GSI2000 - Bare metal rebuild!

[retropower]

The front inner wings and bulkhead were all very bad as well and needed a lot of repairs, but I think you get the picture - lots of cutting out, making bits and welding them in. Over 300 man hours in total.

And then it's over to the body prep area! Here we've just started seam sealing and smoothing work on the underside:

[retropower]

Seams all meticulously sealed with 3M drip check sealer. Some basic body filler work to smooth out any remaining imperfections from welding work.

[retropower]

It's amazing how little exterior surface there is on the actual bodyshell of a Cavalier so the exterior filler work was pretty quick and easy. Here the shell is masked ready for Reface - a sprayable filler which just gives us a uniform surface to block sand, avoiding the usual issues where transitions between filler and metal leave high and low spots.





And after Reface has been applied

[Robsey]

300 + man hours? !!!

Ouch.
I love my cav, but labour costs would be prohibitive for anything less than a top end Lambourghini or Ferrari.

Or for a lottery winner maybe.

[humbucker]

Top work, Callum. I can't wait to see the finished article (in every sense of the word!). It's great to see a Mk3 Cavalier being given such a thorough restoration.

Robsey: this GSi has extra-special sentimental value for its owner, Jamie. It was his late brother's pride and joy, and Jamie wants to pay tribute to his sibling's memory by giving the car the restoration (restomod) that the pair always talked about. In that context, 'cost vs value' isn't a concern for him. Besides, he intends to keep the car forever and a day, so spending 'new car money' transforming his GSi into a 'new' car isn't all that crazy.

[J70HAD]

Im in love with this shell lol its been given another 20+ years
I don't think there will be any thing left of my GSI in 20 years time!!!
Amazing work!

[Lowrider Dave]

I love this kind of resto, expensive but worth all the time and money to get it right first time. Top work.

[retropower]

With the Reface block sanded (dry) the shell is masked and back in the booth for 2K build primer on the outside, including engine bay

[retropower]

The primer is again dry sanded. No water is used on any porous materials so there is absolutely no risk of moisture retention in the primer. With the primer sanded, the shell is masked again to get a sealer coat. This is just a basic 2k gloss (in a fetching shade of Terracotta in this case!) to seal the seal the shell and create a waterproof layer that we can then wet sand.

The bonnet is a NOS GM one that needed no filler or build, so simply gets etch primed and straight over with the sealer coat.

[retropower]

with the outside sealed, we remask to paint the inside. Inside gets sprayed with a Polyurethane coating which is much tougher than normal acrylic paints.

[retropower]

another re-mask and the shell goes back into the booth, this time on a rotisserie to do the underside. This gets the same Polyurethane treatment, but slightly thicker. We then clear coat over it to give a smooth and easy to clean but super-tough finish.

[wafers]

Epic resto! Scary that a clean looking GSi looks like that under the paint and under seal. You've got to wonder what state the scruffy ones look like underneath. A lot of the internal corrosion is down to water entering the cabin I bet any money. Is it a customer car, or personal project? I'm still hoping that my old white GSi J422 EGT will be restored by the Welshman who I sold it to three years ago.

[retropower]

We then wet sand the sealer coat and re-mask for the final paint. any exterior seams are sealed now so there is minimal paint build up on top of the sealer, minimising the risk of cracking.

[retropower]

Epic resto! Scary that a clean looking GSi looks like that under the paint and under seal. You've got to wonder what state the scruffy ones look like underneath. A lot of the internal corrosion is down to water entering the cabin I bet any money. Is it a customer car, or personal project? I'm still hoping that my old white GSi J422 EGT will be restored by the Welshman who I sold it to three years ago.

Thanks! It's a customer's car, I just like sharing our work as we're very proud of what we do. Yeah, to be honest many of the Cavaliers (and older cars in general) are probably not in dissimilar condition - certainly we have restored many cars that were on the road and MOT'd which were similar to this when stripped down properly

[retropower]

While all that bodywork was going on we started the engine build.

Step one was to strip the block to a bare casting, have it acid dipped then bored to suit new Omega low-compression pistons and skimmed. Once back from machining it was masked and painted.

The oil and water pumps are just scrap ones we use for masking.

[retropower]

Next we got the block mounted up in our milling machine and drilled it for installing oil squirter jets to cool the underside of the pistons.

[retropower]

fitted new core plugs







and drilled the main bearing shells to add a feed to the squirter jets

[wafers]

Any updates on this?

[humbucker]

Any updates on this?

Work is currently on hold due to Jamie's employers being unable to confirm whether or not he has a job to go to in the new year (he works on offshore oil rigs in faraway places like Nigeria). As soon as he gets the news that he is hoping for, Retropower will be continuing with the build.

[OPCed]

Fair amount of great work there. Will be a great car to be proud of once finished.

[humbucker]

I spoke to Jamie earlier this afternoon. He has confirmed that his job is safe (hoorah!) and that work on the car is about to resume!

[OPCed]

Great news, be a kick in guts to have done so much and be stuck some 60-70% through job.

Wish I had money to do this.

[Lowrider Dave]

That is good news - on the job front as well as the Cav - this build is quite something special.