Jim-SR
29-12-2007, 16:26
not really 1.5 related, but figure people read more in here, and im looking for some encouragement from people whove fixed worse (hopefully there are some people who have!!!!)
a bit of background on my MR2 - it was bought by a mate of mine (Alessandro on here, he hasnt been on since he sold me the car i dont think tho) about 4 years ago, i went and looked over it with him and managed to get him what we both regarded as a bargain at the time. it had some rust on it, but nothing horrendous. the rust started to come through though after a few months, so he took it to a garage in Cardiff who then supposedly completely restored the bodywork. he barely used the car for the next couple of years as he was in Cardiff at uni and the car lived at his house in London. eventually i persuaded him to sell me it, as i knew it had been "restored", and should be a good clean example. i gave it a good look over and there were a few patches where surface rust was coming back on the arches, but nothing horrific from what i could see, and that was that. i bought it last January
so anyway, i took all the side skirts off a month after buying it and there was some rust on the sills, they were starting to go soft and i knew it needed welding. i never got round to it, drove the car until September, then took it off the road, where its been to now
today i thought id strip the skirts off and poke all the rust through to get an idea of how bad it is, and here are the results...
Offside rear sill. the outer skin is f*cked, it will need a substantial amount cutting out, further than what ive pressed through (although ive pressed through all of the complete rust, what is left around the edges is still mostly shiny metal and solid, but theres surface rust on it). the inner skin however looks perfect, just minor surface rust, so it will need sanding back, treating, and then undersealing before the outer skin gets welded up
http://www.twobrutal.co.uk/forum/images/recovered/2007/12/200.jpg
Offside front wheel well has rotted a bit where the anti roll bar mount is. the exact same happened on my first MR2 in the exact same place. its not a hard repair, just so long as there isnt more problems lurking beneath the surface. theres no guarantees that it hasnt rotted further along as well. i havent attacked it with a hammer yet
http://www.twobrutal.co.uk/forum/images/recovered/2007/12/201.jpg
Nearside front wing, where it meets the sill. the sill is completely intact, just some minor surface patches on the bottom bit where stones have bounced up. the front wing doesnt bother me as that is easily removed and repaired, and the inner skin on the chassis looks alright. however there is a patch of rust on the inside of the car not far from here, and also on the door shut, so im worried it may be rotting from the inside out. a hammer was unable to punch any significant holes though, so when i remove the front wing il give it more inspection
http://www.twobrutal.co.uk/forum/images/recovered/2007/12/202.jpg
and now for the finale, the worse part by far. this is the nearside rear sill section, which is completely rotten! again, ONLY on the outer skin though, the inner skin looks absolutely perfect and is solid as a rock, just minor surface rust. so it will be repairable, but the whole outer sill has pretty much gone
http://www.twobrutal.co.uk/forum/images/recovered/2007/12/203.jpg
so the rust is fairly bad, but i dont think its beyond repair, far from it. the biggest issue with it all, is that this rust was meant to have been repaired!! the wing that is rotten was supposedly a brand new replacement, yet it has red paint underneath the blue paint, so was clearly a used one. and the nearside rear sill section was horrendous. i was poking away, and all of a sudden hit something soft. so i pulled metal away, and there was a big lump of blue workshop paper rag. i tried to pull it out, and off fell a 3" round lump of sill. the bodyshop hadnt bothered to weld ANYTHING on the whole car. instead, they knocked all the rust out, and stuffed paper rag in the holes to support FILLER, which they repaired all of the rust with! i have a photo of the car being repaired, which has filler on it, but i assumed the filler was put over freshly welded areas to fill any flatspots. so il have to go over all those areas now to check they werent just bodged with filler too (the sections behind the rear wheels where the mudflaps attach are definitely entirely filler, i can hear it)
im trying to get in touch with my mate Alex who had the car before me to a) warn him never to use this garage again, as i think he has used them quite a lot. and b) to find out who they are so i can name and shame them so that others dont encounter their horrific workmanship. Alex paid a lot of money to have the car repaired and resprayed, its not like it was a cheap bodge job. and it looked immaculate for a year, but due to improper repairs all of the rust has come back, 3 times worse than it was in the first place because their shiny new paintjob has been hiding it all beneath the surface whilst its rotted for the past 2-3 years
so, any words of reassurance that this is repairable, or should i start thinking about calling it a day on this shell (its got a lot of time invested into it, but zero cash at present, aside from the initial purchase)?
id like to get it good as its a car i know the history of, its not had any proper accidents (some dozy woman reversed into it and dented the door a couple of years ago, which was replaced), its got a mostly awesome paintjob as it was all resprayed (a bush overhanging the road scratched one side up though), and the work to get another shell to this level would take me a month. this car is completely stripped, literally everything inside the car is gone. all thats left to do is strip out wiring (and build my own loom with only stuff i need on it) and the bumper bars really, and then trickier things like losing the headlight motors and engine bay components, etc.
P.S. heres how it looked at JAE just after Alex had got all the work done on it. a bit of a contrast to its current state!!
http://www.twobrutal.co.uk/forum/images/recovered/2007/12/204.jpg
http://www.twobrutal.co.uk/forum/images/recovered/2007/12/205.jpg
a bit of background on my MR2 - it was bought by a mate of mine (Alessandro on here, he hasnt been on since he sold me the car i dont think tho) about 4 years ago, i went and looked over it with him and managed to get him what we both regarded as a bargain at the time. it had some rust on it, but nothing horrendous. the rust started to come through though after a few months, so he took it to a garage in Cardiff who then supposedly completely restored the bodywork. he barely used the car for the next couple of years as he was in Cardiff at uni and the car lived at his house in London. eventually i persuaded him to sell me it, as i knew it had been "restored", and should be a good clean example. i gave it a good look over and there were a few patches where surface rust was coming back on the arches, but nothing horrific from what i could see, and that was that. i bought it last January
so anyway, i took all the side skirts off a month after buying it and there was some rust on the sills, they were starting to go soft and i knew it needed welding. i never got round to it, drove the car until September, then took it off the road, where its been to now
today i thought id strip the skirts off and poke all the rust through to get an idea of how bad it is, and here are the results...
Offside rear sill. the outer skin is f*cked, it will need a substantial amount cutting out, further than what ive pressed through (although ive pressed through all of the complete rust, what is left around the edges is still mostly shiny metal and solid, but theres surface rust on it). the inner skin however looks perfect, just minor surface rust, so it will need sanding back, treating, and then undersealing before the outer skin gets welded up
http://www.twobrutal.co.uk/forum/images/recovered/2007/12/200.jpg
Offside front wheel well has rotted a bit where the anti roll bar mount is. the exact same happened on my first MR2 in the exact same place. its not a hard repair, just so long as there isnt more problems lurking beneath the surface. theres no guarantees that it hasnt rotted further along as well. i havent attacked it with a hammer yet
http://www.twobrutal.co.uk/forum/images/recovered/2007/12/201.jpg
Nearside front wing, where it meets the sill. the sill is completely intact, just some minor surface patches on the bottom bit where stones have bounced up. the front wing doesnt bother me as that is easily removed and repaired, and the inner skin on the chassis looks alright. however there is a patch of rust on the inside of the car not far from here, and also on the door shut, so im worried it may be rotting from the inside out. a hammer was unable to punch any significant holes though, so when i remove the front wing il give it more inspection
http://www.twobrutal.co.uk/forum/images/recovered/2007/12/202.jpg
and now for the finale, the worse part by far. this is the nearside rear sill section, which is completely rotten! again, ONLY on the outer skin though, the inner skin looks absolutely perfect and is solid as a rock, just minor surface rust. so it will be repairable, but the whole outer sill has pretty much gone
http://www.twobrutal.co.uk/forum/images/recovered/2007/12/203.jpg
so the rust is fairly bad, but i dont think its beyond repair, far from it. the biggest issue with it all, is that this rust was meant to have been repaired!! the wing that is rotten was supposedly a brand new replacement, yet it has red paint underneath the blue paint, so was clearly a used one. and the nearside rear sill section was horrendous. i was poking away, and all of a sudden hit something soft. so i pulled metal away, and there was a big lump of blue workshop paper rag. i tried to pull it out, and off fell a 3" round lump of sill. the bodyshop hadnt bothered to weld ANYTHING on the whole car. instead, they knocked all the rust out, and stuffed paper rag in the holes to support FILLER, which they repaired all of the rust with! i have a photo of the car being repaired, which has filler on it, but i assumed the filler was put over freshly welded areas to fill any flatspots. so il have to go over all those areas now to check they werent just bodged with filler too (the sections behind the rear wheels where the mudflaps attach are definitely entirely filler, i can hear it)
im trying to get in touch with my mate Alex who had the car before me to a) warn him never to use this garage again, as i think he has used them quite a lot. and b) to find out who they are so i can name and shame them so that others dont encounter their horrific workmanship. Alex paid a lot of money to have the car repaired and resprayed, its not like it was a cheap bodge job. and it looked immaculate for a year, but due to improper repairs all of the rust has come back, 3 times worse than it was in the first place because their shiny new paintjob has been hiding it all beneath the surface whilst its rotted for the past 2-3 years
so, any words of reassurance that this is repairable, or should i start thinking about calling it a day on this shell (its got a lot of time invested into it, but zero cash at present, aside from the initial purchase)?
id like to get it good as its a car i know the history of, its not had any proper accidents (some dozy woman reversed into it and dented the door a couple of years ago, which was replaced), its got a mostly awesome paintjob as it was all resprayed (a bush overhanging the road scratched one side up though), and the work to get another shell to this level would take me a month. this car is completely stripped, literally everything inside the car is gone. all thats left to do is strip out wiring (and build my own loom with only stuff i need on it) and the bumper bars really, and then trickier things like losing the headlight motors and engine bay components, etc.
P.S. heres how it looked at JAE just after Alex had got all the work done on it. a bit of a contrast to its current state!!
http://www.twobrutal.co.uk/forum/images/recovered/2007/12/204.jpg
http://www.twobrutal.co.uk/forum/images/recovered/2007/12/205.jpg