Hey there,

I've recently acquired my uncles 1996 Coupe 16vt in Electric blue and am planning on doing a complete restoration on the car.

My aim is to get it back to, or as close to, how it came out of the factory all those years ago, with some minor adjustments.

Currently the car is sat on my uncles drive where it has been for the past 9 years however soon its going into their garage and then the project can really kick off.

I have 2 donor cars, a 16v and a 20v and currently in the process of taking spares and replacements parts from them, I also have access to a loft full of coupe parts, I need to have a sort through and see what's up there.

Engine wise the car is sound. (apparently) My uncle says it just needs a new timing and balance belt and she will fire straight up no issues.

Rust wise she has a bit of rust on the floor pan, bubbling at the bottom of the arches, some rust in the boot, and the spare wheel has some rust on it, the inner sills on the rear look quite bad, plenty of water leaking through the Pinninfarina badges, Eiffel towers seem to just have a bit of surface rust at the bottom but ill have to have a better look at them later on when she is in the garage.

Parts I know I have new in the loft: Front bumper, 16vt rad grille, LE door cards, head gaskets, mirrors, fog lights and much more

Parts I've taken from the donor cars so far; boot lid, LE seats and door grab handles, headlights, lower centre console.

Parts I'm going to take from the donor cars; Stainless exhaust, headliner, battery tray, door/boot seals, wiper arms, windscreen (mines chipped, ill get someone proper do swap them over)

Some of the rust

The original 16vt seats had gone a bit mouldy and nasty, so I took them out and just sat in the LE seats whilst I wait for the garage to be available, how good do these look

The old boot lid had some aftermarket spoiler on it, and was bent and dented and didn't sit properly allowing moisture into the car, so I swapped it out for one of the donors boot lids.

Harvested more parts from the donor cars today, got the centre console from the 16v, radio, found the 20v had a pained and protected battery tray, was not expecting that considering the amount of rust on the rest of the car so I took that attempted to remove the fog lights and headlights from the 16v but I ended up rounding off the bottom screws on each fog light and the bolts on the headlights didn't budge, annoyingly also somehow lost my bottle of wd40, probably would have had them off if I had it, was removing the headliner from the 20v and it was all fine until the last 2 screws above the doors, I cant seem to be able to undo them without it twisting the fabric too, tried for ages trying to hold the fabric as hard as I could but nothing was working. But here is what i got off before it started raining.

Had a look in the loft to see what my uncle has found for the coupe so far. new front bumper, new brake callipers all round, new fog lights, new wheel arch liners, a few seals and 1 rim, idk where the other 3 are lol.

It's been a little bit since an update, after some research it came to me that the 16vt didn't come in electric blue and therefore she is Blitz blue, I just took my uncles word for it when he said electric blue, however I can't seem to edit the thread title so yeah.

Next, work towards getting the car in the garage has been done, removing quite a few bits from the 20v, battery tray, all the badges, steering wheel andba few other bits, my uncle also took the rear subframe off as he needs that for his Tipo 16v which is currently using up the garage and now sadly the 20v is ready for Coupe heaven.

Next week I'm going to begin taking bits I need from the 16v, I don't need much from the 16v however like with the 20v I'll keep some extra bits to sell/trade to other coupe owners.

I plan on also sorting out the water getting into the car behind the Pinninfarina badges on the side, someone has had them off in the past and snapped one of the mounting pin things and therefore leaving a little hole in the side of the car for water to seep into so I'll swap out the badge for one I take off either the 20v or the 16v and then seal it up to ensure no more water makes its way into the car.

Ive been using freezer bags to keep all my parts together and organised it is very helpful.

I'll add some pics to this once I'm on my PC, can't seem to add them from my phone.

Some more pics of the 20v awaiting the scrap man and the 20v door cards, which I will be looking to sell once I clean them up

Went over to the car today with the plan of making sure no more water gets in behind the Pinninfarina badges and taking the exhaust off the 16v.

Following my dads advise I removed what was left of the passenger Pinninfarina badge, cleaned up the area and put some tape over the holes, where the badge pins would go, went to do the same on the drivers side but found someone had gone crazy with sealant or something and therefore wasn't necessary. Also found some pretty hard evidence of some repair work around the inside of the wheel arch.

I ended up not getting the exhaust off the 16v as I struggled to find anywhere to 1 jack it up from (everything is super rusty and was just making holes) and 2 somewhere to put stands before I went under it, so I decided it would be safer to not try that today and probably better to just cut it off at a bit I don't need somewhere near the front.

Also had a better look at the Eiffel towers and to my surprise, hardly any rust on them, i also have hardly any rust on the rear brake stone covers too!

I also brung home the rear seats as I didn't want them getting and more dirty whilst I'm working on the car as they have already got quite dirty, my dad said he is a little concerned that I might be just building the Coupe in my bedroom with all these bits I've got now

So I decided to list everything that I currently know needs to be sorted on my Coupe, this is in no real order, just in whatever order I remembered what needed doing, some recommendations on how to do some bits, things I should prioritize, I know for example exterior painting, interior refresh and cleaning can wait until last. currently the car isn’t in the garage, but it will be within the next few months (I hope) Recommendations on where to get parts would also be helpful, I’ve put if I already have the part I’m referencing to in brackets next to it, the restoration will take time, I’m off to uni in September however studying Motorsports Engineering so ill have plenty of new skills every time I come home to work on the car during holidays. But the idea is to ensure the car will still be on the road in another 20/30/40 years, so I don’t mind the restoration taking many, many years, she might be able to pass an mot and be on the road sooner but for her to be as how I want her it will take quite a lot of time, my uncle has spent 8 ish years on his Tipo 16v and that’s going to be finished this year and its like brand new, that's how I aim to have my Coupe

List of work required.

• All locks swapping over (already got new ones)

• Badges refurbishment (got a new rear badge, potentially need all other badges new tho)

• Put new brake callipers on (already got new ones)

• Engine full service, full fluids flush, good lookover engine before attempting to get her started

• rust repairs in; floor pan in the corners under rear seats, passenger rear quaterpanel replacement, (its too rusted to save, got a non rusty one from 20v donor) bottom of B pillar also rusted, might need replacing with 20v too, some small areas of floor pan underside have rust, only surface, clean up the Eiffel towers, all look solid at this moment, mild corrosion around drivers side rear light cluster due to something being dropped on it and chipping the paint away, slight rust on the back of the sills where the floor pan joins, swap spare wheel well with 16v clean up inside rear quarter panel on drivers side, swap inside rear quarter panel with 20v donor passenger side, clean up rear brake disk stone protectors, new fuel tank straps, clean up wheel arches and will try get the subframes sent off to be properly cleaned up and protected. I’m unsure on the quality of the radiator support however seeing a lot of other peoples I will likely need a new one, I have new front bumper brackets, part no. 004603231 rust protection on all metals and painting, ideally in cars colour and have the underside protected.

• new spings/dampers and entire suspension refurbishment (I have new bushings, and arb linkages)

• new exhaust, could get the one from the 16v but tbf id like a new one, fairly loud if anyone has any good recommendations, will need the entire system

• new brake disks, pads and lines

• new floor mat and carpets

• refresh upper part of the centre console, remove the blue paint get it back to standard and unsticky the 16v lower centre console

• refresh fuel cap

• new seals on everything if possible

• swap windscreen with 16v or get a new one if they are even available, mines chipped

• new headliner material

• refurb headlights

• put on new fog lights (already have new ones)

• potentially put on the new front bumper I have, however the one on the car looks fine so maybe not

• entire respray, including engine bay (this will definitely be after I’ve finished Uni and have a proper job to pay for it)

• new bonnet gas struts

• LE seat clean and install

• wheel refurbishment and painting silver

Now that’s all I can remember of the top of my head, quite the amount of work isn’t it, should be fun, painful and every other emotion that comes with working on a 28 year old car, it will likely be expensive, I'll try to get a decent chunk done before I go to Uni and become completely broke however after uni, assuming I do well and get a decent job in motorsports that shouldn’t be a huge issue, ill aim to do as much as I can myself to one learn and 2 save costs and in the end I hope to have a car nearly as good as new and a large set of practical skills that will help me in the future.

Again this is in no real order, i know within the next week ill have the quarter panels and stuff cut out from the 20v and I might start work on sanding off the inside floor pan to find out how bad/good its looking in my car

So today I got the car ready for some sanding and rust protection on the floor, removed the seats, removed the carpet, and well, mixed emotions when I saw what was under it, on one hand i was relieved to find a floor pan and not a bunch of holes and the driveway, on the other hand, WHY IS THERE A LAKE IN THE DRIVERS FOOT WELL, yeah, there was a decent amount of water just chilling in the drivers footwell, it looks to have leaked through the door seal near the front and about midway up, i did my best to dry it off and taped up the door from the outside as a short term fix, the rest of the floor was interesting to say the least, im assuming from looking at it its had quite a few repairs in the past, and on the whole there wasnt much more than a bit of surface rust which came off when I gave it a scrub with a wire brush, tomorrow I will give everything a good sand down with a wire brush attachment thingy on a drill, and give it some new paint if all is fine after sanding.

Didn't spent too much time with the coupe today, but tried to clean up the mess and see what's going on with my floor in the drivers side rear foot well

A few things I noticed, what on earth has been put over the patch, wire brush ain't getting it off any time soon, I got to chisel it away and peel it off sort of like the sound deadening stuff, but its super thin in comparison

The patch is also quite large, but looks rust free

The metal under the seat mount looks quite orange, will investigate further tomorrow

The wire brush attachment for the drill is very good

I'm a bit sceptical about the patch that is on it, just don't like how rough the welds look and the fact its just a flat patch and how the seat mount is just on it just seems a bit bad

Rain cut work short today but we did some cutting of the 20v

Due to everything behind the rear quarter panel been rotted out and holy in my Coupe, we had a cut out of the 20v to one, get some metal to replace the bits in my car, and 2 get a better view and idea of what's behind the quarter panel and how to cut it out of mine and the 16v donor car without doing too much damage to the metal we need, the plan is once the weather clears up for a few days or when the Tipo is out of the garage is to cut my cars quarter panel off, cut the bottom of the B pillar and weld in the one from the 20v as my B pillar is very rusted, and cut out the rest of the rusted bits and replace with what we got from the 20v and stuff we will cut from the 16v, quite a lot of work but my uncle is very confident we can fix everything up and get rid of all the rusted bits

Well we are off to a great start with cleaning up the front foot wells, I don't think I should be looking at the driveway after removing the sound deadening, and this is the side that didn't have a swimming pools amount of water sitting in it

Just a quick one today, went over to the Coupe with the intention of continuing removing the sound deadening in the front, only to find it goes under some other thingy at the front, which goes right up behind the dashboard, so I decided to start on removing the dashboard, its got some damage to it anyways and was going to swap it out with my 16v donor cars dash, and man the guide on how to remove the instrument panel wasn't kidding, those clips are so hard to get off.