Professional masking job…

Boot painted. I was going to do it with the spray gun, but figured I had enough left-over rattle cans. Wrong… had to go and buy another tin.

Back seat area cleaned up.

And painted.

There’s two styles of boot lids - stepped and kinked. The spare/replacement is a kinked one with vastly better paint so it went on.

The tail lights are different to match the bootlid, but fortunately I saved the kinked tail lights from Ratty. This was entirely good luck, not good management.

And boot hold down springs.

Panel gaps aren’t wonderful - the bootlid sits too far to the right - and it is beyond my skills/enthusiasm to fix them. Its fine for a race car.

I also removed the headliner and began to pull out the dashboard.

I stripped out the extra wires from the rear loom - not heaps of stuff, just the speaker, boot light and number plate light wiring.

I also bought a pair of RVR front calipers for $192.50 inc postage. Same as Evo1~3 calipers.

I had been going to use S40 calipers but the RVR calipers are definitely legal for the D4H and good pads are much easier to find… including the brand new set of QFM A1RMs I’ve had on the shelf since before QFM went out of business…

Along with the couple of tins of paint today, the running total is $810.

WTF was the deal with the spare wheels that had been hacked in the centre?

Nice job on the clean-up so far.

Lancer...reminds me of my partner's sister-in-law who had a black Lancer when they lived in Perth. For several days, they noticed some strange smell in the car that kept getting worse. [Edit: it was summertime.] They thought maybe it was trapped roadkill or some such thing, searched everywhere, plus power-washed under the car. Then they were sitting around talking and her husband says "what are we having for dinner tonight"...she says there's a fresh chicken in the fridge, we'll roast that. He looks in fridge and no chicken to be found, and he says "it's not here". She immediately jumps up and races out to the car, to find said chicken decomposing in its bag in one of the bootleg pockets in the boot. Guess it had come out of the bag and slipped down there somewhere and was hiding. Yuck! Hilariously she's a vegetarian now. Not sure whether she was at the time of the incident and whether the chicken was just for hubby or not, but I'm sure that would put you off chicken for a while.

  • Spac replied to this.
    carnut222

    WTF was the deal with the spare wheels that had been hacked in the centre?

    Nice job on the clean-up so far.

    Lancer...reminds me of my partner's sister-in-law who had a black Lancer when they lived in Perth. For several days, they noticed some strange smell in the car that kept getting worse. [Edit: it was summertime.] They thought maybe it was trapped roadkill or some such thing, searched everywhere, plus power-washed under the car. Then they were sitting around talking and her husband says "what are we having for dinner tonight"...she says there's a fresh chicken in the fridge, we'll roast that. He looks in fridge and no chicken to be found, and he says "it's not here". She immediately jumps up and races out to the car, to find said chicken decomposing in its bag in one of the bootleg pockets in the boot. Guess it had come out of the bag and slipped down there somewhere and was hiding. Yuck! Hilariously she's a vegetarian now. Not sure whether she was at the time of the incident and whether the chicken was just for hubby or not, but I'm sure that would put you off chicken for a while.

    They’re from something else, and must have had a too-small centre bore … and this is someone’s inelegant way to make them fit a Lancer.

      Was cold this morning, so spent time in the workshop rather than outside on the car.

      First up was double-drilling the CH Lancer brake rotors to suit the 4x100 CE Lancer hubs.

      The RVR calipers turned up too.

      Barely visible behind the brake is the two aluminium discs that were holesawed out to become strut tops.

      Here’s a better photo of the strut tops to be.

      .…. and finished!

      Once it had warmed up a bit, I cut the dust shields off. This needs to happen, because the 276mm rotors rub on them.

      Dummy fit of everything. I have been trying to keep the car mobile so I can move it to get the trailer out of the backyard.

      I knew they’d clear, but it was still a relief to see daylight between the wheel and the caliper!

      Swapped the driver’s side guard and door with the prettier parts from Ratty.

      Passenger’s side guard was swapped with the one I bought with the bootlid etc.

      Took the opportunity to strip the wiring out of the doors. Foil tape to cover the holes.

      This guard has had a hard life… someone had totally misunderstood how the bumper is held onto the car and drilled a bunch of holes for cable ties…

      Some adhesive vinyl will make this problem go away.

      I always get the poops with how the bonnets don’t open far enough on these cars. I forgot to take a “before” photo, but here’s the spare pair of hinges with the stoppers cut off.

      I will make a longer bonnet stay when I find the length of 6mm aluminium rod that I have been keeping for this exact purpose (but now can’t find…).

      Random observation: the car was a ling way clear of the door until I jacked it up.

      4 days later

      Motor and box are almost ready to be removed from the blue coupe, and then fitted to the green/aqua Mirage (no photos because my phone objected to the cold and went flat).

      The $25 “plastic welder” arrived today. It actually works pretty much as advertised!

      Test run on the rear bumper from Ratty.

      I kind of messed this up, in that the two sides of the crack didn’t want to come back into place. I should have heated it to get it back into shape.

      Lesson learned, I tried on Bloop’s front bumper.

      Definitely seems like a serviceable repair, so I am happy with it.

      Discovered this genius effort on the rear muffler… I mean, life really doesn’t have to be this difficult.

      Crappy rainy morning threatened to slow me down a whole lot, but then I decided that a wet day would be the ideal time to clean the engine before it goes into the Mirage…

      It will need a cam cover gasket, and I decided to fit a timing belt & water pump.

      Which screws my plans for putting it back into the Mirage ASAP…

      Anyway, the old stock A1RM pads arrived, $62 delivered, taking my total expenditure to $872 so far.

      I actually already had a set, but they are getting scarce and were dirt cheap, so I grabbed them.

      Adventures in clear coat today, simply because the weather was good!

      I started on the roof because the clear was pretty much entirely gone. The base coat was thin, and I rubbed through it in a few spits:

      The paint was always thin in the gutters.

      A couple of coats of blue. First coat was a $5 tin of very close, being cleared from Supercheap. Second coat was the correct Mitsubishi blue that cost $19.

      Even in cool, sunny weather, it is difficult to get an even coat from an aerosol tin.

      Photo is flattering.

      After sanding back the orange peel of the blue, I managed to add some orange peel clear…

      Again, the photo is flattering.

      And then I began sanding out the orange peel of the clear but it was getting dark I didn’t want to mess it up because I couldn’t see properly.

      I am happy to persevere with the aerosol blue, but I went and bought a litre of clear to use in the proper spray gun.

      $43 of blue, $16 of aerosol clear.

      $931 (will add the cost of the other clear when I use it).

      Orange peel sanded out.

      Hopefully the weather will be good enough to polish it up tomorrow.

      Messed around scraping the daggy clear off the LH door and rear quarter until the light ran out. I think quarter won’t need more paint, just clear.

      Less sure about the door.

      Pretty sure that I will go with a variation of Evo6.5 stripes to hide some of the dodgier paint.

      We had sun today!

      …which allowed me to polish the Lancer’s roof.

      … and bootlid.

      The roof has some weird lighter coloured spots that look a bit like fingerprints (they aren’t!), so I am not sure what is going on there.

      There’s also some smaller spots that look like humidity blisters (pretty sire they’re not) but only in the centre of the roof.

      It does look a lot better than it did, so I am not going to stress over it.

      Dragged the good 1.8 litre out of the shed where it’s been sitting for 4(?) years.

      Gave it a hose down and degrease - it doesn’t appear to be leaking anywhere, which is nice.

      Fitted the new timing kit and water pump. The parts I took off were almost new… obviously this had been done very shortly before the maroon sedan was crashed.

      I still went ahead and fitted the new bits just so I didn’t have to think about it again.

      This is a stupidly easy job when the engine is out of the car. The only difficult part was getting the bolt for the front pulley out - heat from the propane torch and a fully charged battery in the rattle gun got it done.

      I have two flywheels to suit. They look identical, but one is 200g lighter than the other. I will wire-brush the rust off it tomorrow and bolt it onto the engine.

      Hopefully will get the motor and box into the car tomorrow.

      Looking good. Have you ever tried or considered doing a wrap on a car or a panel? Just wondered how hard it is and the cost vs. doing the paintwork like you're doing. The reason I asked is the bonnet (in particular) on our 93 240 wagon (EV) has a lot of blisters/crazed spots where it looks like the PO left bird shit on it for months. I was wondering whether I could just sand down the whole bonnet and do a wrap on it (maybe carbon fibre look or something?)

        carnut222

        Looking good. Have you ever tried or considered doing a wrap on a car or a panel? Just wondered how hard it is and the cost vs. doing the paintwork like you're doing. The reason I asked is the bonnet (in particular) on our 93 240 wagon (EV) has a lot of blisters/crazed spots where it looks like the PO left bird shit on it for months. I was wondering whether I could just sand down the whole bonnet and do a wrap on it (maybe carbon fibre look or something?)

        Cost of quality material for the wrap is higher than the cost of paint by a large margin

        The wrap just has a ganateed even finish and you don't need an oven or any special tools other than a heat gun and some household items like a myki card

            Philia_Bear

            https://ozvolvo.org/discussion/comment/219470#Comment_219470

            Cost of quality material for the wrap is higher than the cost of paint by a large margin

            The wrap just has a ganateed even finish and you don't need an oven or any special tools other than a heat gun and some household items like a myki card

            Ahh, I had no idea how much wrap material cost. I figured you could buy a roll on AliExpress for $20 LOL!

              I struggle enough to get a good finish with the stickers I do, so the idea of wrapping a whole car seems likely to end in tears.

              I put some wax on the bootlid and roof today. All out of order, and risked contaminating the panels that need to be painted, but I sort of needed to know if the finish was going to be acceptable.

              The answer is yes.

              Also cleaned up the flywheel. The surface was damn near perfect under the surface rust.

              Painted it yellow, because race car. And bolted it all together including the gearbox.

              Went to the indoor gokarts this morning, so not a productive day on the car.

              Started on the “interpretation” of the TME Evo stripes.

              Not happy with the front part, will re-do it.

              Cut out the door number plates.

              Worthwhile progress today.

              Got the motor and box in this morning.

              Got about half the stuff reconnected/refitted.

              Some sticker progress, but the top of the yellow needs to be finished.

              The real purpose of this photo is to show how far the bonnet opens with the standard bonnet hinges and stay.

              Then with the modified hinges and new stay.

              It even clips in nicely.

              A few hiccups along the way - things like the hose from the PS reservoir is different between the 1.5 and 1.8. I discovered this when the hose was hard up against the pulley on the pump.

              The 1.8 hose was on the green Mirage, so of course I made a mess of ATF swapping them.

              Similarly, the 1.5 alternator has a 2-pin plug, where the 1.8 has a three pin plug, so that part of the loom had to be swapped over.

              The driver’s side strut top needed a piece cut out to clear the captive nuts for the bonnet stay.

              Put the headlights in. Discovered that the radiator support was slightly bent down on the passenger side, but nothing a mallet couldn’t deal with.

              Guard stickers finished. Can’t do the bonnet or passenger’s side door/rear quarter until I have fixed the clear coat on those panels.

              This photo clearly shows the join between the two different silvers… It is visible IRL, but not this obvious

              I am going to fit bonnet pins, but wanted to keep the secondary catch on the bonnet latch. Figured this would be a nice way to fill in half an hour…

              The original plan was som 30x3mm aluminium flat bar, but it quickly got out of control…

              First problem was replicating the riveted pin that I drilled out. I had a bolt with the perfect oversized shoulder, but it needed a crush tube… So I cut a very short length of aluminium tube, and then spent ages hand filing it to size.

              .

              The heavy-walled aluminium channel was a good size and shape for the basis.

              …but of course it can’t be that easy.

              Photo shows the first attempt at the vertical support, which I cut too short.

              Finished!

              …except no. The hook travels too far over (to the right) and doesn’t automatically engage the catch on the bonnet, so I needed a stopper.

              The stopper was easy enough, but then I discovered that my new latch interferes with the catch section of the bonnet and stops the bonnet from closing properly (the area above the red texta L on the latch).

              /\ I took the opportunity to trim a bit more off the other side, mostly to make it easier to access the top mounting bolts.

              So, three hours later, I had nicely filled in 30 minutes!

              It works really nicely, and is marginally more rigid than the original setup. It is also lighter, by about 120g… ?

              Paint it dayglow orange and declare it a safety item to screw with the screwtiniers

              More work on making the paint look less shit.

              First up was removing the dash - this might sound odd, but it needed to come out to allow me to remove the radio aerial that lives in the A-pillar. Plus the dash has to come out to remove the heater stuff and allow me to change the engine loom to the 1.8 loom.

              The external part of the rear side window seal was weathered and perished, so I cut it away. Worked out quite well, actually.

              Quick colour recoat of the A and C-pillars and the part of the roof over the top of the doors. This car is really making me despise the way panel repair shops work… although I guess the good repairs are not the ones you see…

              This overspray on the mirror mount also leaves me less than impressed.

              Used the last of the third aerosol can of paint on the passenger’s door. It needed a few parts touched up, mostly an old repair where I rubbed through the colour.

              The door looks absolutely terrible. I really couldn’t get the aerosol can to co-operate and got a bunch of sags and horribly inconsistent thickness.

              It’s acrylic, so I can rub the crappy bits off before covering it with clear.

              Hopefully I will be able to get some clear coat on it tomorrow. Will depend on the weather, mostly.

              I spent some time working out exhaust stuff too, including dragging out my collection of old exhausts.

              Long story short, I discovered that the middle/main section of the Lancer’s exhaust is an aftermarket 2” system… but that a standard 3.0 litre Magna exhaust is 2.25” and close to the right shape. The outlet of the extractors is 2.25” so this seems to make sense.

              Top of photo is the road Mirage’s 2” system, then the Magna exhaust upside down on the Lancer’s exhaust.

              I scrounged up a 2.25” flex join, and ‘sports’ rear muffler. Will need to buy a pair of flange plates and some more pipe, but it should be a fairly cheap exhaust at the end.

              Might price up a resonator too.

              I thought I took more photos than this, but I made progress on the exhaust today.

              Fiddly, time consuming process, that was made worse by my insistence on reusing stuff rather than buying new … but it is most of the way there.

              I did buy 1.5 metres of new pipe, for $37. I thought it was plenty, but I have about 100mm left.

              All of the bends and rest of the pipe are the recycled Magna exhaust.

              I am pretty happy with how it has come out, so far… although I really struggled with the welding. Lack of practice is definitely a big part of it, but the Magna pipe is a mongrel to weld.

              I need another bend into the rear muffler - hoping that my 100mm piece is long enough to make a bunch of pie cuts. Because it is at the end, I will be able to get the die grinder into the pipe to clean up any daggy welds inside the pipe.

              Probably will relent and buy another flange from the muffler shop, or might go full tightarse and make a flange to match the Magna one that’s already on the end of pipe.

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