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Sophie's Turn around.

Daisy_854

New member
Joined
May 25, 2010
Location
CT
Three weeks ago when I bought this car, she was a mess.
This is not to say that she is in pristine condition now. Actually we are still far from it.

But I will say that I am most defiantly making progress with Sophie.
I just got home from Elm City Customs. A Shop in New Haven CT that installed my remote starter.

I cleaned up the dash, doors, and leather seats in the back. Now they shine like new.
The new floor mats fit perfectly even though they were not made for a Volvo.

I picked up a nice compound he other day-now I just need to get out there on my next day off. She also gets new tires this Saturday.

Oh yeah! I've been running store to store trying to find a 2 1/2" chrome tip for my exhaust. Of course every store has 2 1/4" inch..but not 2 1/2". Peachy.

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It is time to let my secret out;:oogle:
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I plan to take on the challenge of painting Sophie.
Yes, pulling out & filling in her dents as well.
I've decided that I'm going to setting up my own spray booth off to the side of the garage figuring that will be my best bet since I can?t have the sun beating down on my car.
The part I WON'T reveal is the color that will be going on her. Sorry!

Oh last but not least; my headliner project.For those who are yet to figure it out...I'm into chicks.
SO I thought that a headliner covered in pictures cut outs from only the best magazines...Maxim, Sports Illustrated, Playboy etc. would be appropriate for my taste.
Oh and I'll be topping that off with Plexi Glass to protect the cut outs.

I know, I know everyone is thinking "Whaaa?? A girl? That does work?!"

-Yeah. I love this car so much and every time I get out there to work on her, well it gets me so excited. No I don't know how to pull a motor, or even change my oil for that matter but I have been having fun with the work I have done.
Cheers to much more that is yet to come! :)
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My dog's name is Sophie. So I clicked the link. Body work is tough. Good luck. Good idea on the headliner too. You will have to get creative with the lexan. You will need to bend it. The headliner is a straight, flat, span.
 
Either way... she needs a lot of cosmetic work to be done.
The interior is soo nice though!! I will post more interior pics soon!
 
I will say that having a car starter is a plus.
Just one more thing on the "good" list for this car.
 
I'd suggest printing your girlies on fabric, and using that for the headliner. smooth hard surfaces like plexi reflect a lot of noise back into the cabin.
 
You'll have to print the graphics onto fabric, and then laminate it onto some 3/16" polyurethane foam, before mounting. You may be able to get away with coating a magazine collage with an extremely flexible urethane, but the magazine pages will just absorb any liquid and become too rigid to conform the roof. Also this is a terrible idea. For several reasons.
 
I'd suggest printing your girlies on fabric, and using that for the headliner. smooth hard surfaces like plexi reflect a lot of noise back into the cabin.

If I had that printed on to fabric I'm sure that would look the absolute best.
I'll look into that idea.
Maybe I dont even need plexi I can just have it laminated which would be cheaper than fabric..and less noisy than Plexi.
I'll see where this goes. lol


I thought you just told your dog's name is Sophie?:-P

and no it was just a joke.
The car is Sophie. You guys were sayign your dogs names so I was like "My dogs name is.. oh wait I don't have a dog".
Lame joke lol sorry haha
 
Very nice! Sophie's the same as my Landshark! Yours is a better color, though. Paint's a lot nicer than mine, but mine's from following salt trucks to work at 4 AM. They are just so much damn fun for n/a cars.
 
You go girl!

Starting out doing cosmetic work is a great way to begin to learn about your car and how to work on it. Not sure I'd tackle paint work for starters, but doing your own prep then getting someone else to double check your handy work and spray the car out is really rewarding and typically gives great results. Especially if they show you where you went wrong in your prep so you can learn to do it better next time. As long as you're patient and ask lots of questions then ignore most of the answers you get here, you'll be golden. If you enjoy it, you'll keep moving on to bigger and better projects, and before you know it, you'll have an intimate understanding of just how your car ticks, and you will have made it into what you want, not what someone sells you over the counter.

As to the BS about women not working on cars...it's simply because they've never had the subject matter presented to them in an interesting way they can associate with. I'd be very concerned about the physical and psychological well-being of any human, regardless of gender who's interest isn't peaked once they find out that the four strokes of an internal combustion engine are Suck, Squish, Bang and Blow! If it's a turbo motor, you just cut to the chase and substitute an extra Blow in place of the first Suck. :-P
 
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