer Air / 1. ÖSTERR. US-CAR CLUB, Austria's oldest and biggest American car club, for the 2024 Season Opening Event.
I brought my Panasonic GH5II video camera and gimbal along. So instead of pictures, please enjoy this video of all the great cars and trucks that were on display. Happy motoring.
I brought my Panasonic GH5II video camera and gimbal along. So instead of pictures, please enjoy this video of all the great cars and trucks that were on display. Happy motoring.
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