Photos Unboxed: Getting Jiggy With It
When we pulled the car apart, we realised that the left chassis leg was kinked up just before the front panel. The car was in an unfortunate accident in Japan before it was painted purple, a new quarter had fitted to the left side, and a lousy repair on the filled in on the right side. That’s most likely why the car is painted purple. The new left quarter panel was done swiftly and caused a lot of rust which was a result of welds not getting the right treatment. I guess the Trueno was fixed back when these cars weren’t as valuable; people weren’t thinking about the future; they were highly disposable.
My mate Davey runs Pickard Crash repairs; he offered to try to straighten the leg with his Dad. We were this far into the build, so I guess we have to sort everything while we had the chance. Davey and his Dad got the leg pretty straight; the car looked much better than the weekend before where it was roofless. The doors helped. A lot of progress was being made. I was happy.
Bryan has made an excellent little table stand to keep track of the valves, works fro both 20-valves and 16-valves. I brought them down to Dave’s pillar drill one at a time. That carbon stuff is hard to get off!
Back at the shed that weekend, I started cleaning the pistons and started sanding the carbon deposits off of the valves. Fun fun
Later that night we went for some skids, something we don’t do as much anymore. Maybe its age?
Teejay lost his freshly painted front lip due to a dodgy pothole.
The next day Barry called down to tip away at cleaning up the B-pillars and the corner sections of the quarter where the doors sit. AE86’s tend to rip right where the window is due to the flex when being chucked around on the track, it’s a common enough issue and usually promotes rust.
Sitting in Dan’s garden accelerated the crust once moisture got through the cracks. Barry thankfully hacked it out, and fortunately, it was one layer deep. A light bit of surface stuff which he sanded off.
This area is an incredibly awkward piece to match as three angles is merge into one.
I let barry work his magic, another step forward with the build. It’s mad looking back, he has done a total of 35 days metalwork on the car so far, we still have to finish the doors, and I have a few more of these posts coming up over the next few weeks. It’s nice to look back on these two years later and relive the misery all over again. Hope you enjoyed it too.