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Ouch, looks pretty brutal Ian

Still its amazing how things clean up. Keep up the good work and all

Steve-A wrote:Ouch, looks pretty brutal Ian

Still its amazing how things clean up. Keep up the good work and all

you know what it's like Steve, you start doing some thing and then it just develops into a full blown resto.... If you're going to do something...and all that!

Do it right, do it once

It's quite addictive the restoration thing isn't it!

Hmmm, lovely job Make sure you Dremel every last fleck of rust out from all those creases It's a bit like polishing, that kinda thing, I suppose, boring as hell but strangely absorbing and rewarding all at the same time. Since you've got it off the car, seems a shame not to bring it back nicely.

Pics like those first two make me realise how easy us Jap lovers have it. I've been helping my mate with his Mercury Cougar resto (basically similar to a Mustang underpinning in size). Taking his rear axle up to the bodyshop nearly broke my nut strings permananently. It weighed about the same as the Transit we borrowed to move it in. No way could we have plopped it into a wheelbarrow, it would have just collapsed. Although we did use his 'barrow to move the engine block. It hung out over one end, it was too long. No heads on it, either In comparison to heavy metal like that, our teeny li'l 3/4 sized Jap cars give us an easy life

Very impressive restoration.

Quick update...

the rear axle now has now been stripped of its surface rust, acid cleaned and given its first coat of POR15.... I used black gloss POR for the first coat but the second coat will be a POR15 in a black satin finish which I prefer as it looks more 'factory'
I've also made up some new copper brake lines to fix to the axle...







I've spent a good few hours underneath the rear of the car today prepping it for a coat of new paint.... the condition of the underbody is amazing.... no rot ... it's the best 1st gen underbody I've seen for 20 odd years.
To preserve it in this condition, I'm going to clean it to remove surface dust then coat it with POR15 then topcoat it body colour.
I went to our local market today as there is a stall there that sells new old stock paint aerosols and managed to buy 4 tins of Mazda K3 Sunbeam Silver... result!! This will do the underbody.

I've also decided to strip off the factory carb, inlet and exhaust and put my spare Elford turbo setup onto this engine.... whilst keeping the rest of the car stock.
Another interesting snippet of info is that this car has the chassis number 700501 which makes it a very early series 3 car ( 1st registered 18.02.1984) and according to Davids records, is the earliest series 3 known to still survive in the UK.... I suppose helped by the fact that it only spent 8 years on the road before being laid up, which probably accounts for the great condition of the underside of the car as well.

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haven't got into the garage much recently due to work and cold weather but managed to spend a few hours last weekend.
The fuel tank has now been cleaned out, and coated externally with a heavy coating of POR15. This is ready now to go back on the car.
Everything underneath the car from the rear seats backwards, has been removed and the underbody thoroughly cleaned, coated with POR15 and then I've started to spray some primer over the top of it prior to topcoating it with K3 sunbeam silver...

Once this is done, I'll re-install the axle, suspension,brakes, tank, heat shields and fuel lines.

Here are a few photos of the work in progress...































Should be better than when it left the factory when the top coat is on.

chc wrote:Nice work there Ian

Seconded...