Greetings from portugal again, for AE86 sake!!!

[Lipinhu]

Hi, my name is Filipe (another) like the other southern friend, but i´m northern!!!


I bought a AE86 for 6 months now, but, sadly, I only drove it once, from the last owner place to a garage near my house!
I used to tur on the engine once in while!!!

WHY???

Well, the car is not in good condition at all. It need some heavy work in the body and some mechanical rehabilitation, yes indeed! It need lots of time, knowledge (counting on your help too guys) and money.
I´m thinkin when to start to desassemble, but other matters (college mainly, graduating next year) forces me to leave it to second plan.

Take a look at my personal webpage, I´m new in these foruns layout (used to use ezbord foruns for portugues comunitys), so I hope the link works.
bhaaaa... Sorry my English!!!

[Mux213]

Hi Filipe,

Man you got your work cut out for you, why in heavens name buy a car with such a rusty body? You really need to start taking it appart, get it sandblasted, coated, and start welding new parts in. Welding BIG parts in.

I would only take up such a project if I knew how to weld myself or knew someone who wouldn't mind doing all that work for me. It is very gratifying once you complete such work though. Hows the underside of the car?

One big piece of advise to you. Start taking the car appart. I don't know if you have much room to store things but that is the first thing you should do. Start stripping the interiour bare first. Then the front side fenders, if you think its needed, take the engine out. I say this for 3 reasons:
1) it doesn't cost money, just time
2) you get to know your car inside out
3) it will start revealing any damage to your car that was hidden before.
Don't make the same mistake I made with my RX7, put all screws and bolt into containers and label them I'm having a hell of a time trying to figure out what goes where with my RX7

Looking at the body from the pictures, I think you'd do smart to take it appart to its very last bolt so you can bring it to a sandblaster.

Good luck on your project, you came to the right place for information

[Widar]

Welcome, welcome!

I know how it is to have an AE86 you can't drive... Mine is going under some rebuild too.

Wow, your friends have real nice AE86's, please tell them about this forum too!
Best Regards,

[Lipinhu]

Quote:why in heavens name buy a car with such a rusty body?

Well, i´ll tell you:
- It was cheap (near €500), atending that mechanics apear to be okay.
- I wanted to do a full rebulding in any case, after all, its my project and its something I must be familiar with. Any AE86 you could buy in portugal has something boring to do, I mean, it needs great repears ( most of them are in the interior, parked at the farmers doors, that dont take care of them)
- The price asked for one in midle conservation condition goes up from €3000, and if you´re lucky to see one in a car stand, the guy will surelly ask more tna €5000, it´s true.
After all....

Thanx for the advices. The engine has to come out anyway, the cars is going to be totally striped, i mean, to the very last bolt. I´m thinking of geting a clean body from some kind of scrapyard or something.

Actually i´ve got the pack-and-label-bolts-and-screws-thing lesson from a friend of mine that I helped desassemble his clio williams, he puted EVERITHING into big boxes, I know the work it takes!!! Thanx anyway

The body work its going to be done by a guy that i know near my place, the guy is really good (actually god d b ) and surelly it takes cheap for me.

Quote: Wow, your friends have real nice AE86's, please tell them about this forum too!
Best Regards

Have you noticed the portuguese invasion here, I´m telling you, they´re comming, run while you can, run, ruuuunnnnnnnn, RRRUUNNNNNNNNNN
lolol
Some of them arrived here first than me.

[NoHachi]

I never knew that I would once say this, but I would seriously consider looking for an other body to start with. Before you'll have this body in a reasonable condition its going to cost you a lot more then the 3000 euro's that a reasonable one costs.
When this is only the rust you can see from the outside, then I'm affraid of what lies beneath..The rust holes let water in and start the corrosion process from within. Those who have seen " a car is reborn" know what I mean. And in that show they had the luxury of endless replacement parts. For the ae86 there are almost none..

For 500E you got a real bargain on a engine, diff, perhaps some body work at least, and other parts. But for your own safety and wallet, start with a slightly better shell..

[Mux213]

Filipe,

Just removed your double post

Its good to hear you've given this alot of thought. To many people buying project cars without knowing what they are getting themselves into.

Make sure you post plenty of pictures of the rebuild, I love rebuilds

[Lipinhu]

Quote:Make sure you post plenty of pictures of the rebuild, I love rebuilds

If you like rebuids, go to my webpage, in the link section, you´ll get one labeled "project AE86", its portuguese too!!!

Enjoy

[Mux213]

NoHachi Wrote:I never knew that I would once say this, but I would seriously consider looking for an other body to start with. Before you'll have this body in a reasonable condition its going to cost you a lot more then the 3000 euro's that a reasonable one costs.
When this is only the rust you can see from the outside, then I'm affraid of what lies beneath..The rust holes let water in and start the corrosion process from within. Those who have seen " a car is reborn" know what I mean. And in that show they had the luxury of endless replacement parts. For the ae86 there are almost none..

For 500E you got a real bargain on a engine, diff, perhaps some body work at least, and other parts. But for your own safety and wallet, start with a slightly better shell..

Hey NoHachi,

In general I agree with you, I would normally suggest to start of with another shell with less work on it.

That said, I've seen cars in worse condition being restored back to health. There are 2 main issues that define cost:
1) the amount of new body parts you order, but if the person doing the restore work is an experienced panel worker he can make panels from sheets of steel (or cut them out of a wrecker)
2) but the biggest issue is labour. Labour is what makes these projects expensive. If you look at the E-type rebuild the panels were only a small part of the price, all the labour that went into it, thats where you pay big time. This means that if you have the skills to do the labour yourself, or you have a friend willing to help you out with little cost. Rebuilding a shell can be dead cheap.

I've seen this with Kims RX7. I've seen the pictures of his car before he started doing the work on it and I swear that car was in worse condition then filipe's car from the looks of the photos. He welded the whole thing up himself. Only cost him some new body parts he cut out of another RX7 on the scrapyard or something.

I've seen this with the work being done at the place I work on my Hachi and my RX7. There is a guy there who's been doing plate and welding work for many years, retired now he does it as a hobby. He has fixed up some pretty bad shaped cars and is actually doing an E-type right now. Given that the guy doesn't do this for free so for that E-type, $$$

And I see this with Martijn who fixes up my Hachi body work (luckely minor work) as a favor to me and has rebuild his own car from a wreck (for sale in a couple of months I think, he wants to fix up a Seat Leon Turbo, so if someone wants a perfect condition Golf TDI....)

But you are right. If you need to have a body shop do this kinda work, and pay them normal prices for this, prepare to pay alot more for the work then the car will ever be worth. If you have a friend who's willing to help you cheaply, or if you can do the work yourself, all it really costs you is alot of time..

[Widar]

mux213 Wrote:To many people buying project cars without knowing what they are getting themselves into.

I have noooooo idea what you're talking about...

[NoHachi]

Mux, I generally agree with you. Anything can be fixed with the right amount of labour and love. Hell, you could probably build yourself a hachi body from scratch if you really wanted to. I only said what I said for the following reasons:
1. I see a car that needs a LOT of attention and a owner that doesn't have the skills to fix it himself. Sure you see a lot of people restoring cars themselves, but how many do you see in this state that get totally restored by friends...not a lot.
2. Judging from the pictures rust has settled not only on the panels of this car, but also the unibody. That is a serious and potentially dangerous situation. To do a good job you would absolutely have to check the insides of all the beams in the car. You'd need the proper equipment. Ordering or repairing panels isn't that big a deal, but the unibody is what holds the car together. The repairs need to be done 100% correct. Sadly, they are also THE most difficult parts to weld. A lot of strange little corners and pockets and so on..
3. I have not seen pictures of the AE86's most vulnerable places, namely the area under the trunk/fueltank and the body rails in that area. If those area's are infected and not properly repaired, then you risk losing the back axle during a spirited drive....
All in all, yes this car can be brought back to a showcar state. Is it worth the money involved? Don't know, thats for everyone to decide for them selves. Is it a good first project for someone without solid mechanic and sheetmetal skills? I don't know..