Grant's 1988 MKIII Beautification Project - Finally...

[Grandavi]

***JUST THOUGHT I WOULD POINT OUT... this is the most expensive way to do a car... lol. For anyone who follows/reads this later, I am not doing all the work myself. Everything is being professionally done. I think that is important, because most builds are guys doing things themselves, but I have NO body skills, NO paint skills and swing a wrench like a girl (no offense to girls). This is all going to be the worst way to make your car nice, but the results should be good and I am not doing this to sell the car.. its all personal love and affection for the MKIII driving me.


This is the car the day before I bought it... $6000.00 August 2008


Storywise... in 2009 I put my finger through the wheelwell and truly found out what MKIII's are famous for.. rusted quarters and rust where moulding pins are.
3500.00 + about 1000.00+ in parts along with 1800.00 to get an upgraded rad, clean the top end of the motor up, new hoses, lots of new bolts/screws/clips.. etc.. and the car was at the state its in now (the 3500.00 was for rebuilding the wheelwells and quarter panels.. )

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So.. we begin spending more money...I am just starting this area now as a journal of sorts for my car build.

My body kit parts are ordered and on their way (should be in customs today for pick up, except the retro-spec parts).

Here's the car as it stands currently...

[Grandavi]

Specs for the car are as follows at present (prior to building):

1988 Toyota Supra MKIII
7MGTE
Fully stock except for the following:
Wheels
Radiator
Stereo

Work done to date:
- Maintenance.. lots of it...

- All rust replaced with metal on car (that I could find). Interior from the driver's seat back is either removed or being removed. This included rebuilding both rear wheel wells and quarter panels and there was rust under the interior panels that we found, cut out and replaced. Still have to rust proof the interior and undercoat the wheel wells properly.. waiting until AFTER the paint as I have to remove the full interior. (Heater core issue and I want to make sure there are no rust areas missed...)

- The louvres behind the windows (driver and passenger side) are brand new OEM (they are the black pieces) for a touch under $400.00.

- all vacuum hoses (and almost all other hoses in the engine bay) replaced


What's being done...

From Retro-spec...
Supra MK3 Exterior Trim - Fiberglass (painting with car)
Supra MK3 Vented Headlight covers - Fiberglass (painting with car)
Supra MK3 Wiper Cowl - Fiberglass (painting with car

From Shine Auto Project...
A70 MKIII Supra Spec-G Front Bumper (90's style)


A70 MKIII Supra Spec-A Sideskirts










A70 MKIII Supra WhaleTail




A70 MKIII Supra Spec-A Rear Add-ons




Interior
From Retro-spec
(will add the parts after the paint.. will be a lot of CF replacement parts)

Suspension
(just spec'ing everything that I want, but waiting until after the body, simply to get the proper drop)

Wheels
(waiting until after the paint, the wheels on my car will be up for sale then as I purchase a different staggered wheel)

Engine... now.. thats a whole different ball of wax and will be the final thing I do simply because it will probably cost as much as everything I do up to the point of upgrading it...
The engine actually only has just a touch over 20,000 km on the rebuild (turbo too) and the only real problem with it is that the valve seals leak.. so I get the start-up blue...

Just put a Denso MKIV fuel pump into the tank I picked up in Edmonton. New seals and screws and its been coated already. Saturday July 2... thats the day for the tank swap. Been a while since I could put more than a quarter tank in the car.
Will post as things get done to show the difference.

[Keros]

Looks like a great platform to start with! Very nice colour.

[Grandavi]

I plan on doing a "ghosting" from a dark grey (almost black) to just slightly darker grey than what you see.. from the top of the car to the bottom (with grey on bottom). Just to give it a lower stance look prior to actually lowering it.. very expensive paint job going on this puppy... but I warned them.. I will complain if its not very near perfect... (windows and trim will all be removed)

[supraboy]

That body kit from drift is going to look very nice. It'll go wicked with the vented headlight cover! Nice job on the body work too!

[Grandavi]

The Whale tale scares me a bit, but after looking at the 90 wing and comparing it to the whale tale, i believe it will solve a couple issues for me. I do have a 90 wing sitting in the garage, that I will have to sell if I dont use.. hehe.

The main reason I am avoiding the 90'ish tail lights is because I am hoping to ultimately go with 90 tail lights with a LED rework. I saw a post with them done and they looked very wicked. No reason to do it twice.. so, sticking with the 88 OEM tails for now.

the retro-spec parts are going to take 3-4 weeks to get here, so paint may not happen until first week of August (which will negatively effect the Edmonton meet for me... )

[Bri-Guy]

AWESOME, I have been looking forward to seeing progress on this project posted up.

You have big plans and are going about things in the proper fashion, which is fantastic. Keep it moving as best you can, don't deny us!

[Grandavi]

Trucking company apparently couldn't ship the parts due to "natural disasters" between Vancouver and Calgary.. assuming it was a mud slide somewhere? Hoping the body kit arrives on the 4th so I can strip the interior and send it off for the bodywork. Will post pics of the kit as soon as it arrives here (hoping to get off easy at the customs office... lol)

[Dan_Gyoba]

Yeah, there was a big mud slide on the Trans Canada. Big one, from the news...

[Mr Malaka]

Where'd you get all those nicely covered hoses from? That seems like something I should do. And vented headlights...sounds interesting...