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

[Dcal]

If it's fully cured it should be OK to sand.
Are you using very fine sandpaper?
Try 320 (or 240 then 320) Mirka abranet and see how you get on but any production paper should cut it easily.
I do most of my epoxy sanding with a block to keep (or form) the shape.

 

[Cosantoir]

Was using 320-4** grit but found the pad was getting clogged pretty quickly.
I bought some extra pads so maybe these will be better quality than the 50mm pads i got from Amazon

 

[Cosantoir]

She stands on her own feet today... Abide not long I've pulled the coilovers out to clean them down and sort out the threads as I want so sort out the geometry of the car over the coming weeks.



The full suspension is in, 100% new bushings all round, new nuts & bolts everywhere and a fresh lick of paint. Not rust or rot anywhere on the suspension just on the passanger side dust shield and went back together nicely.



I actually got great enjoyment of going through the manual and torquing every bolt to spec something never done before and with all the mods and times stuff and been on and off the car it was good to do.

I also managed to get time to finish sealing the arches with epoxy mastic so at least it will stop anything getting worse there and I'll look forward to getting the welder at it over the coming weeks/months. Ionce hardened I'll give it a pass with seam sealer and then at some point I'll spray them back white.



I've managed to now track down good condition arch liners for the front and also the smaller ones for the rear and the two engine covers so will give them a clean down and put them on too.

While I've the coilovers out im gonna figure out the damper travel and sort the droop and bump travel from there with the goal of making sure I've no opportunity to rub arches going forward but to be fair on the track I should never have this issue due to lack of pot holes.

 

[Cosantoir]

Right lads need your thoughts.
As you may have seen my inner arches where the meet the outer arch are badly corroded and need to bee replaced and the outer arch is a bubbling here and there.

Because I don't have a rollover jig etc the idea of welding these sills is really throwing me. I know a lad who's breaking one of these and the arches are in good nick would it be a good or bad idea to cut out the red section here and a few inches of the inner wheel arch and weld it back in place?

 

[Cosantoir]

Right 12 pages in and finally getting to the point of being here in the first place.

First off I cut out the bad bit of door sill on the passenger side. With it cut out and layed over a replacement patch you can see just how much was gone.


Primarily I wanted to see what was under it as the bit under the cut I got was in terrible condition so I wasn't hoping for much. And it was exactly as I expected AN ABSOLUTE MESS


So that has to come out
Cleaned it down and then treated it with some converter.


A few pages previous I made a replacement for the inner skin so that was great to have.


Next up I decided to cut out this section of the sill with all these holes I needed to see what was hiding behind it. Luckily it wasn't too bad and will only need a patch I think if I can do up a template I'll eventually try and straighten up all the rail but for now I'll wait as I don't want to cut too much out before replacing it where it becomes a mammoth task for a beginner or looses it's strength and flexes.




Not going to get to weld it until next weekend at the earliest so sanded down what I could (forgot my power file) and put some weld through primer on it.

One coat enough or do I need 2+ ?




And now my car is lighter....

 

[Myles1970]

Good work!

Personally, I'd go with 2 coats minimum.... I've also started to restrict my use of weld-thru primer to seams that cant be reached after the welding is finished, by masking-off. I treat areas that will be closed-in with etch primer (I suppose I could use 2k epoxy primer), with the intention of injecting wax treatment when the painting is completed. After priming, I will seam-seal with Upol Tiger seal

 

[Dcal]

Good work!

Personally, I'd go with 2 coats minimum.... I've also started to restrict my use of weld-thru primer to seams that cant be reached after the welding is finished, by masking-off. I treat areas that will be closed-in with etch primer (I suppose I could use 2k epoxy primer), with the intention of injecting wax treatment when the painting is completed. After priming, I will seam-seal with Upol Tiger seal

I'm with you on this Myles, but just a comment, etch primer is porous so although it's great for getting the top coats to stick it's not much cop if you miss a bit.
Epoxy would (in my opinion) be a better job.

 

[Cosantoir]

Thanks guys,
I assume I could brush on epoxy for the hard to reach areas?

Someone had said they always put weld through on the reverse side of a piece they are going to weld. Would that make sense? As Myles mentioned only need to get the seams as that's what's gonna be welded.

 

[Cosantoir]

Raining all day today so not a lot to be done.

I've a few more parts to finish off what I'm working on. Dog bone bushings, a replacement CV boot (no idea how to clamp them to make them tight) and a steering rack service kit.


In my boredom today and while under the sill won't be seen I'd like to try and keep it looking OEM where I can. So the little step here caught my attention I assume it's there for strength? I donno....


I 3D printed a little step to see if it would work as I don't really have much else to hand.



It's got a 1.5mm step and with the vice and some persuasion from the glad end of a pannel hammer it turned out okay.




Then threw a 90 degree onto it to just finish the mock up.
Yes it took 16 min to print the part and another 5 to cool down bit could be useful when I'm down at the car... Otherwise I'll just find a way but thought if I make this 30cm long it could serve as a half decent template

 

[Cosantoir]

SOOOOOO...... I finally did some welding!!!!!
While I'd really like some feedback and it could be better I'm actually chuffed to finally start adding to the car instead of removing stuff at long last. Outside in the wind up side down or horizontal wasn't the best setting for my first attempt but it is what it is.

First I'm gonna show you the rear penetration it's deffo not enough and the welds were a little proud I should have noticed when they were proud and I only checked the penetration after I was done. I had it set for 1mm not 1.5 derp!!

When I'm doing these little spot welds across the pannel what should I do. Increase the voltage? If I'm blowing through should I then drop the wire speed?



Moving on.... This was the piece I fabricated quite some time ago and I knew that I had made a mistake where the flange meets the wheel arch so said I'd fix it on the fly once fitted so that's the reason for the cutout to the left. I'll use some CAD to mock up a patch piece and square it away.

While I forgot my power file I've decided I'm not gonna take it complete flush as its never gonna be seen an I'm only asking for pinholes and chasing the welds so going to stick with good enough and tidy for these bits that won't ever be seen again.






Next update is on my rear arches. The inner pannel is like 40-60 gone and would take ages to repair from the inside and the outer pannel needs to be done too as that's in bad way and a lot of the lip is gone so I tracked down rear arches.





One needs a bit of work and has one hole but I can fix this off the car before I fit it so thinking it's going to be much easier to just put this in as a patch pannel instead of having to do the repairs and remove spot welds etc. and deal with all of these curves.
Anyone disagree that this would be an easier/better approach?

Here's the bad bit and as you can see it's not that bad and should be an easy fix.


Along the rail where all these 3 pannels come together would you suggest putting a little seam of seam sealer or am I just trapping in moisture?

 

[Cosantoir]

Loaded up ready to get cracking on the car over the weekend and had all the necessary tools out.

But before I managed to get any way further than this tiny little template piece it started raining and continued to do so for 5+ hours.




I was taking a look at the engine as I'm hoping to get it pulled out this month that the stepper motor connection has been damaged/broken who bloody knows the last guy to touch this was an animal.


So I need to check my replacement engine but I assume that it's not going to include the connection for the stepper motor and that would be part of the main loom.
So based on that assumption what's the best way to go about repairing this?

Buy a new connection and solder in the cables? As I assume there was pins or something that went inside the block to work with the stepper.

 

[Myles1970]

Savegery! I think wiring block connectors are quite readily available now - not like the last time I did any vehicle wiring.

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Also, surprisingly, soldered joints are not ideal for vehicle wiring. The resulting join is too rigid to cope with the vibrations. Get yourself a set of quality crimps and wire strippers

 

[Cosantoir]

Ohhh nice one due!!

I was gonna buy a new connector and solder the cables together but I was concerned about the solder melting but really I don't think it'll ever get that hot.

I just gotta find the new male block

 

[Myles1970]

I just gotta find the new male block

I think they come as a set? Male & female and the crimp-on pins/conductors

 

[Cosantoir]

Today was a good day, sun and welding and more importantly finished off a section and it felt like a great win knowing that I can do this and the car can progress...

And yes I know this is just the inside skin but I'm hoping the outer skin will come together pretty easy.

Start

Removed


Prepped


Main repair pannel in


Second part in.


Primer

Because its an inside pieces I'm not gonna risk trying to clean the welds any tighter risking making pin holes or blow through with repairs and as it'll never be seen I think I'll just give it a go of seam sealer.



With this all done I went to start putting the outer skin on but noticed some bad rust and said I have to chase this and do it right unfortunately I ended up having to open up 6-8 inches more having done it in 2 inch increments but it only stopped when the pannel stopped.





I've removed the inner skin by drilling out the spot welds linking the two and cutting out the bad bottom bit so will fabricate that next week.

I need to get my head around how to do spot welds not to mention doing them up side down so will need to practice that.

 

[Cosantoir]

So I'm down at the car for 4 days this week so really hoping to get some decent progress.



Inner skin in and welded up. I was pretty happy with how this came out. Please excuse the total pigeon crap at the bottom I was to plug weld the outer skin into it but the gap was too great so added a few strips of material in place so I could spot weld it in place. Also welding upside down is a pain in the butt!


Outer skin tacked in place I stopped here to try get some feedback on how to do this better as with gravity these tend to be proud and I'm wondering if there's something I can do to reduce it.



Plug welds done (kinda it got dark so I'll finish these off tomorrow)


Please any tips or feedback in welding upside down would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Myles1970]

I'm sure some more seasoned welders will be along soon, but it looks fine to me. I don't have much call to weld upside-down (insert smug grin here ) as the car is on a spit, but it might be worthwhile practising on some scrap arranged in a similar fashion on the bench? You're not gonna be able to check the penetration on the sills once they're done, so you need to be fairly certain their sound. If unsure, you can always 'knock them down' and stick a skim of 'pon over them...

 

[Cosantoir]

it might be worthwhile practising on some scrap arranged in a similar fashion on the bench?

stick a skim of 'pon over them...

I had been testing on scrap before I went at it to dial in the welds but actually you're right I didn't think to try do it upside down to dial it in based on those effects good shout.

Whats PON?

 

[Myles1970]

Whats PON?

'pon as in Isopon

 

[Cosantoir]

Science b1tches!!!!


Worked a treat turned it up about 1.25 in the wire speed and the spots are way better and penetration is coming the whole way through consistently.

Good shout Mr Myles