Project Rust Destroyer (56K W*A*R*N*I*N*G)

So now that I am alot happier about the cooling capabilities of the car my new top priority is front suspension which was the main reason for my recent roadtrip. My current front suspension is probably missing the bumpstop for the drivers side strut as it bottoms out on that side and makes a lovely hard metal on metal clunk when it bottoms out and sents a nice jolt through the car so I got some spare 165 front struts of off Celic_GT2 (nice quality parts Spare parts sale.and lots more 162/165 parts availabe) so I could rebuild them and repace worn parts.

Toyota wants to sell you a whole new strut assembly minus the spring but the strut is made to come appart and you can get strut inserts so for now I'm putting some cheap Monroe strut inserts in and hoping that these springs are stock springs and better that the ones I currently have.



Ultimately seeing as I'm going to end up with a spare set of struts and OEM style springs are impossible to find I will take Gary ST165's advice and do some sort of coil over conversion with the spare set.







So its time to fire up the compressors and do some blasting.

 

After sandblasting I stood the tubes upside down overnight to drain as much oil as possible out of them.


Oil and paint don't like each other hence the reason for leaving them upside down overnight and by morning the oil had crept back up the outside of the tube a couple of inches.


So its time to give them a good washing


As much as I hate putting water on bare metal it's a necessary evil and the next step of etching the metal will neutralize and rust that reapears. I'm trying a product made by Dominion Sure Seal Ltd. Gelled Rust Remover which will neutralize the remaining/new rust and etch the metal


For a product like Dominion Sure Seal Ltd. Gelled Rust Remover I use a glass bottle and cut a hole in the lid for the paintbrush to fit through and drill a hole in the paintbrush handle so that when a metal rod is stuck through the hole the bottom of the paintbrush is suspended above the bottom of the jar. It just hepls to keep the bristles from curling up at the ends.


If you want an airtight seal for fluids that are likely to evaporate you can put a baggie over the top of the jar and seal it with an rubber band.


And the Dominion Sure Seal Ltd. Gelled Rust Remover has had its chance to do its magic on the metal its time for a second water bath and then some primer if ytou want and paint. I tend to skip the primer since the metal has allready been etched and I will be spraying Tremclad rust paint on them anyways.


You can definetly see that some reaction has taken place with the bare metal but more importantly the rust has turned black and has hopefully been neutralized.

 

They won't be on there long. If I get a year out of them I'll be happy and if their total crap I'll still have my old strut assemblies that I could put these other springs on that I just got. Either way I'm sure a set of KYB shocks will be in the future somewhere.

 

After the second washing. I wish they could have changed to any other color except rusty. It is not rust as far as I can tell. It does not rub off on your finger but does seem to have left some sort of covering over the metal. It seems to be predominently in the area where there was no rust to begin with so I don't know but I am testing a bunch of different stuff like this Dominion stuff and I have used POR-15 and its associated metal etcher on some other parts and Rust Check has another rust neutralizer and metal etcher that I will be checking out.


A closer look at what the Dominion product has done.


The bump stops from this set of struts. Pretty narly but probably better than what I got. Either way more landfill.


A nice coat of gloss black Tremclad. A couple more coats and they'll be really to re-assemble.

 

I also have a couple of 3 piece st185 drive shafts so I picked the best 3 sections and am getting them ready in my spare time so that they can go onto the car when I put my st185 limited slip diff in.









I also have a st205 subframe but I don't think I'm doing that anytime soon. I know some of the bolts on the old subframe will have to be cut off mainly the cam bolts for the suspension so I think when that happens I will be modifying the rear suspension and making my own arms using things like heim joints



Goodbye rusty old cam bolts

 

Heres the RustCheck product and I also noticed that Tremclad has a rust converter too so I got a can of it.


I think I'll like these 2 products more because you only have to wash the parts once before applying the product then its straight on to painting.


Springs are a real PITA to mediablast. At least there does seem to be some "spring" left in them.

 

well it took 1 1/4 hours to blast 1 spring. In comparison it probably took 1/2 hour to do that one piece of the driveshaft that has been finished.

 

I used the Rust Check product on the springs which turned the metal a much darker grey and now their in the process of getting final paint.


For a comparison it took me about 10 minutes to media blast both sides of the rear subframe crossmember on the left compared to 75 minutes for one spring. Its taken me about 2 hours to get the springs airbrushed to this state. Once their dry I'll flip them over and probably spend another hour finishing them. This is the 4th color I'll be useing for parts of the car, Chrysler hemi orange along with red for rubber parts, silver for high temp parts and gloss black. I don't want to use to many colors but orange red and black will all go well together and will be appropriate no matter what color I paint the body.


Useing a spray can would waste alot of paint and useing a brush allways looks like crap so I use a cheap airbrush. It takes along time with an airbrush but the paint goes where its suposed to.


These are my 2 good airbrushes. The top one (Iwata Eclipse HP-BCS 0.5mm tip ~$150) I used for the skulls on my mirrors. I should probably use it, it has a bigger needle but I use water based paints only (Auto Air paints) in them so I'll spend the extra time and use the cheapo airbrush. The bottom brush is an Iwata High Performance HP-B Plus 0.2mm tip ~$250. You can probably get a cheapo for $20 and they work very well.


As you can see from the floor around the 2nd spring the brush is very precise and their is very little overspray. The paint almost goes on dry. So although it has taken a couple of hours of airbrushing to get to this stage their is definetly a good 5 coats on and probably more like 10 coats.

 

Ya I don't think you could go wrong with Chrysler hemi orange

I'm sure if I painted the block with Chrysler hemi orange I'd get at least 5 hp more from the engine :lol:

 

Didn't have enough of the paint to fill a tray.




Another part of the rear subframe that I will replace when I put my LSD diff in.


I use a wire wheel to clean up the threads on the bolts.




The second of the 3 pieces of hopefully a better driveshaft has been media blasted.


Thats pretty much it for the front suspension for now. I'll let it dry for a few days and then reassemble it.

Now I've got 1 front halfshaft to rebuild and I allready have a second front halfshaft that I bought and when their done then I'll do the frontend and put the 2 rebuilt halfshafts on and the rebuilt front suspension. Hopefully swaping front sway bars isn't to hard cause I also have a big beefy whiteline front swaybar to go on at some point.

I know that when I first got the car almost 2 years ago the drivers side front halfshaft had a split outer CV boot and its still going strong. Probably starting to push my luck but I check it every month and theirs still no play in the joint.

For the back the drivers side halfshaft was rebuilt last summer and I have a second remaned halfshaft for the passenger side rear I just have to do the rust prevention thing with it and then I can install it and the 3 piece drive shaft and LSD diff and diff mount cushion and the 2 rear subframe pieces. I also have 2 rear calipers and a whiteline rear swaybar to go on at some point but the manual says that you have to drop the gas tank to install the swaybar so that may wait for awhile.

 

A couple of shots of the disaster zone I do my work in.




You FWD guys got lucky, no more universal joints to replace.


A couple likely candidates for the media blaster, and one thats allready been there

 

Well strut assemblies have been downgraded to #2 priority as I discovered a nice little puddle of clutch fluid in my driveway so I will be replacing the hard line that goes from the slave cylinder to the flexible rubber hose. I'll probably also put my stainless steel flexible clutch hose in at the same time and if I get really ambitious I may do the shifter bushings too

 

Well nice rusty connection took a bit to loosen it up but I finally got it.


When I got to the other end it came off alot easier it was finger tight at best. Oh well an easy fix.


So I had to take the battery out the air filter & box out and partially drain the rad to remove the fan. Since I had done all that I took the line off just to inspect it but it looked practically brand new. I could have tightened the loose nut without removing anything had I known that was the problem. All I knew was where the leak was and it looked pretty rusty down at that end from what I could see. Turned out it was oil and dirt stuck on the end that made it look rusty and covered up the true source of the leak.

!#$@ mechanics

5 reasons not to use a mechanic

- can't install brake lines that last more than a year
- can't install a distributor cap without breaking it
- can't tighten tranny bolts
- can't tighten valve cover bolts
- can't install windshield wiper mechanisms

Okay maybe 7

- can't tighten clutch lines
- can't install wiring harnesses