rider

The car was outside until I built my garage three years ago. Now it sits in dehumidified garage glory, except when its up on the lift. I used to love underseal. Now I hate it because I have seen what happens under the underseal too many times. Its a warning to others though, that slight shadow under a ever so tiny section of the hard protective coating applied in the wheel housing area could be hiding about 12 square inches of badness.

Got to love Mr T. Charges the earth for Supra bits these day and so far I've had dented tank guard, crushed fuel lines, bent brake pipes and now... Mating up the new suspension arms with the correct bolts and washers etc to make installation straightforward after I got bored (or possibly depressed) sanding today and even though you spend very close to 2 grand the parts aren't exactly wrapped in cotton wool in transit. When the same arms for lesser cars cost a few hundred Toyota could afford to put some of the extra £1500 towards bubble wrap, feather bedding or something. Both of the rods have missing paint (bare metal) and corroded welds. Guess these need to go on the to prep and paint list like the tank guard enjoyed after its hazardous journey here. So the bolt mating didn't get to far. No garage fitting these as new parts would give a toss and they would be rusting away nicely from day 1.

Here is a picture of the rust iceberg unearthed today on the passenger side that occurs when the factory protection applied onto the wheel housing panels fails and rusting is then far worse than on the unprotected area.

The lids are cheap enough from Mr T - think it was £12 when I replaced mine because some oik had snapped a clip and subbed it with a cable tie.

If anyone knows of any good mobile welders in or around Shropshire do let me know. It suits a mobile outfit as the access is optimal with the sub frame off the car and without the sub frame on the car, its not going anywhere. PS - I know a fair few in the trade so I have called in some favours this afternoon and sorted with a friend of a friend coming round on Saturday to assess with a view to tackling it next week. If all works out that fits in nicely with my plans to finish the sanding over the next 7 days and have the following weekend for the prep, etch and POR paint stage. That way I can keep to my timescale of reassemble by the end of the month awaiting then only the delivery of the Blitz exhaust some time in November.

Are you good at cut and patch welding Chris, care poking my classic car?

Its the cabin ventilation flap and behind it everything looks like the day it rolled off the paint line. Its a similar story through the front of wheel housing cooler vents. The metal feels perfectly smooth the internal side of the housing so all rust originates within the wheel housing. This is probably why the external bodywork of Supras always, well almost always, hides the age of the cars extremely well. Any rusting is happening very much out of sight behind the wheel arch and behind the sub frame. Though, I'd rather cut out and patch a wheel housing panel than have to do that to an exterior wing. With one you don't need a super tidy job and a re-spray, with the other you would need to subscribe to both. For those who have recent import cars I'd recommend smearing a substantial layer of grease or preferably something like a Dinitol 3125 spray (thick enough to stick and fluid enough to wipe off) on their outer and inner wheel housing panels from their lower lips up to the factory protective layer. That would go a long way to preventing the panel rust and then under protection layer rusting from ever occurring. If I had know I'd be owning my car since 1998 then I probably would have done that in 1998.

The drivers side outer inner wheel housing panel has a hole. In the corner behind the hockey stick I pulled away the OE protective coating that had a slight lift right at its bottom corner. Being in a corner it doesn't have access to grinders or sanders so hooked the screw driver blade under and started flaking the protective coating away. About 4cm in the metal was getting worse rather than better. Sure enough screw driver attack and it holed, only a 4mm hole but still a hole. Sometimes protection can be worse than no protection. There are a few areas that are heavily pitted on the driver side outer inner wing so on the lookout now for a welder to decide if any parts would be best cutting out and patching. It does seem the drivers side has taken much more of a rust hammering than the passenger side but I haven't got to sanding there yet so cursory appearance may be wrong. Though, the tank guard was rotted out on the drivers side and yet near virginal new on the passenger side. On the other parts, outside of the inner wing arch area now switched up to a large sanding disc on the grinder so the pace has picked up. Lots of heavy pitting though on the lower lip of the inner inner wheel housing panel that not even an aggressive sanding disc can get into. That's going to be the main job for the POR 15 acid etch pre paint prep. On the upside, the two central heat shields have come up nicely to sanding down. seeing they are thin gauge metal exposed to all sorts I'm surprised they have held up so well.

Second day into sanding and some observations to share. I've only done the first pass on the drivers side so far so haven't touched from the middle to passenger side yet. First up its dirty work and I've got through probably 30 discs and 3 small wire brushes so far and two face masks. If there is so much of a faintest hint of a gap between the factory hard coat protection on the wheel housing panels and the metal expect to find you'll lose around 10 square inches of the coating before it wont part company with the metal again. The surface rust has gone a good 2 inches either side of the failed seal and a good 2 to three inches into the coating layer. I've hit good adhesion coating but I now need to sand back further to make sure its pristine metal underneath. The coating is very hard to sand but also brittle material. In the middle part the factory protection is a softer compound than the rock hard coating in the wheel housing and where that has been later waxoyl applied on top its quite bouncy. There is rusting at the panel seams and I can peel back the waxoyl plus facory protective layer. In places I've peeled off largish sections to expose a small rust edge and large sections of completely bare metal. Whether its the factory coating breaking down or reacting with the waxoyl is unknown but from the areas under the petrol tank that are like new and not touched by waxoyl I'd suspect the application of waxoyl some years ago probably has undermined the factory protection. I'm used to dealing with and keeping on top of rust on old cars having several cars over 40 years old and from what I'm seeing anyone looking to keep their Supra long term, now is about the right time to tackle a major rejuevenation especially on cars that have lived anywhere near the coast with the sea salt air for a decent period of their life; which mine hasn't.

I'd look first to a snapped anti-roll bar (which is a tube) as they can shear at the end of the bush, the side facing out of the car. If the anti roll or sway bar has gone it'll be resting on one of the lower arms and bang as you go along.

Wise move, I think part patch panels will have a market to expecially for the wheel arches and structural floor areas as time ticks on these cars. Do you happen to have the inner inner and outer inner rear wheel housing panels? If not, when you get some free of rust examples in let me know.

Can you post or PM the contact please and I'll see if they can source these parts.

I made enquiries on the availability of the inner and outer rear inner wings (wheel housing) just to put them aside for a future decade and the 4 panels for the left and right are discontinued. Breakers have tended to have shells crushed, maybe there are more body panel parts that should come off them? If people get heavy side swipes they better hope firstly their inner wings aren't too rusted and they also have access to really good panel beaters. It really is getting to the lock up your Supra and hide the keys time.

Maybe that was deliberate to protect the auto box on launch?

Does anyone have a set of left and right (they are the same actually) cooler vents and 12 bolts from the front of the rear inner wings? Toyota describe them as diff cooler vents, I always assumed they were there to cool the brake discs so I learned something yesterday. So if anyone has a pair of vents laying around, probably be from a breaking job, do send me a price. Thanks

Thanks. I don't feel like its really started yet as I haven't started sanding down the underside. It does feel like tinkering so far and the big task is ahead. All the gear in now stationed by the car ready to start so it just needs me to get started. If not this week, then for sure next weekend.

Its probably the cheapest one on eBay. The tube I used is one I use the quick hitch on my digger. Again you get them off eBay seller. Just get yourself the bender and then you have two options. If you go for anodised steel it wont last as long as stainless but its only 1mm wall thickness and then you could probably bend it without any extension assist. If you want to go for the 1.5mm stainless wall tube then you definately will need some extra leverage so measure up the handle of any bending tool you get and buy a tube to sleeve over it. Mine was too big a bore but then it wasn't bought for this particular job. I didn't flare the end with the bubble flare for two reasons. I dont have a flaring tool and it'd need a lot of pressure to flare 1.5mm thick stainless anyway. The hand held ones are only any good for much softer copper. I just ground down the ends on my sanding wheels to take off any rougness. Gave the pipe its clear coat and final fitting today so the tank is back ready to refit. The new pipe does look a lot better than the old one and now vents easily. I think you'll enjoy fixing yours up. The final fitting today did take a bit more fettling on the vice. I couldn't get the pipe to not pop out of one of the three clips till I did a final adjustment. If I had fabricated off a complete original I could have probably avoided all the fine tuning.

Making a replacement without a complete original requires the tank off the car as the only option then available is to use the clip positions on the tank as the guide instead. I'm hoping my tank will soon be back on the car and I don't have a complete original to use as a template as that disintegrated pulling out of the clips. I'll happily knock one out for you but for that to happen you would need to send me your complete breather pipe that can be used as the template and a 1m 8mm tube. That's if you dont want the enjoyment of doing it yourself. I personally like the idea of a bit I made will be running around in the car for as long as the car is running around.

I paid £500 for a recently refurbished frame off a low mileage recent import with everything bar a diff, discs, sway bar, rear diff bushes and callipers. It did turn out that none of it was useable but that gives you a price indication.

The hubs are off and off to my mates for his press to fit the new bearings and handbrake shoes. Yesterday the 1m of 8mm stainless tube arrived and this afternoon the cheap pipe bender came so figured I'd do the tank breather pipe. First up the original and template didn't survive its removal from the tank and broke into two. That was a major hit straight up as I knew that was going to make the rotation angle on one bend impossible to determine accurately. So anyone doing this themselves, do try to get it off in one piece as it'll make your bend rotation angles a lot easier to determine. Never having bent pipes before I first watched . I didn't have a protractor to hand so to determine the bend angle I inserted the original pipe into the bender and rotated until it stopped and read off the handle the angle of bend and then did the same angle on the new pipe. The angle of pipe rotation required was achieved by placing the original alongside the pipe I was fabricating and rotating until I had a vertical on the next bend (effectively rotating until the original had a straight line across the bend) and then marking up the top on the pipe to be bent. Giving the two marks, around the pipe for the length before the bend and along the top of the pipe for direction of the bend. There are 7 bends in total and the cheap bending tool doesn't give enough purchase to bend 1.5mm wall tubing. One handle was braced in a vice attached to a 1/2 ton workbench and the other extended with the help of a 600mm tube that slid over the handle of the bender. Still took some effort but the tool withstood the punishment. I did have a problem with the rotation angle on the bend following the break in the original pipe and got it fully 25 degrees out. Starting from the pump housing end was the saviour to this problem as the final run up of two bends to the filler cap are fairly straight so I could secure the tube in the vice and slip over the pipe I'd used as a bend extension to bend the tube to the correct angle. These are the kind of jobs I get a lot of satisfaction from. So, I'm quite proud of my fabricated breather pipe that only cost £16 which I'd expect would be much less that from Mr T (not that thats an option now) and I get to keep the tool. To finish it off, I'll treat it to a clear coat tomorrow. Another job done.

Had a close look at the rear sway bar today and it has a pronounced conical wear pattern under the bush away from the retainer ring. As the OE bars are actually tubes, it probably wouldn't have lasted much longer and is being replaced anyway. This is another discontinued part with the last few remnants working through the supply chain. So anyone wanting a OE bar needs to grab one while they can. The slightly stiffer but similar design TRD ones are also gone according to sellers with a few still around on US sales sites. Once they are all gone it'll be much stiffer solid track bars or adjustable bars as the replacement option. If I get time, I'll take a picture of the wear pattern and add it to this comment.

That was good timing Mark

Having a full rise lift certainly makes any work under a car a lot easier compared to stands. Mark did say to me when he took his frame off with the car on stands it wasn't that difficult. Maybe he can chip in with how easy/hard it was when he did his black UK and if the rust was more evident and advanced in the area above the frame on that car? That car will have had a slightly longer run on UK roads than my car has. I recall he said the underside was just surface rust and cleaned up lovely so it does look like Supras hold up well regardless. The only thing for people to consider is how long would it take for surface rust to become established rust? I feel I'm fortunately catching it early, which is the time you'd want to tackle it. Done right with light use and dry only driving it shouldn't need looking at again in my lifetime.

The sub frame off isn't a massive job. Its only 13 bolts, 2 cables and 2 leads and its off. The sub frame rust is prominent on the top of the frame and the floor of the car is rusted at that same area where the frame sits so it must be an area of weak protection, there is no sign of any factory applied over paint protection in that area like there is in the wheel arches. Frame off gives a unrestricted waist high opportunity to look things over, on the frame that came off the rear diff mount bushes feel very spongy. That could lead to transmission hop. Frame off also makes it easy to change all the old bolts for new (while you still can), lots of the 21 year old bolts were giving way on the teardown especially so with the 8 small high torque bolts on the rear cushion mounts. My car should represent worst case jspec as it has been on UK roads since 1998. Having said that the caveat would be its been a fastidiously maintained never wanted for anything worst case.

Just taking stock of the sanding and paint prep work ahead today and the areas you would normally see are all in great shape, such as the wheel arches. Its where the sub frame sits where the rust really gets a hold and that's an area you would never normally get to see. I've attached three pictures that show the difference of the wheel arches which are near perfect to the frame front mount towers that has very minor surface rust to the worst area above the frame that actually has penetrative rust in parts. Its nothing serious and nothing a wire brush and sanding wont sort out. It is though the kind of rust that I could imagine if left unchecked would eventually rot out. I have had all the covers off the front to rear fuel and brake lines and I'm having second thoughts about fitting the new set of pipes as those on the car are in perfect condition apart from a 7cm length on the three fuel lines (brake lines are copper) between the exit from the under car cover and the front of the subframe. I'll sand them and have a close look to see if there is any pitting as it only looks to be very minor surface rust. If they are good I will just keep the new ones for some other time. If my car is representative of what happens rust wise underneath a Supra anyone considering restorative work does need to do so with the sub frame off the car.