Smart Car Lust

Paying off my student loan sucks. Seriously. It makes me want to cry. $3000 later and I'm still massively, massively in the red. Sigh.

COFFEH Time
So I am watching Brooke's Coffeh time videos. They're so funny. It makes me want to do something like that, but I don't really think I'm as entertaining as Brooke. I mean, who is, right? Anyways. I'd like to start a video log once we get the boat and start traveling. That would be awesome. I am thinking of a getting a teensy camcorder because I feel that my genius comes in random moments, not when I sit down to write/work on something.

I've had four cups of delicious Starbucks brew today. Rick's work had a coffee traveler and a half left over from yesterday and they gave it to me. So I'm just heating it cup by cup, a little cream, a little sugar. It's wonderful.

Time to work out
Do you ever have those moments where you're like "Man, I feel fat this week. Why is that? Oh yeah! Cause I haven't been working out, duh!" Yep. That's how I've felt since like, Saturday. I really need to get to the gym more. I just don't really care for going when Emilie isn't available to go with me. That girl kicks my ass. It's awesome.

Student Loan Woe
So the whole student loan thing. One of the reasons it sucks ass is that in order to save as much money as possible, Rick and I have downsized to one vehicle. I feel like that's not a big deal where Rick is concerned, because he can drive the mustange just fine. I, however, feel stranded. I have to wait for 2-3 hours every day for either Rick or Joe to get off work so I can go home. It sucks. Anyways, why this pertains to student loans: Rick says if I can save up the money and pay for it, I can get a car (a smart car is at the top of my list). However, I'm trying to make $900-$1200 payments toward my student loans each month. So, a car is not in my near future, at all.

I just had a happy thought. If I make a $1000 payment every month, I can have my loan paid off in a little over two years. O_O I think that will be my goal. So, maybe in three years I can have a car. Sigh.

Money Uh-oh
Oh! I'm beginning to think that inviting Rick to share my bank account was maybe not a brilliant idea. Let's just say that he doesn't approve of my spending methods. I find that intensely frustrating. If I want to buy a frappachino...sigh. I'm sure its good for me, good for our budget, but damn if it isn't infuriating. Especially since Rick just tried to buy $400 of mustang parts.

Smart Car Lust

From Rustang to Mustang: Part Five

A picture of the side of the mustang. The pretty black parts are my handiwork!

The new headliner going in. Man, that took us like 9 hours to put in! We were also on a tight schedule because the headliner had to be in before the windshields could go back in. We stayed up all night so the glass guys could put the glass in the next morning.

Notice also, the new seat belts and the dash all painted black. :D

Another view of the headliner going in.

The back completed! Carpet is in, along with the new leather seats, which were upholstered by a family friend. Didn't he do a great job!

A picture of the dash. New instrument panel, dash pad, radio, steering wheel. The radio is actually an mp3 player done in the classic style of the Mustang radios. We also put in blue lights for the dash. It looks so pretty lit up at night!

The headliner all nice and finished! :D

The carpet installed. That took a good few hours to do. 

The passenger side seat and door. Notice the lines of the seat follow the panels of the door. Very sharp. :)

From Rustang to Mustang: Part Four

Finally, the real fun begins! The first order of business after getting the mustang painted, was putting the easy stuff on, beginning with the gas cap, which is a gorgeous '69 gas cap with a running pony on black.

Rick tightening down the gas tube into the car. We had pulled it out in order to make sure that everything was painted evenly.


After tightening that down, the cap just slides in to the grooves and turns and voila! The rear end is becoming muy bonita!



Here is Rick, attaching the rear turn signals to the rear valance. The valance post screws broke so we have to get a new set of those, which means that the rear valance rattles a little as we drive. >_< I had to scrub the rear turn signal lights like no other with lacquer thinner because they were covered with over spray from black paint that was used at some point.



Notice how Rick is putting almost everything on. Haha, I really just cleaned things to prep for painting and adding to the finished product. Bo-ring.

The rear end with the gas cap and the rear valance piece!



Putting in the rear lights!





This is my project, painting a whole bunch of detail pieces with black to match the black and chrome theme we want on the mustang. Among the things I had to paint were the engine decals, the rear lights, the door handles, the artificial scoops and the hanger bands. It was very time consuming. More enjoyable than cleaning stuff with lacquer thinner.





I even did black lines on the knobs for the lights, windshield wipers and radio.

From Rustang to Mustang: Part Two

This is a picture of the car all ready to be primed! (Primered?) The body work is done at this point, which was a week ago, actually. Gosh. It does and doesn't feel like it has been more than a week since that point in the process.

Above is a picture of Rick and I starting to mask off the car before it gets painted. We had to mask all the wires, the door latches, the shifter, the gaps where the quarter windows are supposed to go and the dash, including the pedals. Masking the pedals with a garbage bag ended up being a not great idea, as the top of the  floor panel is still red. 

A picture of our primed and block sanded car. Block sanding is a method that reveals where your highs and lows are in the body work so they can be filled before you paint, or taken down. Our car had so many highs and lows, I don't think we got them all! 

The inside of the car is going to be painted as well, since Rick wants a somewhat stock feel to the car, though he is customizing it. 

Notice on this picture how one half of the car, on the right side, seems darker than the other. The darker side is where Rick got to primer the car! The paint guy showed him the ropes a little. :)

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There was a very  brief period where the car was black! This is the mustang with a sealant coat on it, before the final coat. It does look nice in black! <3

Another view of the black sealant.

We almost changed our minds on the color when we saw it with the sealant on it, but Rick was very resilient. He stood firm on his original color decision, seeing as black shows all sorts of dirt and gets very hot. 

More pictures to come! We want to show the car, mostly finished, to my mom in person before posting pictures. That would just spoil the surprise!

From Rustang to Mustang: Part One

This is a big, huge project that Rick and I seriously underestimated how much work would be needed to complete it.  Wow, did we. People normally allow like 6 months to a year for a project like this. So for our car project, we've been having lots of all-nighters in order to make deadlines. You can see the bags under our eyes, haha. :)

We're very fortunate to have the use of a friend's shop, where we are set up with a mini fridge, a microwave and a cot. I really hate that cot. It is definitely not intended for two people, haha.

However, we are unable to cook food with our sweet set up, so our diets have been suffering badly. Wyoming has become quite idyllic for us, as we keep saying that once we get to Wyoming we will focus more on taking care of ourselves. Oh, and living in Wyoming will be the first time we will have a place of our own. That's wonderful to think about just by itself. ^_^

We don't currently have a camera, but we were able to borrow Rick's dad's camera for a couple days. So some of our project is documented, but not all of it. :(

Our original goal: Get the mustang repainted and prettied up, pack up and get to Wyoming by June 15th.

This is essentially what we have to fix up, The Rustang:

• What needed to happen: sand down the car with 80 grit to get all of the paint chips out of the car, then go over it with 150 grit sand paper to smooth it out before priming. 
• Fill in any damaged spots with bondo, which is a body filler that you mix up and then smooth on with a putty knife, before it sets and starts to harden. Rick got upset a few times because he'd be in the groove smoothing things on and it would harden on him and he'd have to mix up another batch. Grr. >_<
• Basically we wanted to destroy any rust spots, smooth out any bad spots, and grind down anything that stuck out in unsightly ways.
• Paint the interior and exterior in the following steps, primer, block sand with 220 grit and then 320 grit using cross-hatching, spray on the sealant and paint, then wait 48 hours before putting things back together.
• Replace everything and go!

• The trunk lid is removed so that Rick can grind away the rust inside of the the trunk, which is a very nerve-wracking job as those grinders can spark, and the gas tank is in the trunk!

• There are no seats, as they were recently reupholstered, and now look beautiful in their sweet black leather material!

• The carpet is also gone, so we have bare metal floors, which is covered in factory body tar, which has started to rust. When body tar starts to rust it turns into this disgusting white, incredibly-difficult-to-damage material. I wish I had a picture of it. >_< You can see some of the not-rusted tar right under that wire by the shifter.
• The steering wheel and most of the dash has been disassembled, so we can paint those black with spray. 
• The panels on the interior are removed for painting as well. 

• The bumpers are gone, front and back, and all of the little metal decals. At this point in time, Rick and I were getting ready to spray the white headliner black with fabric paint. We decided not to do that because we would have had to mask off the headliner when we got the car painted.
• Eventually we had to remove the hood, the fenders and the doors, in order to get everything sanded properly. 
• We also took out the windshield and back windows, so we could remove the headliner and have the ceiling painted to prevent more rust. We slightly cracked the windshield as we were pressing on it to try to pop it out of the frame. So now we have to get a new windshield made. We also will have to have someone come and help us pop the windows back into place after we replace the headliner.

The backseat, notice the large amounts of rust. >:(

Amount of goal achieved:

• Well, as you can see, it's after the 15th and we haven't even put the mustang back together yet. Grr. So our fall back date is leaving by the 1st, though that is definitely later than we would like. >_<
• We are challenging ourselves to get the Mustang all put together by Wednesday, so that the guy who painted our car can see it completed before he leaves on vacation.
• We'll be working from like 10am to 11pm most days, starting Saturday, which is the 48 hour mark after having the car painted.