AE86 Origins Pt. 2 - Cut, Weld, Repeat.

Picking up where I left off in the previous post, I'd decided to strip the car down to take care of all the issues that needed sorting, while also making a host of changes in the hopes of improving the performance, feel, and looks of the car. This one of the last photos I have of the car in this guise. One of the main catalysts to this decision was that I now had for the first time, access to a shed to protect me and the car from the Irish weather.

Once I started to get underneath the over fenders and side skirts it wasn't pretty, while it wasn't a total surprise, when its right in front of you that doesn't make it easier to swallow.

You can see the significant amount of filler that was used previously when the car was painted, and where previous rust had just been plated over at the bottom of the arch instead of treated properly.

This is what had been done to the arches, the presumably rusty edges were cut out and then just spot welded together, with a load of seam sealer thrown on top. This allowed basically any water that was thrown up in the wheel arch to spread throughout the sills, arches, and pockets and settle in the seams. Seeing this standard of work was pretty disappointing, because with just a small bit more effort and care, I'm sure lots of the rust that I had to cut out could have been avoided.

Anyone who is familiar with ae86s know that the areas that I've shown and will show are fairly susceptible to rot. Thankfully the floor and underside of my chassis required little to no work, which was at least a welcome consolation.

The left side was much the same except the classic repair method of aluminium tape with bondo on top had been used to its full effect. At this point there wasn't really anything left to do except start cutting. Let me just say that up to this point I had zero experience in welding, panel beating, or bodywork at all, and I probably only have a tiny bit more than that now. But I think that there's a massive value in learning these things for oneself, so I picked up a mig welder and started practicing. I was constantly questioning my decision to take on this seemingly mammoth task around this time. The more rust you cut out the more you find. I think this was probably the very first section I made up from fresh steel. The inner seam held in place for welding. And the same spot on the other side with the outer layer of new steel welded in place. Nothing really prepared me for the length of time this process takes. In build threads and and on instagram everything seems to happen overnight. The above section took years off my life, I eventually figured out that sometimes its easier to piece together and build a part up than try to make it from scratch. Some of the welds here are probably borderline offensive to someone who does this sort of thing for a living, and yeah sometimes wish I could go back in there and do it again with the ability I have now, but they are all sound welds so I'm not losing any sleep over it. Eventually, more fresh metal was being welded in than rusty metal was being cut out. Theres still a good amount of tidying up to do here, but this was the first completed area I did. Sense of accomplishment was high until I'd move onto the next area.  Cut, weld, repeat. With the welding to the shell ongoing, at some stage the decision came to remove the engine. While it wasn't originally part of the plan it seemed logical at this stage. I just wish I hadn't wasted so much energy prior by removing the air conditioning and power steering while the engine was in situ. It was clearly a bit of a mess and in need of a tidy up. In search of a distraction from welding I tried to give these rocker covers a bit of a freshen up. Wire wheeled back to bare metal. Not too worried about the finish because I was going to use wrinkle coat paint. I sanded all the paint off the raised lettering, I think they turned out pretty good. With everything out of the car you really have no choice but to give everything a bit of a refurb. The rear end in particular needed some attention. Treated it with some zinc phosphate to neutralise any remaining surface rust. Finished product. Massive improvement. Over night parts from Japan.  14x9 Watanabe type R, straight from the factory in Yokohama. Probably one of, if not the quintessential Japanese wheel, they were always part of the image I had for the car. Brand new TRD Sports facing clutch disk, and a freshly machined lightweight flywheel. A pair of extra long Silk Road tie rod ends. The extra length is necessary when the lower control arm has been extended or when running a shortened knuckle.

Speaking of; I extended the LCA by 20mm, and also added some bracing to the underside.

The manual steering rack on top compared to the power steering system below. The weight saving alone in removing the power steering rack and all its ancillaries is significant.

The refreshed rack in its new home in the freshly painted front crossmember.

This sort of work can be tedious at times, but when you've got a stack of fresh parts to bolt back into the shell it's all worth it.

Nobody really sees this stuff. But still.

Freshly painted knuckles, rear end arms, and cusco adjustable panhard rod.

This was the only picture I could find of the Prothane bushings being installed, excuse the potato  picture quality. Every rubber bushing on the car was replaced with Prothane polyurethane bushings.

The inner and outer arch skinner welded together here, this is how the job should have been done originally, preventing any moisture getting in. This signified one of the last bit of welding the shell got. I'm pretty light on progress pictures of the welding, a lot of what I showed above was from pretty early doors. I soon figure out that when you're worrying about getting pictures of everything, you're slowing yourself down.

With all the welding completed on the shell, it was time to roll the car out for some fresh air. The underside was scrubbed clean and degreased, before being treated with zinc phosphate. While most of the underside coating was still intact from the factory I wanted to make every effort to keep it solid and rust free for at least another few years.

Getting the sniff test from the branch manager. The underside was then painted and then sprayed with dinitrol under sealer.

At the same time I gave the engine bay a thorough clean and rub down with some scotchbrite. I also took this oppurtunity to strip out all the old seam sealer. Being 30 odd years old it hard started to crack in places, so stripped it all off and laid some fresh sealer down before it got a fresh coat of paint.

Turned out pretty sweet I think.

The last piece of the puzzle, and honestly on the most important, bodywork wise, was the rear arches. So about this time I started to play around with some templates. I had a really clear image of how I wanted to arches to look and also how I wanted the wheels to sit inside them. I do remember feeling pretty amazing at this point, because if I blurred my eyes it almost looked like a car again. Assembly, the good stuff, up next.