Restoring my 97 Mitsubishi FTO - Beginner so any help and feedback welcomed

[mike 109444]

The work from above would be to hammer down where the red bowed lines are in my pic. Remember you need to "move" that metal as well as the bottom (underside). If necessary you could also use a hole saw to open up from above an access to allow hammering down through the box section where the slide hammer is not able to move the metal. If you went for say a 1" hole saw then you could just plug it after with a grommet. Just take it easy tapping (must stop saying hammer ) it back to shape. Try and use a bar say 1/2 diameter with the end rounded (like a ball pien hammer) that should help to avoid it splitting the box.

 

[Cosantoir]

(22/12 - 1 of 4)
Thanks @mike 109444 , the slide hammer arrived today so I gave it a first pass it definitely needs more work but I got the big dents out of the rails. The car is full of parts so cant get at it from inside just yet.

First two pics are comparisons

 

[Cosantoir]

(22/12 - 2 of 4)
One thing I got to do yesterday was straighten then rails along the sills. They were badly bent and crushed and looked terrible and while they still aren't perfect and still need more work done it takes the horrible neglected look off them.

If I've learned anything it's don't let crushed rails sit it'll cause plenty of issues down the line for you or future owners.
Anyone got any suggestions on next steps to tidying these up? Maybe a fresh length over the front of them?

 

[Cosantoir]

22/12 - 3 of 4

The driver side sill is the worst of the two. There's a 6 inch section of rush inside the car that leads a to a hole on the inside of the rail and then we have the whole flintstones mobile setup it doesn't look so bad from inside the car compared to what the outside looks like so there's definitely another panel there somewhere that need's repair. I've ordered m6 spot well drill bits so I'll get the outriggers off and finally get to the sheets behind them/ what's left of them anyway.

 

[mike 109444]

It's getting there. Bit at a time. Set aside the chassis shaping till you can get to the top side to work it from there.

 

[Cosantoir]

22/12 - 4 of 4

While the rust converter does it's job and I let it dry before I get get an epoxy primer onto the underside tomorrow I started to tackle the front wheel arch. I cheated a little and sprayed a little bit of weld through primer onto the areas that I'm going to tackle at a later date as it tidies up the rust a little and makes it look that bit better even if there is a big gaping hole.

I couldn't manage to get the droplink off the coilover so I was unable to drop it out to get right up into the top mount but made good traction all the same. I'm going to disassemble the washer jet reservoir and remove the headlight so I can get into the very front of the arch and get as much rust out of there as I can and hopefully I'll be able to paint it with the epoxy primer at the same time.

 

[Cosantoir]

Getting there now, epoxy mastic done in the arches and on the underside. I've still the driver side arches to do and the front end but it's coming together and I'm really happy with how it's coming along.
I'm making a list of what welding work has to be done and I'll start at this later, there are some job's that will be outside my comfort/skill level but I look forward to getting cracking at the rest.

I also took this time to give the coilovers a clean and it appears the dampener adjusters are seized so I've started applying deep penetrating oil to them to see if they will loosen up.

Once I get the front end finished It'll be time to take the suspension apart and ill get everything sand blasted and powder coated.
For anyone that's refurbished springs how did you do these?

 

[Cosantoir]

I'm skipping some steps here but thinking ahead.
Has anyone any ideas around what to do with the inner rear arches in terms of repairing them? The outside (at least before I sand them down) look reasonably okay and that maybe they will just need a touch up or should I get an arch inside and out and replace them.

 

[Cosantoir]

While I was painting the underside of the car I noticed that the break line/fuel rail brackets that run along the floor pan were badly corroded and deformed so I 3D printed some new ones to replace them.

I probably should have printed the rubber holder and fabricated the bracket out of metal but designing it in Fusion 360 is warmer, quicker and easier.

 

[Dcal]

I'm skipping some steps here but thinking ahead.
Has anyone any ideas around what to do with the inner rear arches in terms of repairing them? The outside (at least before I sand them down) look reasonably okay and that maybe they will just need a touch up or should I get an arch inside and out and replace them.

Arches are a pain to repair unless you can get repair sections and even then they are not easy.

Get all the paint, underseal, rust and gunk off and have a good look at what you have to work with.
A wire brush in a grinder is a good tool for the job because if the arch can't stand up to it they need fixed.
My advice, for what it's worth, is if it's only bad in places, then just repair the "places".

See post below for a rear arch repair to my alfa. It might give you a feel for whats involved.
https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum...the-brink-hopefully.81348/page-5#post-1265441

 

[Cosantoir]

I was going to buy two rear arches and repair them but I think it's going to be a bit of sanding and filler on the outside and the only bad rust is a along a 3-4 inch section where the inner arch meets the outer panel on the inside there are a number of small holes.

But maybe I will just follow the approach of only replace what needs to be replaced and and cut out that little section and replace it as it doesn't seem that bad.
And I'm so new that replacing different skins kind of scares me.

 

[Cosantoir]

Seam sealed the everything that I've learned back and recoated. I read to put the seam sealer on afterwards kind of feels the wrong order but do line none the less.

Got some pics of my rear LHS arch and the corrosion. The outer arch is actually pretty good nick minus some rust but a sander will show me what's hiding behind the paint as there is plenty of bubbles.

I think that ideally I'll just cut out this section of the inner arch and weld it back into place with it not being seen means it could be good enough for a beginner to make my best efforts later.

 

[Cosantoir]

Replacing some of the broken clips and mounts and can't seem to get my hands in these bumper clips easily so decided to have a go at making my own.

Still early testing and haven't spec'ed these to fit just yet more trying to get the structure in place so it works properly without breaking.

First two pics without the vice grips show the clip naturally the locking pins are oversized on the inner diameter so when a M6 bolt is inserted they stuck out and lock in place
The two with the vice grips show the clips fully recessed to fit through a hole that is the diameter of the clip itself. The second shows the M6 screw in place locking the clip in place.

 

[Cosantoir]

Lockdown again in Ireland so no way to get to the car for another few weeks.

In the meantime it's going to give me a chance to learn/practice welding as I'm getting close to being ready to tackle some bits and pieces shortly.

A local body repair shop had a Yaris wing for sale for 20 euro on Facebook and they threw in a front bar for free so hopefully this will give me something to work towards during lockdown.

But in the meantime by brother dropped me up 20+ lengths of 150x80x4 to get started on

 

[Cosantoir]

Lockdown continues and I'm practicing here and there. Today was my first time to tackle 0.8mm sheet and I've been getting ready to practice some plug welds.

Today I got my hands on some cuts that will "hopefully" make life a bit easier.
I picked up the driver side outrigger, that I had originally planned to just cut off a scrap car or try to reproduce the entire floor panel above you may remember has a big hole so this cut includes the section that rotten through in the driver side footwell. While I'm going to try to avoid doing anything with the chassis rail I'm hoping this cut will help me with more than the outrigger.



Next up is a cut for the big nasty hole behind my front left passenger wheel
The outer layer is fine but the second skin is goosed but I think/hope mine is good enough for me to not have to worry about it.
With this section what's nice (or maybe it'll be added pressure) is that the wing mount onto this with two bolts so it will be handy to line it up perfectly where it needs to go and also I cut off the swag line along the sill just before the door so I've a few points of reference to work off when putting it in place.

 

[Cosantoir]

Not a lot of progress with the current lockdown in Ireland so just practicing welding in the shed on bits of scrap.

Some cuts arrived today and a replacement part.
A replacement outrigger, drivers footwell foot pannel and passanger side pannel cut with wing pannel mounts.

I'll clean these up over the weekend.
* The outrigger needs a line of weld to repair. Would you leave the outrigger installed to the floor pannel as this has to be installed also or am I best to remove the two pieces and install it later?

* The bumper mount has some bad corrosion but these are getting pretty hard to find so hoping to tidy this up.

 

[Cosantoir]

This is a picture of the section under the car and rail where the front wing is bolted on from below.

I'm cutting out this section as a repair pannel but I can't seem to see any spot welds and the grooves looke like they are cut outs and not part of the pannel I want to remove.

Has anyone any ideas?

 

[mike 109444]

Think these (red circles) are the spot welds

 

[mike 109444]

Usually you can get an old paint/wallpaper scraper in the gap between panels and tap it along until it hits a hard spot and that is usually your spot weld !
Spot welds are generally evenly spaced along a panel (roughly!) and so once you figure the first few it should guide you as to where the next ones will be.
take care hitting paint/wallpaper scrapers as they can crack as they are quite hard and brittle.

 

[Cosantoir]

Cheers Mike,
With 3 pannels along the rail is what's throwing me I think. Thanks for marking these out will take a look during the week.


Found the below on the owners club so posting here for my own reference as I'll forget where I saved it in about 3 minutes time