The car has been sitting for 6 months while I worked on it hard core.

It has recently fired up and I'm about to take it for a drive...I want to make sure everything safety is done tho....so please dont hesitate to suggest what to check (AND HOW please )as I thought it was ready and I found out my tie rod is shot.

Details of what I did:
- Changed rear brake lines
- Changed rear wheel cylenders (drum pistons)
- Changed 1 front caliper
- Changed clutch
- Changed tranny
- Changed axles
- Tore lower balljoint boot and tie rod boot on both knucles, rebooted and grease packed them.
- Changed knucles (with used units)
- Welded a fuckload of sheetmetal to the body, near the rear suspension compsentor arm mount (the outside part of the mount was rusted away, replaced)
- Changed most of the fuel lines with rubber hoses, attached with those screw type clamps and joined hoses with metal line inserted in the hose

Thanks, I appreciate it

Pierre

 

It rusted out near the comp arm? I have never heard of that happening? How bad is it else were?
I say fire it up and go around the block since that is the fastest way to find out what is wrong.

 

Actually its quite common....you knoew where the rear jack support is...well about 6 inches higer is the back of the comp arm mount....rusted trought there.

Welded a fair bit of steel back on.

Its horrible everywhere...well was....there's 2 tanks of Argo sheild, 20lbs of migh wire and 100$ CAD of sheet metal in it . Its in pretty good shape now...cept that the curves of the car look like *** since we kinda winged it....bondo time

 

I know were the arm is,I just have never heard of a ED rusting around their.
You must live were they use alot of salt.
Got any pics of your work before and after?

 

Ya...I wish I had em....they are probably chilling spomewhere


Was insane...actually posted on HT asking if I should fix it....I was greated with:

That thing is rustier than the titanic and
I hope your area does safety checks so you cant endanger otehrs with that pos and
The welds will proably be the strongest thing on there


Sadly I should have listend....allthough I believe we did a great job fixing it and that it should be plenty strong....it was expensive to fix.

2400$ CAD in parts up to now (for all the mechanical and body work), initially I didnt wnana suck it up and admit I had been ripped off when purchasing it, so I sunk some cash into fixing it....it just got more and more expensive as I foound things wrong, and once you start a money pit you cant back down....I think its neer done...allthough I wasnt in the mood to replace all my brakes and a tie rod end recently....bah what can I do

 

Its a unibody so everything can be fixed.
As long as you can weld you can safely fix it.
I wouldnt sweat others comments if they think it cant be repaired they dont understand unibodys and good penetrated welds.
Big props for diving in a big project you got my respect for fixing what most would trash.
In 20 years we are going to be doing what you did to most of them just like the old hotroders are today with the classics.

 

thanks

I needed that after this much pain LOL...next time tho, I'm trashing it....its not worth the money and trouble and pain and suffering and emotional anguish

My main motivation was that I did this to learn, and I know a hell of allot about the 4th gen hatch now.

The downside with unibodies is finding a spot thats solid to weld too

 

pressurize the fuel system by turning the key to position 2 and check for any leakes