Frustration during renovation, but some good update now

This has been the theme for the last 2 days during dismantling of my GTO for respray… Joe was not kidding when he said, that our cars suffer in the damp cold northern european weather… Bolts have been constantly breaking on rear and front bumper, and the side skirts aswell as those holding the plastic wheel arches in…
What a proper nightmare :face_vomiting::face_vomiting::face_vomiting: So now I just gotta take out my drill and set many days of for fixing this… Wish there was some way of preventing them to rust as bad when I assemble it all again

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Yup. Happen to me also. When you put fresh fasteners apply a little drop of white lithium grease. It will help prevent them from corroding.

We’re in the same boat bud :slight_smile: going thru the same right now. What I’ve found helpful, if you have acceess to an impact wrench, is to give it a bit of a nudge with it and then slowly with a normal wrench going back and forth and adding a lot of WD40 to work its way out.

Drillind out can be a bit tricky as well. Rarely you can center your drill properly, chances are you’ll get a part of the nut’s thread drilled too. Might be Ok in some cases if not too much, but might be disasterous. My way is to use a small round file. Drill the hole in the bolt about the diameter of the file and then file the rest of the bolt away and give it a good thread taping to clean the nut’s threads up. Bolts are made of mild steel so filing them is fairly quick and it warrants the nut staying intact.

If the nut’s thread is too damaged (found a few from the previous owner) - helicoils work magic.

Just my approach…

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I use a 1mm bit first as it’s easier to centre then a bit the same size as the bolt, works great every time. Use a cordless drill ,its easier to control.

Worst case if you drill through the nut thread, you can always use a longer bolt and add another nut on that will hold. As long as you have space on top this should be an easier fix as you don’t need to fiddle with every hole you have to drill. I have same issue on my 95 VR4.

So a small update… After figthing rusty bolts and a very damaged front Aero tray I got the first part of repairs done today… Here are a few pics of the state of the metal, and I decided to make it all new, but it is done in stainless steel so there wont be any headache over rust in the lover front anymore

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Nice job there Johan !!!

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Wow! That’s really impressive, if you do a small batch to sell bet they’ll fly as icecream in a hot day!

Was scratching my head the other day what to don with mine ones and decided to restore, a bit eaten by the rust bug but should hold for a few more years.
image image image image

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Thank you very much :slight_smile: I have not put mine togeather yet, but if it all goes good bakc togeather again, then it could be an alternative to do a few… These parts are really hard to get hold of now, and by having them in stainless steel, then the rust issue should not be a problem later on

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I had a brilliant day today doing the last dismantle of the car before they start sanding and doing their job, so I thought I would take some pictures because I am amazed of how little rust there actually is on the car considering it is 30 years old… And as the icing on the cake is the fact that I got my front aero working again today by cleaning the motor and the rod that makes it go up and down, so I am a truly happy camper today.

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This is the only rust area I have which came from a little dent I got when somebody decided they wanted to kiss the side of my GTO

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It is very good :+1:t2:

Does anyone know where to buy the exhaust system? My car was in an accident and I need to replace from the catalytic converter back.

I also need the front and rear bumpers, the headlights, the rf turn signal assy., and rear license plate bracket and lights.

I think I can get the bumpers painted for around $300.00

Rear license plate bracket is obsolete !