Pigeon_Droppings2
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Pigeon_Droppings2
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Pigeon_Droppings2
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While I was underneath the car I had a poke around the underseal, in some places it looks almost factory fresh but in other places it's definitely failing. Also Nissan prepped these cars for the Jap market and it shows....some parts are well sealed while others literally have no protection. Not surprisingly there is a fair bit of surface rust...I think I may have to wire wheel the lot....but I really don't want to given the amount of work involved!
Pigeon_Droppings2
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Pigeon_Droppings2
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HopefullySoon
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Just started removing all under seal on mine and wire wheeling up ect .. my advice would be break the back of the crap jobs even if you think you may need it (guts are usually right ) ... it only goes up from therePigeon_Droppings2
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Totally agree....my plan is to do a little on the wire wheel every time I get down the garage. If I mix it in with a bit of welding then it won't seem as dull I reckon. Nothing worse than doing the same job every day for a week...like when I was pulling all that filler off!
HopefullySoon
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Same as me and my project ... I’ve plenty of free jobs that need doing , remove under seal , paint filler ect ... in some ways hats a beauty of a project .. ‘I’ve had enough scraping under seal for an hour .. I’ll stand up and sand the rear wing back ... doing monotonous crap bores me to death .. give me a few things and I’ll bounce round them when I’m ready
Pigeon_Droppings2
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Another patch-tastic few hours on the Figgy. Same as before I've tried to retain the original look of the boot floor by retaining the overlapping panels. Bit of etch primer and that's the spare wheel bit of the boot done at last...before you all start getting worried that the Figgy welding is nearly done...please don't...still plenty left to come 
Pigeon_Droppings2
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Next job is to sort another hole by the suspensions mount. Again I think this is probably due to damage to the very thin underseal in the arch itself...stone thrown up by the tyres maybe? I will remove the strut for better access...I could probably do it with the strut in place but that would be a faff and I'm too old for messing about.
jpmillermatic
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"Another patch-tastic few hours on the Figgy. Same as before I've tried to retain the original look of the boot floor by retaining the overlapping panels. Bit of etch primer and that's the spare wheel bit of the boot done at last...before you all start getting worried that the Figgy welding is nearly done...please don't...still plenty left to come "
Yes, we dont want you to have to stop welding on this car......
Im in awe of how poorly done these otherwise neat little cars were put together/protected/designed/ ect to have them rust like this...or is this unusual for these cars.
looks great, reminds me of restoring the spare tire well in my Bimmer trailer....just about the same areas and same amount of work....but I was so much more the noob when it came to approach....I must have chased more welds through questionable metal with 2 bottles of gas and 1 whole spool of wire on that project! Now, like your approach to the shock/strut area, I just dont have time to mess around anymore!......
looks good!
JP
"Yes, we dont want you to have to stop welding on this car......
Im in awe of how poorly done these otherwise neat little cars were put together/protected/designed/ ect to have them rust like this...or is this unusual for these cars.
looks great, reminds me of restoring the spare tire well in my Bimmer trailer....just about the same areas and same amount of work....but I was so much more the noob when it came to approach....I must have chased more welds through questionable metal with 2 bottles of gas and 1 whole spool of wire on that project! Now, like your approach to the shock/strut area, I just dont have time to mess around anymore!......
looks good!
JP
its just old jap cars they all rust to bits.
the irony is that if you came to sell it and showed that all the common areas had been welded most people wouldn't be interested, they would opt for a 'never been welded' example that was either rotten or full of plop.
the irony is that if you came to sell it and showed that all the common areas had been welded most people wouldn't be interested, they would opt for a 'never been welded' example that was either rotten or full of plop.
Pigeon_Droppings2
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Yea Jap cars do like to rust...it is very localised though which makes it just a little less depressing I guess. I think the Figaro was only intended for the Jap market so it didn't get all the rust protection that a UK domestic car would get. Most of the rust/rot I'm seeing is tracing back to the underseal failing...it just wasn't applied thick enough for the UK climate. Some got undersealed upon import and therefore survived better.
JP I think the panel fit and build quality is also a little questionable....they only made 20,000 cars in 1 year of production so I'm guessing this car might be more of a prototype vs cars with a long production run. I'll take some pics of the underneath....some of the panel fit is shocking...the seam sealer looks like it was put on with a spoon to hide the poor panel fit!
gaz_moose....couldn't agree more...some of these cars are selling for £7k+, just imagine paying that sort of money and then finding you've bought a rot box. I bought a rough one that turned out to be rougher than I originally thought but geez can you imagine paying out big money and then finding you need a total restoration!
JP I think the panel fit and build quality is also a little questionable....they only made 20,000 cars in 1 year of production so I'm guessing this car might be more of a prototype vs cars with a long production run. I'll take some pics of the underneath....some of the panel fit is shocking...the seam sealer looks like it was put on with a spoon to hide the poor panel fit!
gaz_moose....couldn't agree more...some of these cars are selling for £7k+, just imagine paying that sort of money and then finding you've bought a rot box. I bought a rough one that turned out to be rougher than I originally thought but geez can you imagine paying out big money and then finding you need a total restoration!
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Made a start on the cutting...looks like I've escaped with a fairly minor repair. I'm guessing stone damage caused the underseal to fail which then let the water do it's thing.
I quite like the wavy pattern on the boot floor join in pic2....it's a shame it got covered in underseal so this little feature gets obscured from view.
I quite like the wavy pattern on the boot floor join in pic2....it's a shame it got covered in underseal so this little feature gets obscured from view.
Pigeon_Droppings2
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Cheers mechman....the hardest bit was getting the suspension back in. I did also get very very lucky that only 1 layer was affected...if it had got through into the chassis member it would have been a lot harder to fix I think.
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I've scraped myself on the corroded boot lid about 2 dozen times....decided enough was enough so cut it out and welded in a new piece.
There is a boot seal that sits in this channel...had quite a bit of surface rust UNDER the nice new paint. Decided to wire brush and treat with some rust converter...I usually dislike using rust converter but this area isn't bad enough to need cutting out so decided to just treat it instead...will reseal and use zinc paint to hopefully buy the car many more years. I will wire brush the entire seal area I think as this muppet might have painted over the rust in other areas too.
Ignore the rust converter inside the drain hole....if you look at the drain hole it loos like they brazed it in. A nice little touch + I really love the colour of brass/bronze/copper.
There is a boot seal that sits in this channel...had quite a bit of surface rust UNDER the nice new paint. Decided to wire brush and treat with some rust converter...I usually dislike using rust converter but this area isn't bad enough to need cutting out so decided to just treat it instead...will reseal and use zinc paint to hopefully buy the car many more years. I will wire brush the entire seal area I think as this muppet might have painted over the rust in other areas too.
Ignore the rust converter inside the drain hole....if you look at the drain hole it loos like they brazed it in. A nice little touch + I really love the colour of brass/bronze/copper.
Pigeon_Droppings2
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Last bit of the boot repairs...this one was a little tricky as it was rusted right through and access on the inside was difficult. Source of the rust was under the arch...a badly fitted plate with a bolt in it and a plastic plug inserted in the bolt hole. No idea why it's there...isn't used by anything....but seems to support my theory of this car basically being a prototype!
