Was just doing some work on the Z today, it's come a long way, but still has a ways to go, figured I'd share.

I got the car in march, so it's been a little less than a year. It's a 2000 Z28 A4, 135k miles of severe abuse on the clock. I'm the 6th owner, it's been KNOWN to have been wrecked twice, one of those wrecks required a new rear driver 1/4 panel (came off an MBM car, as the wheel well and inside of the car with the interior out reveals..)

I bought it from a repo man in Kennesaw GA after spotting it on craigslist for $4500. Here's the day I got it:



4 bald mismatched tires, a/c that did not work, a bad BCM, a bad p/s rack that had contaminated the fluid, causing the p/s pump to burn up, an alternator that didn't work right (headlights surged when high rpm) a broken front fender driver side, broken and yellowed headlights, bad brake hoses, calipers, pads, rotors, and master cylinder, bent seats, a broken center console that was missing the lid, and 2 bad cat converters.. just off the top of my head.

At the time I didn't know about all this, but I found out over time. At first I thought it was a good deal, now I think I got ripped. Either way, it's mine, and fwiw I seem to really enjoy the car.



I put a new rack in it, tie rod ends, rotors calipers, russell stainless brake hoses thanks to sam strano, hawk HPS pads, new p/s pump and hoses, I recharged the a/c system which was enough to limp through the summer, and picked up some SS 10 spokes from a guy in Gwinnett for $200. I put some "riken raptor" cheapy tires on it since I knew I'd be doing some work, and just wanted to get it rolling.



I picked up some black depo headlights off ebay, and some clear corners. This is how I found out the stockers were broken inside and taped back together. The fog lights were rusted off inside the housing. I got them out and put new ones in.. they worked one time.. then stopped. Haven't investigated why.



A forum member outside of Nashville was parting a 2000 pewter SS that hadn't survived the tornadoes that came through birmingham. I picked up this flawed yet overall good condition SS hood for $700, along with a full ebony leather interior (seats, door panels) for $300. No more bent seats! I also picked up a grey firebird arm rest for my broken center console, just to give my elbow some place to sit. I got it from a u-pull-it for $11.



I also got an uncracked dash pad, but it hasn't gone in yet, nor have the door panels. My speakers are blown. I want to get new ones before I pull the panels.



I have a lot of engine noise and performance issues with the car. It's very slow in the summer and is running so lean it's getting a lot of detonation, up to 30deg. knock retard. I don't see any obvious problems when I pull the valve covers, other than that the oil wasn't changed often. The car burns oil, and the oil smells like gasoline, so I have to change it often or the pressure drops.



A $650 LQ4 is going to correct that problem with any luck.



Today I washed the car and installed a berger panel. I got the panel off a 95 v6 in a u-pull-it yard for $5! I had it repainted at a local shop for $75 and put it on.





so that's it so far! It's amazing how a car can have a "story" really.. I bought this thing as a project, and it has been.. but despite it's flaws, it's also a fun daily driver. I get compliments all the time on it.


So there ya go.. hope you enjoyed the pics. I'm going to go back out now and investigate why there's water in my spare tire area.

 

Looking much better!


Glad to hear you're enjoying the car despite its flaws!
I am in a similar situation, however I mostly have cosmetic issues that I thought I could overlook when I traded my LT1 for an LS1, I can't lol.

I'm working on mine but really not enjoying it, hopefully one day it will be something I can be proud of or it will have an owner that actually cares for it (I'm the first one that seems to even have tried, lol)

 

Nice job, its come a long way. I think its really cool to see these cars rescued, because in the grand scheme of things, they did not make a crazy amount of 4th gen cars like they did 3rd gen F-cars and Mustangs that routinely sold over 100K+ per year. In another persons hands it could easily have been scrapped out, or continued to be ran till it just died.

 

Awesome!!!

 

Dude nice job! I know what it feels like to buy a project. Don't give up on it. May be beat to **** but it's not to late to fix anything. Mine was a project. Should have shopped around more. But great job keep the pics coming.

 

Love the way you did the hood and overall great job!

 

Looks like really good progress, I love that color!

 

Looks like she's led a rough life. Glad to see you bringing it back! I feel your every pain with this project. My '98 was wrecked and cluster f*cked back together and I've been slowly getting it back into good shape. Whole new paint job, blown and now forged motor, and a ton of other little things that have been done and an even longer "to do" list.

 

thanks. Yea, I was installing new sail panel speakers tonight and had to take the panels off. I found a small orange thing that looked like old gum or something.. I squeezed it and some goop gushed out of it.. no idea what the hell that thing was. it didn't smell fruity, so it wasn't like an old dried up gushers or anything.. either way I made sure to wash my hands.

There were these little green bead looking things in there.. and a bunch of tore up paper inm what looks like a rat's nest. This car has been ROUGH



That's what the steering rack looked like when I got the car. It would make turns to the left easily, but hardly make them to the right at all. It had full on rocks underneath it on the K member.

The windshield washers had miller light caps over them when I got the car as well.

I found a receipt for college tuition in the glovebox when trying to repair the BCM a few months ago. Looks like 4 years of this car's life was owned by a college kid. From the driver's door being broken at the spring, and the seat being broken, plus the bolster being flatted and scratches on the console REALLY far forward, I'd say he was a big dude too.

I found an earring in the back seat when I got the car too. I hate to take a black light to this thing.

I plan to have the car repainted eventually, but kept the same color. It needs a new front bumper from spidering (it appears to have been bottomed out a few times on the bumper pretty hard..) a new driver's front fender, driver's door, passenger side door handle (I have one but it's red) and a new rear bumper. A bmw x3 hit me about a month ago now. Split the bumper by the tag, punctured my tag with a screw, spidered the whole thing out. That's the scuffing you see in my latest pics. I didn't report it. her car was fine, I was already running late, and I didn't want insurance to total the car.

I call it the junkyard Z, cos most people would have given up on it.. and I admit I had a few moments of weakness on it too, but when you consider.. this is a paid off car that.. with a little work, can easily hang with a new $50k C6 in the 1/4... it keeps me goin.

 

The paint/body doesn't really look bad from the pictures. You are definitely making some nice progress with it. Definitely going to be sweet once you get the 6.0 dropped in, also, maybe I missed it, but does it still have the original 4L60E?

 

Yes it does. It worries me sometimes with it's behavior. the 1-2 shift is like hitting a wall. Under heavy throttle the engine almost seems to go silent for a full second between gears. During normal traffic driving I try not to use first. It's a very "tense" feeling in the powertrain, like it's straining really hard. I usually roll through first under almost no throttle, then get on it in 2nd for my normal acceleration. I can still keep up with traffic easily like that, but it's not winning any races that way.

the paint is overall in good condition, but it has a lot of scratches in it, and the sheer number of parts I have to replace will mean color matching with a repaint iwll be difficult. I may as well just get my parts and have the whole car painted. Obviously, the berger panel is staying black though.

I want to paint the camaro insert in the front black as well, and get the stainless letter inserts front and rear, but.. no rush really.

 

Good job so far.

 

Hmm, I see what you're saying. It really sounds like the previous owners just flat-out literally ran the car into the ground. I think the only real way to fix that is to start rebuilding or replacing. You have the 6.0 already, I'd consider finding a cheapo junkyard 4L60E in working order to throw behind it. Would probably hold up for a good while like that. But regardless, the rest of your plans for the car sound awesome, good luck with it man. It should turn out real nice

 

Yup..The reason the rear brakes were shot when I got the car was because someone was power braking. The rotors had deep shiny ruts in them and the pads were burned out from excess heat. The rear tires didn't match the fronts and had less wear on them, like someone replaced them with used ones.

the repo man told me he got the car from a car dealer who was going to scrap it. He said he put over $2000 in it to get it ready to sell. Can't imagine those tires cost that much. Can't see where he did anything else, unless the car was wrecked and he had it repaired. The carfax reports the wreck as "frame damage" but the body shop says it's straight, and that the repair was done correctly. They didn't replace the whole 1/4, just the back half with the fuel door, around to the corner of the taillight.

I put some silicone around some pieces of metal in the frame around the spare tire area. I believe this is where the water was getting in (around the rear bumper it looks like.) We'll see if that fixes it. I also put some cheapy $40 sony Xplod speakers in the sail panel and re-wired the hatch speaker wires back to them, so now I have 2 working speakers. The door speakers barely work at all.

the console is broken in an odd way. The cig lighter area where the cubby is mounted to the left of it is completely broken out, and the small flip up door in front of the shifter is just sitting on top of a gaping hole. I can't imagine what could have happened to break it here.

Best guess? someone hit something while doing doughnuts in it.

 

That black decal on the hood and black headlights look terrible, IMO. Good luck.

 

The black vynil on the hood AFAIK is a stock option. I'm not sure if the hood is an OE SS hood, but the car certainly LOOKED like an SS. It came that way. The vynil is scratched up and faded pretty bad. I was going to replace it and paint the scoop part black instead, but the look is growing on me.

 

Glad to see one that's not heading to the crusher and that someone is taking care of it as well as spicing it up. Much props to you sir.

 

wow that's very impressive. good work on keeping it alive.

 

Hey Im from douglasville too! There is about 10 people in our group with lsx's and mustangs that are running around d'ville. Maybe I'll see you around Good work so far!

 

looks a hell of a lot better. nice work