Diablo GTi6 restoration

[Joep83]

As mentioned in my other "It is not a project" topic, I also own a diablo red GTi6 from '98. It is a phase 2.5 that I want to transfer into a full phase 3 during restoration.

The reason was that the car was repainted years ago before I owned it. And this was a very bad paint job (according to the paint shop owner). The lacquer peel was mainly due to the bad paint job but also because of the paint used (old diablo red). The car will be painted the same colour but with a different composition making it much stronger and less prone to lacquer peel.

This is how it looked 1.5 years ago just before I started the project:



Here is the main reason why it needs a new paintjob:



Then I started to disassemble.

Needed to get the spacers of first. I forgot to fit them with copper grease, so they were very tight!


As you can see, I did not know at the time you can remove the front bumper together with the grille, headlights, hockeysticks, and slam panal at once:


Airbox is rusty but I already have a better looking one available. The "rust" on the car is no rust but just dirt:


New airbox:


Saving my Rinjani rims, so back on Cyclones:


Continue on the rear end. A lot of dust on top of the arch-liner (do you call it like this?):


And then this happened. A few minutes later a friend told me you can reach the bolts holding the bumper from the inside. I thought it was slide on... Need to bond this back to the bumper when it is painted.


There is the opening to the bolt:


I do not know what the previous owner used, but the glue is very hard to remove:





Weather was very bad, so had to cover the car from time to time:


Rear wing removed:


Never knew this was just click-on:


...and fixed with just one screw:


To remove this...


I had to remove that:




Clean door (will not bother you with the steps of removing door cards):


Phase 1/2 bump strips removed:




Drilled these out:


No idea what the function of this plastic part is:


And then the most fun part. Removing the side skirts!


Took me a few days to drill out the rivets!


An image archive to remember how the door handles are fitted:










After a few days work (as you can see, I was fed up with the side skirt rivets and did some other disassembly inbetween):




Yay! One side done!




Then the sun started to shine:


And it was gone:


Now it is at the paintshop where they will work on the car inbetween other cars. In this way they were able to paint the car for a friendly price. As we are rebuilding our garage, I do not mind it takes quite some time now. The pain shop will also weld the underside of the car at the famous rusty spots.

Currently, my other project is now parked at this spot:

[Danny Wideboy]

Nice post. I believe all Diablo red 306's suffered from lacquer peel, not necessarily a bad re-spray.
Good to see another one being restored.

[Joep83]

Well, there was no primer used on the bonnet :p

I thought the nice shine in the sun was the nice paint job. The paint shop told me it was because one can look right through the paint at the metal of the bonnet :o