1988 White T-bar

[Rich135]

I know you guys like to hear about progress on our cars. I have spent the last week taking off the rear bumper to check and restore the bumper bar etc.

I am relieved to say everything was pretty good with just a bit of surface rust on the top inner bumper support trim and some on the main bar too. All three strips of metal were rubbed down, rust treated, etch primed and top coated, along with a liberal dose of cavity wax in the main bar.

All is now looking like new and ready to go back on.



All is looking good behind the bumper too.

[jimi]

For future reference, a bit of background on my speaker box design. It was never meant to be a sub box and was specifically designed to be a closed box to deal with bass/mid frequencies, I wanted the tight bass you get from a closed box design, not the "woolly" ported/open sub sound.
The box dimensions were worked out using the Theile/Small parameters for the 6" component speakers I intended to use. Also had to allow me to still store the T-bars safely behind the seats and lose as little seat travel as possible..
My system is set up much as James described, 2-way coaxial speakers in the front and 6" in the boxes. My head unit allows me to tailor what frequencies go where and also has a built in equaliser. Basically mid/high to the front and low/mid to the sub output., sub output is used to drive a amplifier under the passengers seat, output from this is routed via tbe Infinity crossovers to remove any high frequencies.
The rear output is not used and the standard rear speakers have been completely removed, in fact I have LED lights installed bebind the rear speaker grills.
As James pointed out sound (as in hifi) is very subjective and individual so what I was aiming for may not suit others all that really matters is whether you like the sound or not.

[Rich135]

Thanks for posting that up Jimi. Maybe I shouldn't have drilled a port then, but the sound is excellent none-the-less, especially as it's only coming from the original head unit at the moment. A MASSIVE improvement on the original speakers which were obviously all shot from being 32 years old. Thanks again for posting up the pictures/dimensions of your boxes, they really do the trick.

Nice idea on having LEDs in the old speaker holes!

[jimi]

If your happy with the sound, that's all that matters

[MR2 Michael]

It certainly looks like you've got a really mint car there. Definitely been well looked after.

[Rich135]

It certainly looks like you've got a really mint car there. Definitely been well looked after.

Thanks Michael, it's a credit to it's two previous owners. I will just try to keep it that way.

[Rich135]

So the car has been at a local body shop for the last couple of weeks as I really wanted to get the rear valance resprayed - it had just started to get some surface rust at the edges so I wanted to stop that before it took hold. I also had the rear bumper resprayed, as well as all of the inner lips of the arches, as they had some paint chipping off from general use over the years and I didn't want any rust to set in. Lastly they re-lacquered just below the engine air intake as that had failed near where the bumper strip is.

They are all the original arches as this car hasn't had any body work done, so I wanted to keep them that way.

I know we all like pictures, so here are a few while I was putting it back together.

Still to to: Put the side bumper strip back on under the engine intake, put stickers on the bumper and rear 3/4 panel, put rear mudflaps back on, replace front wheel arch liners, put the rest of the bolts in the under bumper bar (done), put side skirts back on.

[Rich135]

New pin striping put on tonight. It was a bit nerve racking but I am happy with the result.

[Martin42006]

Looking really tidy there. Good job.

[MR2 Michael]

Well done for getting them on. Look pretty perfect to me.