After owning my Evo for around 5 years and giving it a fair bit of abuse on track days and at sprints, I thought it was due some tlc. Phil Sparky the previous owner looked after the car well with plenty of underseal but there are still a few patches of rust visable, so my plan is to take next year off competing and complete a full underside restoration in my garage at home.
My current plan involves
Stripping underside parts which I will clean and restore over the winter period. I am taking lots of pictures as well as tracking hours spent. I am hoping to de-rust all nuts and bolts and plate them myself in my shed.
Having seen lots of good reviews I will strip all the underseal and old paint back to metal using an mbx stripper tool and repaint using rust bullet in spring 2018, then use the summer of 2018 to build the car back up. I am hoping to add a Racefab rear sub frame as part of the rebuild.
Hopefully this steady schedule should give me plenty of time as I need to fit everything around work and family commitments so I will post updates as things progress.
I just wanted to say a big thanks to Chris (Redrooster) for his advice, chatting to me about planning and potential problems from his fantastic restoration.
Looks a great thread will be keeping an eye on this as I am thinking about doing the underside on my 6. Would be good to know how you get on with the MBX as I have been looking at getting one.
Good luck with the resto , I did mine in 2012 a right ball ache ... it had never had underseal on so was straight forward ... I used 1 gallon of paint and 1 gallon of clear waxoyle .
Thanks Richard, getting some of the rusted and sealed bolts off was a right pain, like 30mins for 1 bolt but I think I am through the worst of the strip down.
Zinc plating kit arrived this week so thought I would have a bash. Great fun and I am really pleased with the results. Thanks to Dave-cee for chatting to me about his setup.
Basic process involves-
A really good clean of the item
Soak overnight in Bilt Hammer Deo-x to remove rust
Soak for 30mins plus in hot de-greaser in an old slow cooker
Acid pickle dip
Plate c30mins
Nitric acid dip
Blue passivator dip
Dry with a hairdryer
Hang over radiator to dry of a couple of hours
Kit setup took a couple of hours to set up but it was quiet easy when you get into a rhythm.
The fresh arb setup on the kitchen table though:lol:
Great results on what youve done, always wondered about this myself really not as expensive as i though it would have been for the initial setup either
Was lucky to drop onto this MBX kit on ebay. Never used and half price. I just need to sort an air compressor now and I can start practicing, cleaning up the hubs, etc before I do the chassis in spring.
I have seen a belt driven Burisch, 90 litre, 3hp compressor for ÂŁ244 which seems to be a cracking price for this spec and I think should run both the MBX tool and the spray gun but if anyone has an air compressor for sale or can make a recommendation please comment on the thread.
Debated if to paint the hubs myself but given they were already getting blasted I thought it was easier to get them powder coated at same time. All internal area's were masked off and they went back together nicely this morning.
Debated if to paint the hubs myself but given they were already getting blasted I thought it was easier to get them powder coated at same time. All internal area's were masked off and they went back together nicely this morning.
Pain in the ass to be honest :lol: We had to drill out 2 of the ABS sensors after I snapped the heads off. The hub carrier needs to be held firmly in a vice and then crack the hubs off with a heavy hammer. Once you can see a gap between the hub and carrier use a chisel to pry them apart.
I am hoping its not something that will need to do again in a while and when I put the sensors back in I will use a little copper grease so hopefully they wont stick next time.
While not strictly part of the restoration project, the cold weather means progress will be slow over the next couple of months so I am using this time to pick up a few goodies to build into the project. I had a day this week with Matt from MG Autos who are in the process of upgrading a couple of their time attack cars and I took the opportunity to pick up a safety devices bolt in cage and a set of robind fibreglass doors.
The bolt in cage has additional side protection added to make it eligible for time attack and having weighed the cage yesterday, it comes in at 40kg in total. Taking into account the doors, the net saving should be c35kgs as well as some structural rigidity and most importantly an added layer of safety. Big thanks to Matt for his support and Paul for dropping everything off yesterday :smthumbup
Thanks Jamie, yes a cage has been on my mind for a while and glad I could sort it and not add weight. The question now is do I go the whole hog and remove dash, etc :handsup:
have too say your doing a real good job with the plating :smthumbup
remember the more rust and **** you remove before the plating
the better your result will be....as you can see some of the rust inbedded after the plating....not having ago...but this is what happened to me...on my first go....best of luck :smthumbup
Cheers buddy, yes you are right its all in the preparation. I am getting better and quicker at it as I get to know what works but some of the rougher parts are almost impossible to get perfect. I am through the worst of it now though and can always go back and improve bits later. Thanks for the comments :smthumbup
My brother popped round yesterday afternoon so I tapped him up to help me with the last of the heavy work. Rear diff, sub frames, prop and fuel tank all dropped. Relieved that everything is totally solid with just a few bits of surface rust. Tank looks great as well and may have a crack at refurbing this in the next few weeks. Loads of the dreaded underseal to remove though so I cant wait to give the mbx tool a bash. The diff will go off to CliveW for a refresh while its off over the next few weeks.
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