Well here are some photos, kind of in some sort of order as to the “major” repairs that have required welding and such that I have done to my blakc 1990 hatchback.
it originally didn’t look as bad as it turned out to be, but with a lot of sweat, and thankfully no blood or tears. I have only the floor under the drivers pedals left to complete before I can start putting it back together.
so here’s some fun pictures.
This is what the interior looked like when I bought it (yukkers!)
Here’s some of the interior after a bit of excavation and unpleasent discovery :shock: eek no floors !
this is what I did to the passenger side after removing the visable cancer. It still needs sealant on the underside of the car but it’s now cleaned and covered in rocker guard on the inside
This is the trunk in it’s original state. :shock: no good.
same thing with the new frame piece after cancer has been chopped.
here’s the finished area with new trunkage and a coat of rockerguard.
a pic of the rims that came with the car. I like them. poor offset tho. ( they are some wierd Australian or something brand that no longer exists)
shock tower in progression
now here’s where things get interesting. FRONT FRAME ROT ! :shock: I’ll spare you photos of the actual dmaamge and start with the first piece of 2mm steel that went in.
it will drift.
this isn’t like a weeks worth of work its almost 4 months of working on it almost every day for 12 - 15 hours each. I didn’t take any shortcuts with the rust, and I believe it to be as strong as stock, if not just a little tiny bit stronger. solid welds are often much stronger than the actual steel used, as seeing as the steel I used was near impossible to bend (even with the breaker I have) I believe it will handel well. plus if anything does break, I’ve now got the experience to fix it without too much trouble.
look on the bright side, I took a 240 from the brink of being crushed and restored it back to almost stock condition. Aside from the cost of the welder, which I purchased at the beginning of this project and about $80 in steel, and a few hundred in necessarry replacement parts. it honestly didn’t cost me much, as well I learned a great deal about auto repair that I was previously inept at.
if nothing else this was an awsome learning experience, and I do beleive that it’s strong enough to handle drifting (with appropriate strength mods of course) I ran it pretty hard just after I got the engine running with nothing done to the frame and I heard no creeks or growns and didn’t notice any shifting at all. so aside from looking bad, I don’t beleive the structure of the car was as effected by the rust as it may have looked. I will most likely blow the engine long before enything happens to the frame or body.
Well, you did a good job of the repair, and i bet it was a great learning experience. I hope that its strong enough to handle what you will put it through, and i cant honestly say if it will or not.
… a few things though: When you fix a frame like that, you will add a lot of extra weight, and no it is not stronger that the original frame (unless you re-enforced it to a point where its rediculously thick and weights 3X’s the original weight of that area). Those frames are created, and made stronger by cold working them, when you weld something to them you anneal them, making the steel grains change shape, they grow larger and weaker. Also the original frame is bent with a curve, there is a lot of strength in curves, if you fix a frame with a box like shape it is not stronger than a curve, youd have to have a lof of camfer on the inside of the welds which would be very difficult to do.
Rust will keep eating away at the metal, did yo udo anything to it to protect it from getting eaten away from the inside? There is more to corrosion then needing it to be covered it an electrolite (ie salt water). Why do you think the frame rails all rust in the exact same spot? its because it was bent when formed, this can cause corrosion within itself, so even if there is a little bit of rust with an electrolite still on it, it will still do some damage.
Im sorry if im coming off as an ass, im not trying to be, in fact i think you did a good job as far as frame repair goes, you posted here wanting our comments on it, and here are mine, take them how you may.
I agree with Racer, when repairing the frame rails there is really no need to use such think metal like many people do. You can use regular sheet metal and as long as you properly bend and weld the metal it will be just as strong as factory.
I have only the floor under the drivers pedals left to complete before I can start putting it back together.
