My 11 year old avy is getting a new lease on life this week, i spent all weekend prepping her, and shes all ready for a nice shiny coat of napa burgundy. i'll post some pics up by this weekend on how it all turns out. i wet sanded the whole car and removed the pin stripes and did a tad bit of body work. i'm pulling the grille and head/tail lights off, anyone have pics or can tell me how to get the inner rear lights off. the ones that are in the decklid are giving me a little trouble. and i need to take out the licence plate lights becuse they have some overspray on them from when the car was first painted about 5 years ago.thanks!
It shouldn't be too complicated. I did it the other time so that I could darken my tail lights. Should just be a matter of removing the liner and undoing what I think is four bolts. Two of them won't seem that they go on the light, but they do. I think two were black on mine, and the other two were silver/gold. I'll double check later today.
EDIT: Might be less bolts. If no one else tells you, I'll let you know around 6PM central
I don't know about the lights but i do know about painting; one tip you may already know is-... wherever there was pin striping; you MUST prime & 800/1000 grit sand where the stripe was or the image will telegraph through. Any body shop/painter will tell you this if you ask.
Even though the ex-pinstripe area LOOKS like the surrounding paint; it's not.
the pinstripes were VERY VERY NOTICEABLY LOWER. it was ridiculous! it was a bad repaint to start with, and the stripes were right on the factory paint. and that added to the build up of waxing the car for years made it seem that much worse. i sanded the hell out of them until it was as flat as i could get it. they are still going to prep the car. i couldnt get my right turn signal off and thus couldnt get the headlight off either :-/ it was stuck on something, and i didnt want to break it. but tail lights came off in a snap, and so did the left headlight and turn signal, and the grille is cake to remove, so that should help with overspray. i cant wait until i get it back on thursday, no matter what it will be a huge improvement on what once was. the inner lights i left on, because it looked like i had to remove the lock to get to them, so it is what it is. it wont be a prize winning show car but it will look dam nice going down the road.
mmeja; hows the weather been by you? i'll be in IL in a few weeks, and im hoping to see some snow, looking for a change from florida ;-) and thank for the tip on the lights.
Last edited by cexsiman; 11-17-2008 at 07:54 PM.
Reason: edit
I didn't have to remove the lock to get to them. Like I said, it was just a few bolts and it comes off.
The weather is pretty cold already. Last night was a pretty good snow. No build up on the streets but there was some on the grass and parked cars. It's going to be a nice change from Florida.
WOW, i never would have guessed that the car would have ever looked so good. let me know your opinions of how it looks. and im still debating on weather or not to put the pinstripes back on.
It looks good, but any half arsed paint job will look goot from 5 feet away...how about some closeups? How much did the paintjob cost and who did it. I must admit it looks much better than the old photo, indicating you did some good prep work.
yeah, my baby was looking pretty bad before her paint job. it had no shine even on the best of days. id spend a saturday waxing it and nothing paid off, no shine....but now....:-)))))
i've gone over this before, i hate that they are acura rims, but they just look so dam good on the car, and they were so dam cheap too :-)
it was a pain getting custom hub centric rings so they fit correctly but it worked out in the end. i couldnt find a set of stock XLS 5 spoke alloys, so i did the best i could. besides the emblem in the center, i think they look nice, especially when shes rolling down the highway.
im thinking no pinstripes for now, and heres a link to more pics i took, better quality ones too.
Im not putting all of them as images on here, but there are a ton of closeups for some of you ;-) in my album. (39 more pics)
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New Paint!
good eyes, u can vip the thing out with that color 
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