JDM Familia Interplay BG5P Restoration

[Scrummatron]

spoon rigid chassis collar?

Ya,u seen them,do you have or are you familiar with them?.....should've hit the dragons den with them years ago,..or "shark tank" over there I think.?
Seriously tho,I haven't spent much time on cars the past 5 years,and never seen them before then.but I always thought there was a market for these,since the first car I took apart,maybe they've always been around but I never saw.
Shame about the price.

[FE3-323]

i don't think i could personally justify enough reasoning for using such a thing.
considering the deflection from rubber components & proper bolt tightening where there isnt rubber mounting.... if things are moving there's something else amiss

[Scrummatron]

i don't think i could personally justify enough reasoning for using such a thing.
considering the deflection from rubber components & proper bolt tightening where there isnt rubber mounting.... if things are moving there's something else amiss

Well that's fair enough,....personally though,I think this is a real issue worth addressing,maybe the roads here put a bit of extra strain on these areas,lateral chassis twisting and such.but have seen this wear on a lot of cars of different makes and ages over the years,so have to assume it's universal,...regardless of the self aligning nature of these parts,they do move.
..so What I'm trying to say is,...if they were cheaper,I would purchase.

Just "impossible" to justify them at the price.

[Scrummatron]

As the belly wasn't too bad,Got back to cracking on with the rear arches,as there's not much/any underseal up behind the fuel tank,just surface rust in 2-3 places and rusty brackets abound,I will do most just before I paint up there.
Stripping underseal by hand is the most thankless task imaginable,and only recommended for the brave and the very commited,...probably no need to do it all realy,but as there's a strong chance il be buried in this car,I can't help myself.
Some pics of progress,done some other work underneath and on the brace between the chassis legs,but forgot to take pics.

[Scrummatron]

A couple of pics of the rear shock top mountings,...have seen rotten top mounts send many,many good cars to scrap,.and another few years of neglect wouldve see mz1 join them.
Have to give incredible amounts of kudos to WilyB in his build thread,..and anyone else who goes messing at these as they realy are a big hassle to have to swap out,and realy once they're rotten,the weighing scales come out......and breaking the car is usually makes way more financial sense,..ae86's,rs turbo escorts and anything that has value regardless of rust would be maybe exceptions,and worth fixing,...but cheque book needs to come out.
Anyway,the inside bits on both sides are basiclly just flakey paint,the outside edges on both sides have a bit of rust and some pitting...getting this bit right is very important to me,so I called my restoration friend and told him to come take a look before I proceeded,he arrived with 2 jars of goop,....1 grey,1 blue.
After 10 minutes of poking and jabbing with a hammer,screw drivers and chisels,...he said it was all good,and to use the grey goop.(he said the blue goop was for worst case scenarios,and this thankfully wasn't too bad).he said keep slapping it on for a couple of days,and when ready,paint over it....so I poured it on.
Couple of pics-both before I touched them-and both gooped up after a wire brushing and sanding.

[Scrummatron]

Other things to note,..
Wasn't happy with the orangey smokers tinge to the colour of the interior light,so bleached it with oxygen reacting bleach,...worked pretty good.
Stray Angle grinder ruined the lucky work trousers,.."pants"
And rubber restorer works very well,..these rubber headlight backs came up literally like new,...will be hitting every bit of rubber with this stuff.

[FE3-323]

do you have a before/after of the dome & map light assembly. I hate the tinge it gets with age

[Scrummatron]

do you have a before/after of the dome & map light assembly. I hate the tinge it gets with age

Killer but I didn't take a pic of the before colour,but uve seen heavy smokers cars,so it was somewhere between yellow and orange,...it came up pretty good,back to original all around the sides and on the bulk of the face.100% better than it was.
But it has these "smooth" areas around the map light bits,and near where the big switch goes,a strange amount of wear for a interior car light tbh,..will be checking mz2 when there again to see if it's better.

[Scrummatron]

Was at mz2 the other day so grabbed the interior light from it to see was it in any better shape,...here is a pic of it beside the already cleaned one.
The one I cleaned was a similar colour,have the mz2 one currently undergoing treatment.
Doesn't seem to have as much wear,but hard to tell under all the grime.il see how it cleans up.

[FE3-323]

worldly cleaner

[Scrummatron]

worldly cleaner

Yes,it was a lot cleaner,...."initially",....
but continuing the theme of replacing virtually everything in mz1 with a newer/better/cleaner version of what was there,.. The condition after some minor treatment,was vastly better,...
Quite amazing to me how much wear was on the mz1 light,wtf was goin on up there!!,..
Mz1 light on the left.

[FE3-323]

honestly you might be better off with a paint that bonds to plastic. those aren't cleaning up fully from the distorted coloring

[Scrummatron]

honestly you might be better off with a paint that bonds to plastic. those aren't cleaning up fully from the distorted coloring

Not sure how that pic is coming accross,but I'm very,very happy with it,the interior of the light surround the "drab olive green" bit hasn't changed at all il give that,but the entire outer piece,except the close to the wee map light lenses bits,has came up very good in my opinion,have it tucked away anyway with other finished bits,il see how it looks when installed.
Tbh,painting plastic or interior trim has never sat well with me,but maybe if it doesn't look right when installed il give it a go.

[Scrummatron]

Time at the good madzee is a bit shorter these days,and the thankless task of scrapping,hacking,grinding and sanding isn't very appealing,but I ploughed on,...and in "one step at a time" fashion,the passenger rear arch was the first to get full treatment....and finished.
Stripping the factory rubbery underseal from the creases in the machine pressed rear inner arch metal,and up in the shock top mounting is the mother of all chores,...but slow steady progress and regular breaks to do somthing less taxing on the arms is the order of the day.
Here's a few pics of the shock top transformation.
Note-jump back a couple of posts to see the way it was at the start,don't have them pics anymore for the before after slideshow I was going for.

[Scrummatron]

My restoration mate said that goo would leave it so that I could paint over it,but it worked so well,that I repeated the process a few times,and sanded in between and when I could only see shiney steel,I sprayed it with por15 rust killer metal prep,and again,and again,then put that etch on it till I decide what to finish with.
He also said put the stuff on anywhere there was any rust I was worried about,so I literally poured it into every crack and crevice in the arch.
After it was stripped to the tri-colour in the pics of bare metal,factory primer,and factory base coat.
Probably doesn't look too pretty,but it's ultra smooth.
Note-pics are of the process on going,too dark for good pics when finished,2 days and 9-10 hours at this.