In a Pickle.....

[Tommio RS]

People i need your vast opinion on what i should do with me car... "Body" wise.

Lets put it this way. Its rusting BAD!

I can barely look at her anymore... It hurts me see it in such crappy condition...

I have done nearly everything to maintain it.

Here is my list of what i have done on her:

Head gaskets (AKA) all gaskets are new less than 25000km on them
All Senors that bolt to the motor!!
Thermo
Power steering reseal
Coil pack
Timing belt
Block heater
Water pump
Snow tire plus rims
Front powerslot rotor with Hawk pads
Rear OEM replacement rotors with Gran sport pads
4 KYB struts with H@R lowering springs
Front Tribeca sway bar with poly bushing with CNC endlinks
Turbo back exhaust Cobb/LSP
05 Impreza cd radio
Glow shift boost gauge
Powered coated rims for summer

Not to mention all fluids have been change at recommended times

So i dont know how much i have put in her but its alot!!

Things that i still need to get fixed....

Rear sub frame. I mean the ENTIRE thing!!!
Front Axles
Gas tank leaks when she is to the tits...
Every single bushing that is on the car...

As for parts that are NOT installed and waiting for a home in the car:

VF39 turbo
550cc yellow top injectors
91 NA legacy fuel rails
AWIC



Ya.... Big list.
So Ill post some pictures up tomorrow of the rust damage....


As for the people that cant wait to see the sad stat of my car its rusting in these places:

Front fenders
Rear fenders
Rocker panels
Rear Sub frame
Hail damage
Paint failing off, Dick weed who had car before me did a " Custom " paint job to it. Looks like shit now, Thats for sure

As for how it looked when i bought it:





So what should i do about the body?

[gijonas]

Fix it???

[93forestpearl]

I'm waiting for the rust pics.

[Aerotech]

If you've got a place and the inclination to do the work, I would look for another Legacy with a good body, and do a shell swap. Doesn't have to be a turbo. I see them here now and then, and there's thousands of drivers floating around in good shape.

[Tommio RS]

Here is the images:

[Tommio RS]

Some more















You are thinking. Hmmm whats with the odd goo on the rust spots??? It rust protection. I tried to seal the stuff off from the world!

If you want to see even more go here:

http://s449.photobucket.com/albums/qq219/Tommio_Bucket/

So there you have it. Many many pics of just the body ill be up loading some under car pics in a bit.

[Tommio RS]

As for a donor car Aerotech i like your style. I just might do that if i can find a near mint one.

[93forestpearl]

Yeah I'd say donor car. Anywhere you see rust bubbles below the paint, count on that area being gone and lots more sheetmetal being cut off to fix it.


A donor car is an easy swap, even if it's FWD. Everything will transfer.

[evolutionmovement]

Eh, I don't know. I'd rather do the bodywork. New fenders and some sheet metal. That's less work than I'm putting into mine. See how solid it is—whack the spots on the rear sills inside where the door closes and the front underneath the fenders with an awl. If they're solid, I'd do the work. Finding a rust free shell at this point will be tough unless you want to ship long distance or tear up a car that is probably in good mechanical condition as well.

If you do the bodywork, make sure the insides of the sills are sealed off and dump a bunch of rust converter in them. I used a cheap spray bottle and shot that stuff everywhere I could find an opening (unfortunately, this doesn't do much for the rear quarters.

If it's any consolation, my 2006 Mazda 3 is already starting to rust—including a bubble spot under the black adhesive trim in the middle of a B-pillar. My sister's 2001 Maxima looked almost as bad as yours also. New cars are shit.

[brodie.gordon]

just have to say, i have the same problem and in some of the same places. maybe these are weak spots on the body? maybe that body style is more prone to rust? i dunno, but yes it sucks!

[Aerotech]

Yep, these locations are utterly typical for these cars. The only one that would be difficult to fix is the bottom of the wheel arch/rockerpanel elbow, it's complicated in there.

The problem I have with bodywork is that the damn rust almost always comes back, no matter how careful you are, particularly in a loaded or stressed joint like that corner... flat panels are easy, and you can glue them in now instead of welding, but that rocker's gonna be a bitch.

I grabbed my wagon (again!) for this reason; it's super clean...except for the front fenders which are rotted to hell, but easily replaced... I hate automatics, and I don't like the color, but those can be fixed. I hate body work even more.

Clean cars are out there... there's a 90 or 91 sedan floating around my 'hood, bone stock, and it looks like it just rolled out of the factory.

[evolutionmovement]

I don't even see junkers around here anymore, so I'm working off the assumption that it's not much better where he is.

If you repair the bodywork correctly, get both sides of the metal, and keep the sand and shit out of the collection points (which happen to be the spots where the rust forms on these cars. Not bad when you look at their contemporaries or even newer cars that rust in the weirdest spots because they are disposable shit), you can prevent it from coming back in the reasonable future (approximately the time it took to come out originally, better if you take care of it). When I started to pull apart Duchess, I expected to find a sieve, which would have given me the excuse to get rid of it and move on, but I didn't. The only spots are the rear arches behind the wheel—everything hidden looked great. The sills had been fixed, sealed off, and coated on the inside with rust inhibitor, then topped with some undercoating and that hasn't come back in 7 years (though for 4 of that, the car hasn't moved). The front fenders were replaced in 1999 and only had a few surface spots in the usual places because I undercoated them when I installed them originally and always used the manual car wash to spray all the shit out of the lower fender until the water coming out over the sills ran clear. Every spring I'd recoat the undercarriage and prone places with the undercoating. This time, I'm doing an even better job of treating everything with zinc galvanizing spray and the undercoat. I expect the rust to come back, but for it to make it at least as long as it did originally even if I didn't have a garage now (which I do). I'm building my own car to be as rustproof as possible so Duchess will still keep the garage after that's built.

Or maybe my books will sell to a movie company or pay cable station, will be a big hit, and someone will buy her off me for some stupid amount of money. Not counting on the last one. What would I replace her with anyway? Only the Nazis make decent-sized station wagons with a manual transmission (and less of those every year), but they are laughably overpriced, have no character, are unreliable, and are built by sadistic assholes so as to be near impossible to fix (which needs to be done too damn frequently). Then too, I'm not throwing a muddy mountain bike or an engine into the back of a $30-50k car, so such a wagon is pointless for that alone.

[gijonas]

What?

[Tommio RS]

Sorry for the wait it was a long weekend...

Anyways

Aerotech Im thinking about the donor car route

Clean cars are out there... there's a 90 or 91 sedan floating around my 'hood, bone stock, and it looks like it just rolled out of the factory.

How can i see this car, just like pictures and stuff.

Here is the thing tho i need a rear subframe. So ill need a AWD model not a FWD model? Or am i wrong???

As for body work. That takes KILLER time to do right. Considering if i can find a new shell it takes like 1 hour to pull a motor and about the same for struts and random other junk. If the donor i find is a manual i have a buddy who will sell me a 03 WRX trans and rear diff for $300!!

[evolutionmovement]

Yes, the rear subframe would have to be AWD.

[93forestpearl]

Just get a new shell and find a rear subframe if you need to. You won't regret it.


There is something to be said about fender bolts that come out easy, all of them....

[Tommio RS]

Well i have made up my mind. Im going to buy the cleanest shell of car i can.

I plan i create 2 cars, One summer car with ZERO rust on it and a winter beater!

[Apex3]

Rust is cancer, bodywork is a pain, I think donor car is the right choice