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Samwise

Bringing an 86 back from the dead

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33 minutes ago, Luke said:

Where do you order your brake shoe pins and oem specific bolts from? I'm guessing it's not a Toyota dealer. 

Dealers can get the pins (dirt cheap), but my local didn't have them in stock. As for getting them right now... good luck.

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Yeah the brake pin shoes are a fairly simple and common part. Incredibly cheap too but people like to charge you big for the P&P.

I would have ordered them from toyota here:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Genuine-Toyota-GT86-Rear-Parking-Brake-Shoe-Securing-Pin-SU00300651/323871449781

but they're currently closed so I had to pay over the odds to get them from Germany, just a generic spare car parts store.

 

As for the OEM specific bolts? I assume you might mean the wheel studs. Wheel stud upgrades are fairly common, Nissan and Subaru often use M12x1.25 and come in a variey of kits from Megan racing, ARP, etc but I bought mine from Merlin Mottorsports as I didn't quite want to go for 75mm studs that come in alot of kits and it turned out much cheaper.

I picked them up here: https://www.merlinmotorsport.co.uk/p/m12-x-1-25-wheel-stud-63mm-long-ss41

It's just one of those things where in the long run i imagine it is safer to have a longer and stronger stud to grip on to but also the OEM studs are really short, even shorter than the OEM studs on my old subaru so if you were to run any larger than a 3-5mm spacer that didn't have it's own studs built in to it you'd be seriously riding a thin line of safety. Seeing as I had the car all apart I figured i'd pop them in. The fronts are really easy to do just a bit of effort but the rears.. having done it twice now, once myself and once by a garage removing my hubs (on the subaru) i'd definitely just say its worth the cost for the mechanic to do it if they're doing a few other bits on your car as well.

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Ah I see, so toyota oem parts are for sale on an ebay store. That's good to know. Did the pin snap because the handbrake was on when you pulled the disc off? I changed my rear discs and pads a while back and luckily didn't suffer this problem. Wish I'd known about the caliper bolts being the right size to pry the disc off. I was clouting it with a mallet for quite some time before it came loose. 

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14 hours ago, Luke said:

Ah I see, so toyota oem parts are for sale on an ebay store. That's good to know. Did the pin snap because the handbrake was on when you pulled the disc off? I changed my rear discs and pads a while back and luckily didn't suffer this problem. Wish I'd known about the caliper bolts being the right size to pry the disc off. I was clouting it with a mallet for quite some time before it came loose. 

Handbrake definitely wasn't on as I had that issue in the past on my Subaru so didn't want to make the same mistake twice.

I think as the disk was lifting off in an un-even way it gripped one of the handbrake shoes and just snapped the pin

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Another update and a very exciting one. Fitting and talking about the Work Meister M1 Wheels!


So happy with how they turned out and how they fit/look. Looking quite aggressive at the moment thanks to all that wheel poke which should be resolved with some cutting, drilling and fitting of my Rocket bunny kit which I can't wait to get started on now!
Check out the below link to see how they came out!




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp8F_8LKK8U




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It has begun!
This week I've started installing the Rocket Bunny v2 kit!
 
Starting off with the easiest bit I chose to go for the front bumper first which had it's own set of challenges involved. The easy bits was clearing a few bits away behind the bumper, including the bumper/wing brackets, headlight washers, polystyrene thing over the crash support as well as spraying the crash support matte black however I was then wrestling with the bumper trying to get it on thanks to the headlight surrounds.
After coming to the conclusion to ditch them for the time being and potentially shave down, revise and re-fit them at a later date the bumper went on incredibly easy, a few bolts and clips later and it was installed!
 
P.S - For anyone that was wondering "So how filthy was your air filter considering it's been totally stuck behind your front bumper for almost 2 years with no access to it?" surprisingly it was totally clean and clear for the most part, I was expecting it to be much dirtier but was quite surprised myself.
 
Next i'll be moving on to the front arches but for now i've got the bumper saga online on my youtube channel:
 
 
 
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As you can tell it's been full steam ahead on the 86 with the recent goings on and i've managed to get another big step finished at the end of last week just before my birthday - Making the first big cuts on the car and installing the front Arches!
 
 
It was a big step to get at the car with the angry tools but it went by so quickly and came out quite well. You'll see from the video and pictures just how much I decided to cut away but what isn't quite shown is how many times I went back to tidy up the cuts.
So far i'm just going around the car to get the initial cuts sorted, rust proofed and the arches fitted with the supplied self tapping screws (yes, really!) before i eventually go around the whole car once again for a second revision pass where i'll remove the panels, clean up any rough cuts, better rust-proof the affected areas with a proper sanding back, primer and underseal as well as shaving down any high spots on the Rocket bunny panels that can lead to a nicer smoother fit and finish on the kit overall when they're resolved and of course drill out the holes made by the screws using them as guides for my Rubber Well-nuts and bolts!
 
Below is the latest youtube video showing off the whole process:
 
 
And some follow up pictures!
 
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Love the progress on this, I need go catch up on the videos.  Interested in the general fit of the parts, not planning to go rocket bunny myself but its always good to hear if the genuine widebody kits are as good as people make out?  

I know you had that issue with the headlights/bumper gap, would some rubber trim maybe help with that, something that slides over the edge of the bumper and fills the gap.  Im thinking something similar to the door seals in terms of how that fits to the car. 

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48 minutes ago, Tweedbean said:

Love the progress on this, I need go catch up on the videos.  Interested in the general fit of the parts, not planning to go rocket bunny myself but its always good to hear if the genuine widebody kits are as good as people make out?  

I know you had that issue with the headlights/bumper gap, would some rubber trim maybe help with that, something that slides over the edge of the bumper and fills the gap.  Im thinking something similar to the door seals in terms of how that fits to the car. 

I would say the fit is okay but it's definitely not as clean as i'd have liked. I think alot of the value behind these kits is the style, the fact its from japan, etc rather than the quality but I think that goes without saying. Truthfully they're definitely no better than random other glass fibre parts/kits excluding copied parts which they are probably better than.

 

Yeah im definitely going to be doing that under the headlights, at this stage im just fitting the kit so that i know all the parts are on the car and fit correctly. When I go back around the car a second time to smooth out mating surfaces, fit my proper hardware, clearance where needed, etc then i'll address the gap under the headlights :)

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1 hour ago, Adamd said:

There's a YouTuber called 'B is for build' and I remember him saying that he found the fitment and quality to be better on the replica than the genuine Rocket Bunny kit.

His series on the gt86 might be of interest to you.

 

I've followed him for years until recently and in that case it's a bit different as Chris from BIFB has often only fit fake v1 kits to his BRZ's which are considerably easier to fit than the v2/v3 and the only real Rocket bunny kit he's used is the Datsun 240z kit which are known to be bad on the rear arch areas as they were likely modelled off a bent car.

DedicationBlog Content is better for an insight in to tthe 86 as BIFB tends to be more on the bodge-job side of things atleast in his earlier content.

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On 4/29/2020 at 4:09 PM, Samwise said:

I've followed him for years until recently and in that case it's a bit different as Chris from BIFB has often only fit fake v1 kits to his BRZ's which are considerably easier to fit than the v2/v3 and the only real Rocket bunny kit he's used is the Datsun 240z kit which are known to be bad on the rear arch areas as they were likely modelled off a bent car.

DedicationBlog Content is better for an insight in to tthe 86 as BIFB tends to be more on the bodge-job side of things atleast in his earlier content.

Thought you might have seen him already ;)

Yeah, the bodge-job approach got to me in the end and I stopped watching. Still achieved some rather impressive things though.

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So as last week closed out I got the rear arches installed on the car and the big cuts to the rear body of the car made.

I really can't say I did a good job at it, infact i'm still quite regretful. It's no the end of the world that's for sure and everything is nicely covered up by the arch as well as having the inner and outer skin of the arch closed back up with all new nice sheet metal however it's more the size and quality of the cut im regretful over.

Check out the video to see for yourself where I talk about it in more detail as well!
 
 
 
Below are a few pictures of tthe finished product however!
 
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Another week comes to a close alongside another update on the 4k GT86
 
this week i started working on installing... then uninstatlling and modifying the Rocket bunny diffuser on the GT86.
It was really easy to fit after cutting the OEM diffuser however my goal has always been to modify and integrate tthe original "V" Fog light/Reverse light combo rather than install the Rocket bunny supplied reverse light. I started this process by cutting both the OEM diffuser as well as the rocket bunny diffuser to carry out this modification.
 
I'll continue this next week following some messy glass fibre work but for now I also checked out the Liberty walk spoiler for the car. It looks fantastic but there's no obvious way to fit it without simply using 3m Tape/Polyurathene sealent. I want to try and make a plate or bracket to hold it down with a few bolts just incase the tape/sealent were to ever fail.
I talk about all this and alot more in the lates video on my channel:
 
 
 
 
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So this week with the rocket bunny install for the most part "finished" I've been wanting to go back over the car from front to back to refine, re-work and perfect the fit and finish of the kit along with having to go about some other tasks such as re-water proofing the front arches, making clearance for the front wheels and rust proofing the work for that clearance.


I was able to get a tiny bit more negative camber from the front by swapping the camber bolts to the bottom strut mounting hole, this will just ensure that the front suspension can compress properly without pushing against or damaging the rocket bunny arches.

Unfortunately i didn't get to achieve the proper fitment I was after on the front arches which is to have the kit fit fairly flush against the body without having to resort to using the supplied rubber trim as I prefer the look without as I need tot put a bit more time in to it however for now its good to have the arches back on the car with the correct hardware protected from any rust and with the wheels fitting properly.


For the wheel clearance I had to make some relief cuts in a spot welded lip holding the cap at the end of the sill in place, not wanting to go wild and cut it all away I decided to just hammer it back, seal it up where needed and give it a thick healthy dosage of underseal, hopefully it won't be rusting any time soon!
Likewise one problem with cutting the OEM arches is not being able to re-fit the original arch liners however the most important area is the large window leading in to the engine bay, i was able to cut and reuse this section of the arch liners to stop any water, leaves, mud, etc from flinging in to the engine bay and will continue to make additional arch liner sections to add to this however i'll have to keep the wheel travel in mind when thinking about this.


Check out the video below!
 


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So the end of last week I started tidying up the rear end but more importantly preparing the car to drive over a friend's workshop to get welded up. With that in mind I had to briefly tidy up the rear arches, temporarily re-fit the rear diffuser (for the light) as well as fit new number plates and work on making some card templates to make our job of cutting sheet metal to weld in that much easier!


The whole thing can be seen in the latest youtube video here:

 
 
So starting off with something totally different - the rear wing!
I initially had the thought of cutting some steel plates, having a nut welded on to the back of them and then bonding them to the inside of the wing but that would just mean more work for us on the weekend while I had a chunk of what must be 8mm thick Aluminium lieing around. I decided to make some small plates, drill and tap them and use that as the brackets to hold the wing down on the car, eventhough its Ali the glass fibre of the wing will likely crack and break before the threads pull out of the soft Ali and i don't really see either happening any time soon so I ofcourse started off by making some cardboard templates.
They were able to slide easily inside the wing with a decent enough area over the inside lip of the wing to hold the weight of it with nothing but the cardboard, and in the position you see the dots on the full length section of the wing line up perfectly with the OEM wing holes in the boot, result!
So with that done I cut them out of the Aluminium, drilled and Tapped but... my only tube of tiger seal was a tube of grey jelly instead, so it'll have to wait until I can get the new lot in the post.


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So moving on from there to a brief update on the diffuser, so following the recent hackery of the rocket bunny unit i was able to roughly glue in and then lay some glass fibre over the "V" light section in to the rocket bunny diffuser, i'm quite pleased with how it's turned out so far as it is in the exact position and angle i envisioned and now just needs to be assaulted with a vulgar amount of filler and sanding.

I also fit the light back in to it and fit it on to the car, just so when i drive it I would have all the required reverse/fog lights, etc.
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And finally moving on from there once more I started making the templates for the sheet metal to be cut and welded in on the rear arches. Quite a simple process really which I had a few small tricks for which I show in the video but I was able to make 5 small templates for each side which gives us some fairly simply and easy to handle cuts of metal. I'll be going more in to the welding/sealing process in my next video and update but here you can see the pretty simply little templates I made. After doing this process on both sides I... made some clingfilm seal to close up the arches.. just so i could drive the car without any junk and rubbish flying in to the inner arches... hey if it works it's not a dumb idea right?


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So last weekend was a big one. The car was back on the ground, aligned, driven on the road and it had the rear arches welded closed. After that I fit the Liberty walk rear wing and with this the Body kit is essentially "finished" on the car. The Next steps will be bodywork and a wrap!
 
The full video can be checked out below and i'd also just like to thank anyone that's taken the time to watch my videos so far as well as subscribe as I hit the 100 subscriber mark this weekend which i'm quite chuffed about! :D


but let me go in to more details..


So i started off by fitting a new set of rear-trailing arms after getting a refund from Driftworks as I was a bit of an unlucky sod in their their units didn't fit so I went with some from SPL which are a fantastic bit of kit and very easy to fit however they allowed me to centre up the wheel in the rear arch and using the good old string method I was able to align the car as I was quite worried about my toe being out on the rear which I found out it was and was able to zero it out a bit more. This was just because i didn't want to totally shred my tyres to pieces when driving around.


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Once this was done I was able to drive the car home for the first time, what a great feeling! I missed the sound, the low seating position and surprisingly it didn't feel incredibly wide on the road, it was easy to drive it with confidence and felt nimble and agile. The tyres were grippy and the front steering was a tiny bit heavier but that may just be down to being quite used to my daily driver. The new brakes feel great and the car stops on a dime, theres no darting either side and it feels just like OEM only.. better!


I pulled it in to the drive way and couldn't help getting a load of pictures from all angles to mark the occasion, it looked fantastic in thes un as well even if it was covered in dust all over.


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The next morning it was up bright and early, something i've not done in a while to get over to my friend's workshop to get the rear arches welded up. My Friend has been running their own fabrication and custom furniture business for the last couple of years now originally picking up welding as a hobby to work on their own car and eventually growing it as a skill and passion in to their own side business.
I started off by cutting the 1.5mm sheet metal to shape using the templates I had made previously and this saved alot of time in any guess work with the shaping of the metal. Once that was done it was able to be fairly easily zapped in using with Mig welding. Choosing to go for Mig over Tig as I believe (in my very limited knowledge) that it's far easier to control the heat with mig and therefore there's less risk to the thin sheet metal of warping or burning through it.
So with my fabricator (haha) hat on again I got to work as their assistant for the day with cutting and prepping the panels with primer!


The results were fantastic! it came out really well and we were able to get both sides finished in a single day. After Zapping in the sheet metal we tidied up and ground back the welds before applying weld through primer, seam sealer and a healthy coat of brush-on Underseal, hopefully the work we've done won't be rusting any time soon!



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I left it at their workshop overnight to let the underseal dry somewhat rather than get loads of roadgrime stuck in it and once again it drove beautifully, got plenty of looks and attention even in its Red/black ladybug form tango_face_wink.png


And at the beginning of this week I finished up the saga by installing the rear liberty walk wing.
Much like the rest of the kit there's plenty of bodywork to be done but with the aliminium plates tiger sealed in to the ducktail and extensions I was able to bolt down the wing which should be plenty to keep it on the car! but i'll still give it some back up in the form of a sealer once it's all said and done.




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So with the Rocket Bunny kit now officially installed I'ved moved on to prepping the car for its wrap.


I've chosen to go with a wrap over paint for a few reasons, the first being cost of course, the next being that i'd like to change the colour of the car (still staying somewhat red) as the original red on the car is very flat and if the rocket bunny panels were matched to it I feel the new curves of the body would be lost in the flatness of the OEM colour and finally if I were to do paint i'd like to go the whole 9 yards and spray the whole car inside & out including engine bay doors, etc.


So with all that in mind I've decided to go for a wrap which i've been in talks with a company down in Southampton called Monsterwraps which appear to do some very good work as well as get great reviews. Not wanting to skimp out on the fitting of the wrap ofcourse or do it myself i'd rather pay a sensible price to get a good job done. However as I mentioned i've been in talks with them to confirm how they would tackle the kit, the Wellnut holes and what prep work I can do to speed up the process as of course the car is far from factory fresh.


With that said the car is now booked in to have the wrap installed the week commencing the 15h of June giving me just over a couple of weeks to get it prepped and ready to go!


Check out the first video related to it below where I talk about the proceses as well as my choice in Colour.


https://youtu.be/fhDIo2cXzVo



As far as colour choice goes i've shared it with a few people but i've not been keeping it much of a secret or such. I wanted to stay close to red and have a nice deep gloss to it which lead me to find KPMF Black Red Iridescent
I think this will look amazing on the car and I can't wait to see it completed!


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2 hours ago, Lauren said:

Wow good work and a fab choice on the colour. Love those SPL rear lower arms, I have those too. Can't wait to see how this turns out. :)

Yeah fantastic bit of kit! Wouldn't mind swapping the other arms out for their gear as well if I had the funds but what i've got now will do to allow me to sort out the toe and dial out the negative camber in the rear.

I'd really love SPL's front lower arms to play around with camber and caster adjustment with them but that's a big spend

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Over the recent weekend I was able to have a few friends over to the workshop and over the course of a single very sunny Sunday the whole Rocket bunny kit is now prepped for its wrap.


I'm quite lucky that a couple of my friends have wrapped parts of their cars before and one of them even works in the bodywork department at BMW (We gave him the whole front bumper to do!) so I knew they'd do a good job alongisde me!


We started off by keying up the panels with some 320 grit and getting rid of any motting/orange peel in the FRP as well as any extra blobs of material that were stuck to the surface, followed by a couple of healthy coats of grey high build primer. Once it was dry and ready to sand we applied any filler or knifing putty in areas that needed it, there were a couple of cracks and some scratches or air bubbles that had to be filled and finally all the panels were finished to a wet 800 grit finish which should be plenty for the wrap to adhere to nicely and no inperfections to speak of!


The video for it can be found here:

 

 
 
We all really liked how the front bumper turned out in its sanded back primer look ironically, it sort of looked like a comic book sketch or some kind of video game (If anyone's played Borderlands you'll know exactly what i mean!)
But in just under 2 weeks the car will be off to Monster Wraps in Southhampton to have the wrap applied and I can't wait! I've got some small jobs to get done before then and I need to continue work on the diffuser so that it's ready by the time the car is complete.


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Really good choice of colour Sam . I love Red. If you get a chance, have a look at 3M Satin Smouldering Red. It has a nice Matt finish. 

In terms of costs, how much are Monster charging you? and are they doing door shuts to keep the nice look flowing? 

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