Return of the Rusty Justy

[Scruffy Bodger]

Didn't know that, thanks. Know nothing about them at all tbh. This one is badged a 1.9 and have always been under the assumption that it is.

[Scruffy Bodger]

Just a quick update on Betty the ZX.

 

 

She's had a belt and water pump change and is now on tour. My mate thought it was a good idea after all that welding to go and introduce her to a load of salt laden air, let's let us hope she doesn't dissolve before they get back. Doing roughly 57mpg apparently and him and his Mrs are quite happy with the comfy seats. 

[Scruffy Bodger]

 

 

 

The sun's come out and a load of old PSA shite has crawled out of the scenery round here.

[Mrs6C]

Mmmm, nice!

[catsinthewelder]

Oooh whos got the Volcane?  Nice day for it.

[Scruffy Bodger]

Oooh whos got the Volcane?  Nice day for it.

 

It's not a Volcane    Same lad owns it who owns the one I just welded up.

 

Was a great afternoon, although the lad with the 306 needed a new back window shortly after leaving as he decided not to take advice and secure a rather large object that was in the boot when he left! Oops. Live and learn eh.

[Scruffy Bodger]

catsinthewelder it's actually a genuine 16v. The badges are original to the car even tho they are in fact absolutely identical to the ones you could buy from Halfords or Charlie Browns etc in the Maxpowa days!

 

 

The Volcane spec only came in TD or 8v petrol flavours. It's the same engine as supplied in the 306 S16 so should be 155bhp ish iirc? It's an Oct '92 registered car so one of the very earliest examples in the Uk, it seems sadly there are only just over 50 left all in.

 

It's an ongoing project and I cannot wait to take it for a proper hoon one day

[Scruffy Bodger]

I've recently found an old memory card with photos from another rather rotten piece of rubbish I did a few years back. It was documented elsewhere but after the great Photofucket debacle it's generally not any more.

 

I believe it was once owned by someone that used to and maybe still does frequent this place?

 

 

Anybody interested in a weldathon of a really rather rusty Justy?

[Talbot]

Anybody interested in a weldathon of a really rather rusty Justy?

Depends? Is it a Trusty Thrusty Rusty Justy?

 

If so, then absolutely!

[D Spares & Tyres]

 

 

 

The sun's come out and a load of old PSA shite has crawled out of the scenery round here.

This piece of old PSA shite tried to blend in with that exact same scenery

[Scruffy Bodger]

Depends? Is it a Trusty Thrusty Rusty Justy?

 

If so, then absolutely!

 

Sadly I don't really know the answer to that question, it's never seen the road since it was done. It was bought running and driving with a working 4x4 system and a hugely detailed service history that even went as far as to list the mechanics name that did each job on the car! I've always liked these little things, a girl at college I knew well had one, lucky thing, I was running a totally rotten Mk 5 Cortina at the time, quite a difference between the two.

 

These first photos were provided after the sale by the previous owner.

 

 

 

All looks promising, wouldn't you agree? Lovely shiny well kept little thing?

 

 

Ah, a little rust scab, never mind, they all do that, it's an old Subaru after all.

 

 

Oh, filler, bugger, it appears someone may have been here before me? Mmm that rust looks to be a "little" bit more than I was hoping for!

 

 

Fuckety, fuck, FUCK    How much filler? It was over an inch thick in places apparently. I think there was another photo showing yet more bodgery but it's disappeared into the ether by the looks? Sooooo we're dealing with a true Artisan sculptor who's been branching out/moonlighting are we, bloody marvellous!

[Scruffy Bodger]

This piece of old PSA shite tried to blend in with that exact same scenery

 

How they did that in that spot is still utterly beyond me!

[dollywobbler]

Ah crap. Bad enough that it's suffering the usual rot, but eleventy times worse than some shitgibbon has done such an artistic job of hiding it.

[Talbot]

That is pretty amazing as a filler job! When it gets to the point you're having to either machine it off, or it comes off in slabs, you know you should have bought shares in Isopon.

[bub2006]

Mine was fairly knackered in many ways, I took it from 260k to 299.something k, was damn tempted to keep on up the motorway a bit to hit 300,000 but bub2006 was meeting me to transport me onwards so couldn't! Still comfy though, the knackered seat had contoured itself to my derriere!

I've drove your old zx. It certainly felt like every one of those miles!

[Scruffy Bodger]

Ah crap. Bad enough that it's suffering the usual rot, but eleventy times worse than some shitgibbon has done such an artistic job of hiding it.

 

That is pretty amazing as a filler job! When it gets to the point you're having to either machine it off, or it comes off in slabs, you know you should have bought shares in Isopon.

 

You lot just think yourselves lucky you didn't buy it when it was advertised on here! In all fairness to the seller I honestly don't believe they knew it was as bad as it was. Someone had done a proper cover up job. He had started to get stuck into it but then got a bit overwhelmed I think?

 

Sadly I have no photos of how it was when my mate first got it but you hopefully get the idea from the photos I have got, even if they are a bit out of sequence to the way I actually went about doing it. I'd only done a couple of minor welding repairs on cars at this point so this was next level tbh. Add that to the fact that the shed I was using was rubbish for keeping out the weather and it was all a pretty horrible experience. The cheap underseal that was blathered all over the car was constantly setting fire and the fumes were truly noxious, not a good combo.

 

 

 

The rear wings had already been cut back before I saw it, thankfully it came with two replacements. Sadly they were two spurious panels and both needed varying degrees of tweaking before they could actually be used on the car.

 

Pretty sure the floor is meant to join to that bit, I wonder how far that's going to go in the end?

 

 

 

Oh dear that sills not looking too clever now is it!    The inner sill was of course cabbaged too but I don't have photos of that or the repair as I must have been actually getting stuck into the job at that point. I haven't even got to the floor-pan yet. You can also probably make out some of the inner wing repairs I'd already done at this point.

[GoGently]

 

Last days of a ZX in NW5 ish unless a magic Autoshiter appears . It got under 80 thou on’t clock

[GoGently]

XXX ZX doing some weekend work

[Scruffy Bodger]

148FF3EF-B419-4F36-9B1B-8D9C4E223486.jpegB0C7FA69-AB79-4FEA-BFEE-03776159E0E6.jpeg

 

Last days of a ZX in NW5 ish unless a magic Autoshiter appears . It got under 80 thou on’t clock

 

How bad is it tho? Thing is the 3 doors are like hens teeth and 5 doors still really not so much thankfully, although still a good car in their own right..

[Scruffy Bodger]

148FF3EF-B419-4F36-9B1B-8D9C4E223486.jpegB0C7FA69-AB79-4FEA-BFEE-03776159E0E6.jpeg

 

Last days of a ZX in NW5 ish unless a magic Autoshiter appears . It got under 80 thou on’t clock

 

? What state's it in? Mileage doesn't mean it's in good nick, interior trashed, how rotten? etc etc...

 

 

Meanwhile, back in Fraggle Rock.

 

 

That's the better of the rear seatbelt anchors.

 

 

That's the other one after a swift tug 

 

 

 

Mmm, the rear turrets aren't looking too clever after a quick poke. There was more too in the boot iirc but no photos as far as I recall of them or repairs.

[Arthur Foxhake]

I remember this from another forum.

Was a heroic effort to save a rusty Justy.

 

Keep at it Squire. The world needs more men with welders and bits of old fridge to make all the poor, frilly cars happy again.

[Faker]

What an epic thread...

 

Justy was a lot of work... actually so was the ldv... come to mention it... the zx....

 

Good skills by the way

[Scruffy Bodger]

I remember this from another forum.

Was a heroic effort to save a rusty Justy.

 

Keep at it Squire. The world needs more men with welders and bits of old fridge to make all the poor, frilly cars happy again.

 

Ta As said above the photos from the before have been Photofucketed so thought I'd add them here.

 

 

What an epic thread...

 

Justy was a lot of work... actually so was the ldv... come to mention it... the zx....

 

Good skills by the way

 

The LDV was a lot of work, yes, there's more than really shown tbh, the Justy was a step above that tho.

 

 

All rot cut back to clean metal

 

 

Shaped and spotted back in.

 

 

 

I think the photo above demonstrates pretty well what you are dealing with? The metal in certain places isn't much thicker than my thumb nail where it's been drawn in when stamped out! I chose not to linish off the welds as the metal is so thin. Hopefully the zintec I put into it lasts a fair while too.

[Scruffy Bodger]

The "chassis" was a bit knackered too. I had to cut good metal away just to get at the rot within in places.

 

 

 

Not my best work tbh but one day it was -3 and the shitty shed I was in was far from ideal. When doing this bit I remember having to turn the gas up as it was getting blown away and I was meant to be inside!

 

 

After that it got a bit more serious. Thankfully the drivers side inner arch was in good nick. You can just about make out the strip I put in to make up the lip to fix to the outer arch.

 

 

 

Sadly the other side wasn't the same. 

 

 

[Scruffy Bodger]

After a bit of a faff I managed to get the drivers side panel to fit pretty well. I did however get a bit carried away with the welder at one point and caused the longest run at the top to warp slightly, just too much heat in one spot by putting a couple of spots too close together, lesson learnt there.

 

 

 

Sooooooo many welds to get a panel like this back in!

 

Then it was on to the passenger side and tbh it was a right twat to do and I had to get a bit creative. The car had come to me with some bits already removed, this meant I had absolutely no points of reference to work to. I was also working in a shed that the car only just fitted in, it was really quite close to the floor still so getting to the inner arch nearest the wing was impossible.

 

 

To save me having to fit and re-fit the new panel a million times I cut a strip of metal and notched it repeatedly so that I could get it to fit the arch profile. I then carefully welded the notches without permanently attaching it to the other piece so it would hold the shape of the new wing.

 

I then test fitted the wing and used various old galv nails and scrap that were lying about to keep the new arch lip in place, again being very careful to not to weld it to the panel which I needed to remove.

 

 

I ended up with that. Not exactly conventional but I'd had a real WTF do I do here moment when I was first confronted with it.

 

 

Then it was just a case of "simply" shaping various bits to fit and fill in the gaps after I'd cut it back to good metal. I admit I did cheat a bit with the one piece that you can see I notched and welded the gaps to get the shape but it was taking long enough as it was.

[davehedgehog31]

Jesus, what an effort to keep that Justy on the road, it was absolutely rotten! 

[Scruffy Bodger]

Jesus, what an effort to keep that Justy on the road, it was absolutely rotten! 

 

The ironic part of the whole episode is the owner of the car no longer speaks to me. I spent too long doing it apparently. They then made me wait a month and a half for the pittance I charged for doing it too. Funny old world eh...

[Scruffy Bodger]

As the saga continued I started to see light at the end of the tunnel

 

 

 

That panel went on pretty well all in all after I'd adjusted it to fit. I made sure I kept the seem lines visible too underneath the back light, I didn't just flush them in with weld.

 

Then it was on to repairing the inner sill and making up some replacement sill sections, after of course repairing the floor so I had something to attach them to!

 

 

 

 

All the repair sections were made from Zintec and sprayed with gal paint so it didn't go backwards before the panels were re-sprayed.

 

 

You can't buy sills for these and I hadn't got access to a sheet metal folder so I had to go old skool. That photo is misleading as the repair section is a lot larger than it looks. That vice is truly fucking mahoosive, it took two blokes to lift it onto the bench!

 

That was pretty much that for me thankfully. It's never even seen the road since after all that work   but still looked pretty good last time I saw it, I'll have to try and get some photos of it after it was painted.

 

How many of this model are left I'm not sure but it can't be many when they rot like that!?

[Scruffy Bodger]

Before this goes on further, a note to self, no matter how tight the budget and levels of skintness at the time.

 

 

DO NOT WELD RUSTY OLD SHITE WITH 0.8MM WIRE YOU FUCKING IDIOT!!!!

 

That little scooby was a lot harder than it might have been in places due to that simple fact alone, 0.6mm is the way to go. I've only mostly used industrial 3 phase kit with 1.0mm or 1.2mm wire on new metal so a lesson well and truly learnt I can tell you.

[Scruffy Bodger]

In other news and maybe as encouragement for other people who own rusty old shite.

 

 

 

Look at his happy little face!

 

Betty has been on tour again from sunny Shropshire to a rather sunny South Wales and it's westernmost tip. She has now clocked up 2000 faultless miles, a lot of them have been while masquerading as a van, full of tools, various other car bits etc. The rear axle rubbers have started to thud a bit more since the MOT, have been purchased and should be fitted within the next week I think? 

 

 

She even came in handy to jump the modern, non starting rubbish I bought last week. What have I gone and done? First car I've ever bought with an ecu! I won't be keeping it...