Repainting Carb Zen - Brick Red Colour

[ss80]

Its been a long pending task of DIY repainting a ZEN, which belongs to one of my friend's colleague. I was waiting for the Palio work to finish so that I can take up this task.

Met the owner this morning, picked up the car & went to S.P.Road. What better way to start swiping a credit card than buying a few essential tools finally bought a Chinese 40litres, 2.0HP Air compressor (with Copper Winding), a lengthy hose, 2 brass nipples (that's what they call it) & just reached home. I will post pics of the compressor here shortly.

The Car:
Zen LX - Red colour (not sure if it is called Brick Red/ Ferrari Red etc)
AC working, brand new tyres, mechanically sound.

Work to be carried out in the next few weeks:
1. Tinker work - already started, should finish by tomorrow.
2. Full outer Body Re-painting (but no tinkering)
3. 3M anti rust coating for the inner side of the floor
4. Indicators are working properly
5. Steering rattles
6. Dashboard not fixed properly
7. Headlamp to be replaced (left side)
8. Wheel rims to be painted
9. Top half of Door edges to be stickered in Black colour
10. Cabin lamp to be changed
11. Horn to be relocated, may be upgrade if required
12. Grill to be fixed properly
13. Brake oil bleeding, only of customer agrees.

Just gave the car to the tinker now, he does a fantastic job, the challenge for him this time is a crack in the chassy, which needs a patch welding with a piece, running board damage & the 2 usual areas of rusting in most M800 & Zen's.

Except space (for painting car), I have everything else to start the work . Let me first prepare the car fully before hunting for a place. Today I drove the car for about 35kms before reaching home finally.

Good things about the car:
Smooth engine, easy to drive in city, premium feel all around the cabin(compared to M800), nice gear shift quality.
Acceleration is good, post 60kmph the engine is butter smooth
Power to weight ratio is much better than M800
Cornering ability is surprising in this car


Things to crib about:
Suspension travel is very less, so every pot hole is bone cracker!
Feels good at speeds above 50kmph, below that the car is not that nice
Quality of build is not that great in some areas, as you might expect. Example the floor sheet metal, fender thickness etc are not really impressive.

Will post more shortly.

 

[Varun560061]

Ha Ha was waiting for this post, it would be better if have a single thread dedicated for these type of quick restorations. So all restorations in one page !

Waiting for the pic's...

 

[Sam Dinkar]

Good going Anand, the 800, the Palio, and now the Zen. I am hoping to visit Anand Auto Works in Bangalore soon.

What model year is this Zen? Please remember to click some snaps for the before vs after comparo.

All the best!

 

[ss80]

Uploaded pictures

Varun:
As you know very well, there are very few threads in the internet wherein we get to know a lot about a particular car. So each thread that I start (about the small restorations) I want to give details in pics, simple problems, possible solutions, rust prone areas, car specific info, approx cost, bill photos, recommended parts stores, good service providers like Tinker, Mechanic etc.

Ideally I want these threads to guide any enthusiastic used car buyer to restore his car may be on his own (like a DIY) or even in case he visits some unknown garage, he will still have some confidence left in him. So I felt may be I should keep the threads seperate, this way in case I work on those cars again for any reason, I can update that as well.

I am not sure but that Palio might get painted pretty soon, that fully depends on the outcome of this Zen.

Sam Dinkar:
Thanks a lot for all the support Sir, this is a 1996 car, LX model, no power steering, no rear wiper, no power windows. You are absolutely right, I clicked photos of each outer panel so that I can compare with the final product, this way my quality of work can be seen clearly. That will also help me to understand where I need to improve.

A special thanks to Varun, for referring me this client.

Here are a few pictures taken from mobile, I just had to use the "Auto contrast" & "Fill light" options in google picasa, otherwise photos were really not that good.

 

[ss80]

I missed the pic of the crack in the chassy, I did not click the engine bay at all so far, as the owner clearly mentioned that nothing needs to be done to engine, gearbox etc. However the rest of the Tinker work to be done is here.







If the Tinker finishes his work by tomorrow evening, I will be really happy as I can start slowly preparing the whole car for the paint. The dashboard & door pads need to be stripped as well. Since there is a lot of bird nest sort of thing behind dashboard.

 

[P3T3R]

Brick Red

Brick red is more of a brownish colour.

 

[ss80]

Ok good that you told me, I really dont the name of this colour. Do you know what's the actual name of the colour given by Maruti to the Zen?

 

[Sam Dinkar]

Anand, must arc weld that crack on the monocoque floor. The rest on the tinkering work is easy peasy.

The original red colour was simply called 'Bright Red'.

 

[Indian_Mustang]

Nice Buddy You always Bang ! now For the colour here is the link check out this Link.1996 Suzuki All Models Colors of Touch Up Paint

It helps you. And also find in the Engine plate there is colour code i`m attch some example PDF.According to Sam Sir yeh Its Bright Red.

1 thing I am waiting for more and more picture and Update.please Soon As possible.

 

[ss80]

Tinkerering done & stripped the door pads :)

right Red.

1 thing I am waiting for more and more picture and Update.please Soon As possible.

Thanks a lot for the file Mustang, I will definately check it tomorrow with the chassy plate.

Anand, must arc weld that crack on the monocoque floor. The rest on the tinkering work is easy peasy.

The original red colour was simply called 'Bright Red'.

The tinker told me that the crack in the chassy cant be arc welded as the sheet metal is too thin in that area. (Not sure if he gave me a biscuit). Hence he did a regular patch work with a small extra piece below the crack (at the source). Thanks for confirming the real name of this colour

Update:
The car is back from the tinker & here are a few pics before I type any further.











The floor had a hump on the right side, the tinker guy just kick it with bare legs & the hump disappeared . But the sad part is all the plastic sound deadening sheets were almost half cracked. So removed the rest for the front seat area using screw driver & hammer.




This is the rusted piece cut out from the running board.

 

[ss80]

Now comes the door pads, I always assumed that Zen came with plastic door pads like our Alto. I was wrong, they are not plastic, they just look like plastic. Here are detailed pics of each door pad (inner & outer side). It's a child's play to take out these, when compare to 800 where the buttons break/ are too hard to work with.
















There is minimal rusting on the interiors, its only the corners where water & mud are stored

 

[ss80]

Interiors are really red in colour (very much intact)




The rear quarter panel plastic & the next picture once it is removed




the only seat in the car now


Here is the reason why the door pads were too easy to pull out, most of the mounting pincs (plastic ones) are already broken/ the metal thing is dislodged from the door pads. Even otherwise it is still easier to pull out than m800.




The waste metal brackets, plenty of them.



Screw locations on the door




You will need a kind of thin spanner to remove the pin in the window roller. This part is easier in 800.





(Please bear with the back to back uploads in short durations, I am facing severe issues with mobile internet connectivity - despite being awake expecting internet to be fast at this hour)

 

[ss80]

removed front right mud flap & rear bumper + tail lamps

removed front right mud flap & rear bumper + tail lamps

Sorry for picture quality, the street light isn't powerful enough to work under it/take photos so stopped work at about 9pm. My camera flash is also acting crazy along with the unpredictable battery's behavior.

 

[ss80]

Just removed the tail lamps & washed that area. I assumed that it will have some hole behind the tail lamp (like M800) so washing will be very clean. But then no point in washing without the tail lamp. So just fit them back. I dont feel there is a need to repaint the interiors though. But still its the client's wish

 

[Sam Dinkar]

Anand, what's the estimate for the jobs that you are carrying out? Good to see such an old car fitted with Yokohamas. Maybe the owner plans to keep this one for long. How does she run by the way?