Sock's 240sx Rusto Project (56k, tons of pictures)

[Sockington]

Before I get flamed by any of you, please understand these two facts:

• The car was originally bought for $100. The tranny and engine were smoked from never having their fluids changed
• The motor and tranny were given to me free.

I’m sticking in a 2.3T from a 1988 Ford Thunderbird TurboCoupe along with the 5speed transmission.

Alrighty, here’s the mighty beast as it’s sat for the past year. Holy **** it’s been a while.

Oh my, aren’t you a sexy beast!

Here’s where I planned on spending my day today:

For those of you who aren’t blind, you’ll notice that the engine bay is white and the car is poorly painted black.

Hey there pignose.

Here’s a little bit of rust.

A little bit more there.

I’m sure most of you think that this car is a rusted piece of ****. You’ll be glad to know that there is actually little to no rust inside the car (as in, the floor is intact).

Your life is soon to be ended, dear automatic transmission.

Some more bits slowly removed from the engine bay:

Looks black on the outside:

White and fairly rust free on the inside:

More crap removed.

Starting to clear up.

More **** removed.

Cleaning out the inside of the car a bit.

I came across something rather shocking. I had no idea the gas tank was this beat up. I know I needed some new straps, but I guess a tank is in order too. ****ty.

Some more rust…

How I left the engine bay for today.

Oh, hello there faithful Altima!

Hello there, my amazing(ly cheap) tool set! No snap-on there.

Here’s the good bits.
The T5 tranny that I got for free.

The bucket of wiring I have to sort through.

The 2.3Turbo I have to install.

Modified by Sockington at 1:39 PM 4/17/2006

[Sockington]

My plans:

• Get the car inside (we made room for it today)
• Jack it up
• Block it and put some stands under it
• Take the rear tires off
• Remove the gas tank

I got most of those done with a few extras tossed in. First on the bill, get it’s *** in the air.

Welcome to your new home, dear 240.

Take of the driver’s rear tire and take a peek at the brakes. Conclusion - very rusty.

Pop the rotor and caliper off.

I attempted to take the tire off the passenger rear tire, but it was rusted to the hub. God damn. I just soaked some WD40 in there for now.

Jacked, blocked, and some stands under it too. Classy

Down goes the tank.

Apparently I left about 30liters of gas in the tank. Jesus, that was suprisingly heavy.

Hacked off the muffler and found some tire chocks. Cool.

Found a whole assload of rust where the muffler used to be. Great. More welding.

Took off some of the exhaust.

Tackled some of the rust lightly (trying to see if it was rotted right through. Suprisingly, not.)

How it’ll sit for a couple of days until I get time to work on it again.

I think I’m going to adapt the factory sending unit to a fuel cell. Then I can slap in a Walbro pump and be laughing. My fiance’s uncle owns a machine shop and I know a few welders, so I might get a stainless steel tank made to fit in the spare tire well or something similar.

Overall, there’s a bit more rust in certain places than I originally expected, but I can deal with that, I guess. Oh well, sucks having Canadian winters on cars like this.

[Sockington]

The engine bay (semi-clean)

Where the ECU was.

Needs more LS1? I think not.

Interior **** and misc. stuff that has been removed.

Where the driveshaft/tranny/engine used to be.

Go further with the walk around.

The caliper bolt that snapped off in the spindle.

The freshly sandblasted caliper mounts.

The mighty 2.3Turbo.

The mounting brackets.

The 240sx cross member.

The ECU harness removed the 240sx.

Engine going in!

Checking clearance out back. Good.

Check upfront clearance.

View from below the engine bay.

This is what happens when the motor started swinging…into the rad.

Trying to get it as far back in the bay as possible.

Still a little more to go.

Clearance on the passenger side. That fuse box will have to be moved.

Driver’s side looks good.

Lots of front clearance!

The engine bay will rest empty tonight.

The car will also rest empty tonight.

[Sockington]

Finally, I got out the torches to get that damn caliper bracket off.

It begins!

Liner removed along with lower resonator.

To the junk-bucket with the likes of you.

Left fender off - much swearing over this weird front fender bracket.

See the little bracket at the front? ****ing whore to get with the bumper on.

Fenderless! Bumperless! Hoodless!

****ing rotten dust shields. I removed the front hub to pull that ****er off.

My friend, torches.

Caliper bracket off.

The bumper’s new home.

Some front end shots.

Good metal! Wow!

Sanded the rough spots, applied rust killer/primer.

Junk pile.

Passenger side got the same treatment.

Old fenders. They could be repaired, but for $100/side, I might as well get new ones. The old ones have seen so many different layers of paint. Jesus christ.

[Sockington]

Got some more done today. I’m planning on taking out the front crossmember to make my motor mounts out of the vehicle. I figure it’ll just be easier that way.

Front sway bar? Out you come!

Next, the “tension rods”

Jesus Christ! That bushing looks horrible!

A little leverage working for me

Tension rod assembly removed

How in hell does the arm and mounting bracket come apart? The bolt is supposed to just slide out - no threads holding it into the arm… or so they say.

Damn that’s really in there. First round of torch work.

Next round with success!

There’s the little bastard that took me an hour to remove.

Some parts back from sandblasting.

More parts to be blasted.

Closed up for the night.

It’s clear that a bushing set is first purchase for the car. Every piece of rubber on this car is rotted. Hello Energy poly bushing set.

[Sockington]

First off, removal of driver’s side strut/tension rod. Easily done.

Mr. Crossmember, you’re next.

Jesus! I found a huge rot hole on the driver’s side rail.

Clean up time.

The rust that was on the floor after the hour of grinding.

The front crossmember hanging out behind the car.

When I was shuffling around below the car, I noticed that the front wood blocks were no longer supporting any weight. Since the engine,tranny, and crossmember was removed, the car became VERY titly.

I jacked up the front and added some wood blocks for safety’s sake.

That hole certainly looks nasty.

If you look at the hole, it’s like the car is frowning about it’s current condition of neglect.

Time to make some patches.

Now, please don’t mock the following pictures. I’m using a 220volt stick welder for the welding, and this was my first time actually welding. Ever. Advert your eyes.

Test fitting.

Completed patch.

I must admit, welding on your back while trying to hold your head up, a trouble light on where you’re welding, making sure you mask stays down, and trying to not burn holes through the rail was very difficult. At this point, I may have actually had about an hour since my first weld was done.

That nice flat spot gives me a good spot to jack from. I know it’s not pretty, but I’ll be damned if that isn’t the toughest spot on the whole damn car.

I’m going to seal up the holes around the patch with Goop or Seal-All, and then undercoat my new patch. I don’t think I did to bad for not knowing how to weld at the start of the day, using a stick welder, and trying to weld on my side for my first time welding.

[Sockington]

Some more work done today.

Nicely undercoated rail after all that sanding and grinding.

Out comes Mr. Rear Subframe

Ha! This will catch the diff when it falls.

And it did. (I removed the auto tranny the same way)

Now let’s check out the mess of rust where the subframe used to be.

Now let’s look at the rear diff because it makes me happier than looking at more rust.

Some minor work done (was short on time today)

Closed up for the day. Will resume on Thursday

That rust really made me sad inside. The grinder can’t reach some places, so that means lots of sand paper. God, I hate using sand paper. Oh well, I’ll be doing more sanding, grinding, and welding come Thursday.

[Dxero]

goddamn…more pics!! great job man, especially on the welding

[cloudzero3]

Looks like you’ve really cut out a lot of work for yourself…

It’ll be interesting to see what you’ll end up with!!

Keep us updated man 8)

[alesserfate]

nice job man, at first i was like wtf but by the end it looked better 8)

[jammin1911]

awesome! keep up the good work! you’re a trooper - thats for sure

[TM1]

Son240sx memeber of the year?

[atutt]

crazy… i’ll be honest i’m a welder and have been for 5 years, your welds deffinately arent pro, but if its your first time ever with stick, its really quite impressive, aside from stailess and TIG stick is THE hardest to do, i’m rather impressed with the welds, though there are some holes which should be filled in. keep up the good work

[a_ahmed]

wow i am in love, its awesome.

I’ve had that kind of done to my car (for example, didn’t take engine out or tranny), but not as much and mine wasn’t in a bad condition it was well kept surprisingly… yours is like ultimate rust bucket, but keep going I love it!

[Lucidsnow]

wow this is like the fun in life of reviving a dead object… u got some great passion for the car to be doing wat u did… great job and keep us updated … props to u… i bet u having so much fun haha … if i had the time i wuldnt mind trying wat u doing haha

[duckJAI]

i give u mad respect just for posting that many pictures. that probably took you a good hr to sort thru, post and caption it. but obviously i give you more for what you have done to the car. keep learning and u’ll become pro at welding. keep us posted! oh and now your making me curious on how the condition of my car is currently at. =P

[spilner]

nice work for sure, but this guy does’nt hold a candle to jover lol

[QuincyRedS14]

very good work indeed. keep it up.

[system]

Great work man

wow IO wish I had the time and resourses

[Sockington]

If anybody has a set of manual pedals they’d like to toss my way… :lol:

I’m heading out to work on the car this afternoon (I live in Sarnia, Ontario. The car is stored near Chatham, Ontario - about a 30minute drive each way).

I’ve kind of made a run down on the 240sx parts I still need:

• Brake and clutch pedal set
• Clutch master setup
• Windshield (eventually)

Well, that’s really all I need in the way of used parts. I work at a PartSource, so getting all the normal parts (brakes, suspension, bushings, fenders, brake and fuel lines, bearings, etc) isn’t really difficult since I’m staff there.

I’ve also determined what I need to get done and in what order:

1. Remove rust from rear subframe area
2. Remove rust from passenger side rear rocker panel and wheel well
3. Remove rust from driver side rear rocker panel
4. Weld in a support bar for the pinch seam
5. Undercoat freshly finished metal work
6. Install new brake & fuel lines from front to back
7. Install new bushings. Everywhere.
8. Make custom motor and tranny mounts (Hello Mr. Stick welder, again)
9. Install engine and transmission
10. Relocate factory fuse panel - too close to turbo
11. Get driveshaft cut, welded, and balanced to fit

I could go on, but those eleven steps should keep me busy for about 2months. I don’t want to get too far ahead of my self and skimp out on the most important part - taking care of the cancer.