88' Zinno M3 (Progress Thread)

[econti]

Beautiful house and area and also car!

[e30austin]

Seriously. I hadn't looked through this thread or any of the photos in a long time, and going through the thread its been quite the transformation. More than I even remember.

Good to also see some older names (relative to when I joined at least) still on here, hope all is well man.

That's usually how it goes. Really a good looking little car you have.

Thank you - all is fine here, nothing new, just hoarding away. lol

[2mAn]

LMK when you are ready to take more pics ;)

[jhaurimn]

LMK when you are ready to take more pics ;)

Yeah.....about that.....

[jhaurimn]

Well.....been awhile since I had any updates on the car. This one isnt a pleasant one, but we will get it taken care of.

Car had a aftermarket windshield that was installed very poorly. I finally got around (after 5 years of having the windshield) to getting the old one removed and prep for the new one. There was the tiniest spot of rust peeking out from under the rubber seal near the cowl that I was concerned about.... silly me.






In this picture you can see the little spot that I could see initially. Tiny hole next to drain.




Probably the worst of it was up here




As you can see, due to the shit install done likely from the shit bodyshop who did a mediocre respray in the past, we got more rust than expected. And in some unusual spots.

But we cant change the past, and can only move forward. There was only one hole from my iniital inspection that can be welded shut (near drain hole on pass side), and the rest appears to be surface rust. I will be grinding everything down this weekend to get a better idea of what we are dealing with. I think I will be able to get away without having to cut anything out and patch repair it....but I wont know until I get everything down to metal. If all goes well, will get small hole filled, por15, primer, then paint. (will leave strip of primer exposed for the new adhesive to grab onto)

[2mAn]

Hope its not too bad! Glad to see an update after a year!

[jhaurimn]

Hope its not too bad! Glad to see an update after a year!

thanks bud, look forward watching your mr2 build :)

[AWDBOB]

ugh I have this looming in my future- glad to see this thing still getting love

[econti]

With a bit of gentle wire wheel it'll probably turn out to be pretty OK underneath

[jhaurimn]

I didnt waste any time getting to work. After grinding off all the adhesive, I was met with mainly surface rust and nothing more. I have the one spot near the drain hole to weld shut, but everything else was ground down to the point that I feel confident it will not get any worse.

These pictures are after I applied por15 metal prep, which turns the rust darker. So it looks a bit worse in these pictures than it really is.






And after por15 is applied.






I have a buddy with a welder who will help me weld the hole next weekend. So I will grind down that section of por15, weld, reapply por15, then will primer and paint everything before putting the new windshield back on.

[jhaurimn]

Good news, was able to fill the one rust hole in the cowl. Was a bit tricky as the metal is thin.


After the hole was fixed, I re-por15'd the fixed spot and a spot i had to grind off for a ground for the welder


Taking NO chances with overspray lol




Aaaand after. Only one spot with the new paint will end up being visible outside of the windshield gasket (which was the one spot I could see before as well). Will be very hard to notice if you dont know its there. Primer was left exposed as I saw this done with CurrusDei's restoration from a high end body shop. Figured they knew what they were doing, so opted to go that route.






Working on getting the sunroof panel straightened out before the windshield is put in. If this doesnt work, I will try a heat gun.

[e30austin]

good on you for tackling that job. does not look fun.

A

[2mAn]

Im glad it wasnt too bad to address.

Rewarding the diving in method of fixing the problem!

[968Reckless]

hope the original lock strip and gasket are going back in. If you planning on going with new stuff RIP to you lol .

[jhaurimn]

hope the original lock strip and gasket are going back in. If you planning on going with new stuff RIP to you lol .

I have a brand new windshield, and new gaskets. Installer has done m3 windshields before, what issues did you run into?