Project Bucketlist

[maff]

Ok, so its not actually as bad as all that.

Car up bumper and OSF wing off and ready to go:


The front bumper mounts are a bit of a mess, but easily replaceable


Crustyness


Slight issue, cant get the fecking wheels off, 1 of the wheel nuts has snapped in half, the bit with the flats came off leaving the rest glommed on to the stud. Need some of those bighty sockets (im sure they have a proper name).


More crusty


Brains!


Took these before I went at it with the grinder, what I found was a pretty horrible garage repair. Plates welded over rusty metal, covered in 15mm of under seal, never ceases to amaze me how shitty some of these repairs can be.

Was planning to crack on today, but i have manflu, joy. BTCC it is then

[maff]

So it was pretty much a typical garage repair job.

"Theres a hole in my car mr garage"

"ok sir, what we'll do is slap a plate over it without cutting away any rusty metal and then cover it in an inch of underseal, that way it will look ok but continue to rot from the inside out".

Tossers.

The earth post for the ecu was a bit close to some scabby bits, will have to weld a bolt on on possibly the same piece when the replacement patch goes in.



Cant get close enough with the angle grinder to clean the bottom edge up, a set of damaged nut removal sockets is on the way to get the wheel off, once its clean more may need to be cut away.

The Results of my digging:


Garage patch goes half the way along the floor against the sill, at first I thought the car had a double skinned floor before I worked out what the mongrels had done.


And a big pile of rusty crap:


Joy, well things are progressing at least.

Rather amusingly when I pulled the ECU out (as it was close to where I need to weld), it had "xj sport, good, £45" painted on it, if i had to guess id say the monkies had welded up the patch from the outside, without even taking the carpet up or disconnecting the battery and fried the original ECU in the process.

[RX7]

I'm just shocked the amount of rust on a relatively modern car !! Quite appalling really

[maff]

Well that was a hard mornings work, (not that my usual job driving a desk is that easy, honest!) 2 hours to remove the knackered wheel nut. The bitey sockets TM were not deep enough for a wheel nut, so it was drill and chisel time.

2 Hours & 5 Drill bits later:


Had to drill down either side of the nut and knicked the alloy.


Hopefully thats not enough damage to lead to a crack, because the wheel itself is in fairly good nick.


Might get away with this, but probly best off with a replacement:



So its off and now I can get to this bit:


But the sky did this:


So I ran away.

Lets hope Sunday after the GP is dry and I can crack on.

[maff]

Things progressed a little faster now that the wheel was out of the way.

First hole welded up and FE-123'd. Seems to be an interesting purple colour now, used to be blackish.


More rot cut out


The outer sill can be sorted out once the floor is back in, for not quick coat of anti rust


Unfortunately I ran out of cutting discs, but most of the rot is now out


Getting there.

[pablo]

Cracking progress. Well done sir . I would have just given up and got another one

[Stuart]

Nice skills (On the rust, not the hatchet job of wheel removal )

[russ979]

Great work Maff!
Although while you are doing this the poor midget gets side lined once again.

[maff]

Great work Maff!
Although while you are doing this the poor midget gets side lined once again.

Tell me about it! Just not enough hours in the day, its this work thing that steals the best 9 hours of a day 5 days a week, really must give that up.

Nice skills (On the rust, not the hatchet job of wheel removal )

Yeah, should have been a bit more careful with the drill

[Rob S]

It makes me genuinely sad to such these lovely old things rust to peaces. My E36 is crusty and I'd love to have the guts and time to cut it all out. I'll probably end up slinging into a tame friend of a friend to get it back to a reasonable point.
Good luck Maff, I'd be far more concerned if the oily bits were fooked, you seem to be cracking on really well.