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My 73' Coupe Restoration


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:eek::eek:

 

 

You have .....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Unit !

Oh,very very cool. Yes,please restore that sucker and make it look as spiffy as you could possibly get back in '73 .

 

That's so frikkin btchin. You've got one of only ....maybe .....3 of those units I know of.

 

Yup,I'm impressed. Go get 'em !

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  • 2 weeks later...

So the trip over christmas to pick up the parts car was a failure. I made it into AZ on Thursday, then got a message from the seller that a blizzard had just rolled into Oklahoma. Woke the next morning and the news was no better. All interstates in OK were still closed and the forecast was for them to maybe be open later in the day, when I would potentially be getting there, but would most likely be covered in ice and basically undriveable. Well, never having driven on ice, and with a good possibility the car would not be accessable anyways due to the snow, I decided to turn around and head home Friday morning. I have since made arrangements to have the car shipped to me (for a surprisingly good price. Why could I not have gotten a price like this before I tried to get it myself?) with the tenative arrival Jan 2-3. I had managed to finish some sub assemblies before I left, so here are a couple pics of that progress.

Rebuilt knuckles. Has new bearings/seals/rotors/pads/brake hoses, and disc hardware. Rebuilt calipers and all metal parts were sandblaster and repainted.

 

lXfTEl.jpg

 


Cleaned and repainted crossmember/steering rack. Replaced tie rod ends

 

Q9F1PE.jpg


Mark

Edited by Datsunrides
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Got the parts car yesterday evening and started tearing into it this morning. Bad news is the car is rusted beyond hope. Front pans are swiss cheese and pretty much all the metal from the rear seats back is either gone or hanging on by a thread. There is also bad rust under the quarter windows and it looks like the roof is starting to rust thru in places. :( Anyways, the good news is I will be able to score some nice parts from it and some spares to boot. Luckily, most of the parts I need for the yellow one are present and in good shape on the parts car. I'll get some pic up later.

 

Mark

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wow , just found this thread - you really get into your restorations ! beautiful work man , looking forward to more updates and pictures . love those older subaru's - best of luck in the new year ! cheers murph

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wow , just found this thread - you really get into your restorations ! beautiful work man , looking forward to more updates and pictures . love those older subaru's - best of luck in the new year ! cheers murph

 

Thanks!

 

One benefit of really rusty cars is easy disposal. You can practically kick them into a pile of dust and sweep them into the garbage.

 

 

:lol: and a little help from zzz

 

Mark

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  • 3 weeks later...

Some more pics of parts I have restored for future installation.

 

Headlight surrounds, front signal buckets, and headlight mounts were sandblasted and painted. I used gold paint to sorta replicate cadmium plating. The headlight rings were hand polished and those are actually NOS gaskets for the turn signals.

 

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Shifter and e-brake consoles. The e-brake console is just cleaned up. The shifter console had the center section repainted and I also repainted the border trim silver. The rest was simply cleaned.

 

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Badges. All are simply cleaned up. Got lucky they are in nice shape. The grill emblem actually still has most of the blue still on it!

 

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Dash stuff. All items cleaned up nicely. I did repaint the silver outlines on the bezel and the text on the switches.

 

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Rear hinge covers (repainted) and arm rests (cleaned)

 

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NOS trans mount! :banana:

 

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I also found, after stripping the interior from the parts car that the cowl section that is rusted out in the "good" car is actually in good shape in the parts car, so I am going to cut it out and weld it to the sections I have yet to finish. Should save a bunch of metal fab time! Got a bunch of other parts in various stages of completion that I hope to complete in the next couple weeks, so for now, enjoy!

 

Mark

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I'm pretty sure I did bid the opening price just incase nobody caught it. But if one of you saw it I had no problem letting it go. I sure was hoping that someone wouldn't bid thinking it would work for anything else,since it doesn't.

 

cheers!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Wow, that looks like a very nice foundation, and a 5 speed to boot? :eek: If you do pick that up, you definetely need to start a build thread so the real experts like Moosens, Leeroy, Kostamojen, The Beast, etc. can chime in on your questions. These guys know their stuff and have been a huge help to me during this process. I'll be glad to help, if I can, and I do have some spare parts, but it seems not too much crosses over from coupe to sedan.:(

 

Mark

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paco- I spoke with him a week ago. It's a '74 and a 4spd as it should be.

 

his own paint job .... underneath is the funky green :banana: which he loathed,detested,etc.... and said so numerous times in our 10 min. conversation. :)

 

Nice enough guy. Good luck with it. I'd be more interested but just too much going on and cars coming in this spring.

 

Those 1400's are a bit tricky but if it runs and drives I say go for it! He did say it does run but has only driven it around the yard a few times in the last decade....talk to him.

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Hell you got more information than I did!!! Didn't know it was green. That's ok though. I figured I'd paint it white if given the chance. What other colors was this offered in? If white, then where could I get a paint code to match?

 

As I said earlier, I'm bringing the trailer. More than likely it's coming home with me.

 

Jose

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Yeeehaaa! I wouldn't bother with a perfect color match. Just make it a color you can live with and have it come out decent and you're ahead of what Subaru offered back then. :)

 

I told him I would be sending a friend by to look it over but that never happened.

 

Since he knows so little about it I'd bet he'd take around $500. So offer $450 :)

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Ok, back to my car now! :lol: Got some more stuff cleaned up and ready to install, once I can actually finish the car.

 

Side markers. Lenses polished and housings blasted and painted.

 

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Grille and side pieces. All were sanded down and repainted.

 

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Seat belts

 

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Misc parts

 

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Taillights. lenses polished and bezels repainted.

 

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Heater box. Fully disassembled and resealed.

 

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Door panels. Had 2 of each and basically took the good vinyl off the bad, water damaged backing, and installed them on the good backing that had bad vinyl.

 

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I really need to get back to finishing the rust repair so I can get her painted.

 

Mark

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