raugustinus

hiya I bought this '92 fd in switzerland last year,
but haven't been able to work on it yet..
I needs quite a bit of work since part of the frame
on the front is damaged.. it will be repaired soon.
Once the frame has been fixed, I can start work
on rebuilding the engine..

I'll be setting up a website soon, which I'll try and
update frequently with a lot of pics.. any tips are
ofcourse appreciated...



Rob

diyman25

good iuck on your project, you can find a lot of info on rx7club.com

alberto_mg

search for threads from turbojeff. he's rebuit many of these

Good luck. There are a few people on the board from Europe in case you didn't know yet.

turbojeff

iTrader: (30)

Looks like it isn't too bad.

Take some pics of the frame rails with the hood up and intake, IC and battery out of it. It looks to me that you might be able to get away with fixing the frame rails rather than replacing them.

Here is a MB 93 with similar but more severe damage that I had fixed.

http://community.webshots.com/album/69912816VsRYvb

Speedworks

try ot contact Multirotor in the Ueopean section. He currently has an FD in parts

raugustinus

well I've got some older pictures which show the damage in
detail.. I'll get some better shots next weekend..

turbojeff

iTrader: (30)

Holy huge pics Batman!

I'd have to defer judgement on those frame rails to my bodyman. It seems to me the right side (intake side) *might* be able to be straightened, the left side (battery side) looks to be buckled to badly.

Good luck with the repairs, keep posting updates!

Mdessouki

iTrader: (7)

Anything can be straightend. I wouldnt recomed it on that car, the rails have buckled. Find someone pariting one out nad get 12 inches from the radiator support back. I was just cutting off a quarter of a parts rx7 and thougt I should cut that off incase someone needed it but decided not to. Working with a 1.5 hp compressor with a 5 gallon tank in not fun. I got to take some pics of the car I have to fix, just a 6 hr. dent on the rear quarter and the bodyman coverd the whole pannel in a skin coat, for no reason I can tell. Good news is that I can straighten the metal instead of welding on a pannel. I got to post some pics for a good laugh, 1/3 of a inch of plastic over a shiney mb paint.

turbojeff

iTrader: (30)

I'd rather straighten the front of the rail before I cut it off 12" back and reweld just a section of it on.

The frame rails are made up of multiple layers of sheetmetal, likely your welds won't penetrate around the entire frame rail in equal amounts.

Mdessouki

iTrader: (7)

always get more than you need, its can be an expensive lesson if you dont.

turbojeff

iTrader: (30)

My point being it isn't a legit repair. Since I'm not actually a bodyman is this method (cutting frame rails mid-section and re-welding) recommended by any repair training/certification organizations? ICAR, etc?

Mdessouki

iTrader: (7)

Not sure, I know a insurance company woulnd not recomend this so probably not. I preped and didnt like it so I moved on to small collison (1/4 pannel replacement dent repair ect.), and didnt like that so I did estimates/delt with ins. companies so I could finish school sevral years ago. I can coment on what I saw and leanred there and this method had no real ill effects according to the people doing it. Some bodymen recomended cutting in a I while some recomended a / cut to offset force if a new collison ever happened. When this repair metod was used it was mostly when the bodymen were moonlighting for salvage yards or side jobs at night, but cant remeber if any insurance companies have ever paid to have it done this way. On the ins. estimate for this car they if they wrote one before they totaled it was to r+r the engine and replace the rails. That is not cheap to have a shop do, but is the proper way to repair it.

turbojeff

iTrader: (30)

That is basically my experience, guys rebuilding crappy salvage cars will cut the rails off and reweld them a few inches back or section an entire car. This really isn't a legit repair.

If you drill spot welds, reweld a new or similarly removed used rail then weld it back in the same manner as it was originally attached the car is basically as good as new. Much depends on the quality of the repair, if you don't do it right I wouldn't ever touch the car.

I've seen a car basically start coming apart at the spliced welds. Unfortunately it was a car my grandpa had purchased, he lived on about 10 miles of washboard gravel roads. The car was sectioned the incorrect way (windshield cut), welds and sheetmetal started cracking. He wasn't aware of the problem until the steering wheel would move 1/2 turn when he gave it a little throttle.

riptor

there was a front clip on ebay -full j-spec. for 1200 i think...dont know if its been sold yet..

raugustinus

after reading this again.. I'm a bit unsure on what to do..
I want to do the right thing.. but it will probably set me back quite a
bit.. especially since the buckled part is only to hold the bumper etc..
it won't be affecting the steering etc, since the buckled part is in front
of that.. having a bit of a doubt on what to do.. it's really expensive over
here to do the proper fix.. I'm thinking about 3.5k in man hours..

i would like to do it myself.. but I can't weld, so that's not going to happen.
I need to think about this.. postpone my decision for a bit.. I'll get the
engine out first and look at the whole thing again.. maybe talk to some
other shops as well, and see what they have to say..

thanks for the support so far..

Rob

Speedworks

I have a front bumper for sale (OEM) if you need one

If you decide to bakck out of the project, let me know...