The ST185 restoration plan – from bare shell to road

A full restoration is a long game, so before a single bolt comes off, here’s the plan. You can always check the current status on the ST185 progress tracker.

The ten phases

1. Purchase & assessment – get the car home and find out what I’ve really bought.
2. Teardown & cataloguing – everything comes off, gets photographed, bagged and labelled.
3. Rust repair & bodywork – cut out the bad metal, weld in new, make the shell straight and solid.
4. Paint – protect the shell properly, inside and out.
5. Engine build – most likely a turbocharged 5S-GTE with a blacktop head.
6. Gearbox & drivetrain – probably a DQ250 or DQ500 dual-clutch gearbox with Haldex all-wheel drive.
7. Suspension & brakes – bushings, dampers, lines and calipers.
8. Wiring & electrics – thirty-year-old wiring deserves some attention.
9. Interior – seats, trim, dash and all the small details.
10. Reassembly & first drive – the best day of the whole project.

The rules I’m following

• Document everything. Photos before, during and after every removal. Future me will be grateful.
• Bag and tag. Every bolt goes in a labelled bag with the part it came from.
• Fix it once. If something is off the car anyway, it gets refreshed now, not “later”.
• Show the real process. The mistakes and the rusty surprises go in the videos too.

Follow along

Each phase gets its own posts here and episodes on YouTube. For quicker updates between episodes, follow @przemsport on Instagram.