Rusty Justy

[Paul Baldwin]

Hi.

I've been helping a mate out with his girlfriends project car just lately. I've always been a fan of the old school scoobys as my parents had 3 of the old boxy estates back in the day including an 1800 turbo! Sadly there are very few surviving as although they were mechanically bulletproof after a few years the bodywork would look like it had actually been shot at with something large calibre!
I've not ever done any repairs on bodywork, just bits of fabbing really and over the last couple of years a few bits on zx_volcanes bolt on engine bits to make it breathe a bit better. It was a bit to take on and really is not a pleasant job. The cheap under-seal on this particular car is really nasty and the fumes make you feel physically sick. Working on it in a shed that's barely weather-proof with no heating in December isn't much fun either, especially as I had to lie on the floor for hours as I didn't have the luxury of a ramp. The weld burns don't make up for the lack of heat sadly, no wonder nobody wants to do this sort of work anymore lol.

Anyway, here's some photos of what the previous owner left me with. It turns out the car was properly clagged at some point i its history. It was more sculpting with filler than a bodywork repair the rot was just covered over and left to carry on doing its thing. The second owner started to cut into it with the intentions of repairing it but soon threw the towel in. In places I wish he hadn't touched it because I had no reference of what to build back to.

Here's a photo taken by the previous owner before all the filler  was hacked off it.



and some of how I first saw it!











The better of the two rear seat belt anchors



The other one lol





Thankfully the car came with 2 rear wing panels. They were however spurious parts and left a lot to be desired. No other panels are now available for these cars, not even the sills so all the bits to go back in had to be made from scratch.
That's not all the holes btw. I forgot to take photos of some of it.

[7057sam]

Wow that's a lot of rust

Hope he didn't pay to much for it.

[THE_Liam]

Saw this on RR, cool little car.

[Paul Baldwin]

To be honest the photos don't do it justice, they were taken before I hacked at it. However, the tin worm has now been removed :-) I couldn't quite believe how thin it was in places, That being said it had a service history I had never seen before. Hand written, individual mechanics named, no expense spared, it would have been too much of a shame to just scrap it :-)

[Eeyore]

Im still confused as to what car this actually is?

[Midnightclub]

A subaru justy

[THE_Liam]

Im still confused as to what car this actually is?

As Danny says, Subaru Justy. 1.2 3-pot with 4 wheel drive, mental little things. Later ones share a shell with the Suzuki Swift.

[Eeyore]

Im still confused as to what car this actually is?

As Danny says, Subaru Justy. 1.2 3-pot with 4 wheel drive, mental little things. Later ones share a shell with the Suzuki Swift.

Oh wow that explains that. Didnt realise there was such a thing! Sounds like a lot of fun anyway!

[nominous]

http://www.dustysjustys.com/performance.htm

The Subaru EF12 engines are equipped with 66HP or 73HP, not impressive even for 1987. Most people would think 'oh, three cylinder... um... no.' However, the EF12 in stock EFI form offered one horsepower per cubic inch, something that only the Turbo Subaru engines could achieve at the time and something that Detroit had long forgotten. The EF10 and EF12 are built rock solid, tougher than most four cylinders. They have an iron block, SOHC 9 valve aluminum cylinder head, and a forged crankshaft from the factory. The connecting rods feature full bolts with locknuts and a full-floating piston design. A chain-driven counterbalance shaft helps the inline three cylinder (nicknamed thumper) run as smooth as an inline four or six. They are fully capable of double the power by simply adding a turbo, and three times more with internal upgrades.

Some fun to be had there

[Paul Baldwin]

They certainly are fun. Pretty capable off road as they weigh sweet FA. They achieve this by being made of tin-foil however! Not helped by the fact I only had access to a welder with 0.8 mm wire. I went a bit mad on the spec too if I'm honest. I used 2mm steel on the main patches. A twat to do but I figured if any of the bits between the patches rot out in future at least there will be something to join to.  

Each bit of rot was cut back to good metal



This gives you an idea of just how thin these things are in places as the steel has been stretched and formed when the part was made



I then shaped each piece so it was a good fit and welded the new bit in :-)



I chose not to grind off the welds as it's not a show car and the original car is so thin I didn't want to make it thinner with a 40 grit linishing disk





It turned out some of the rear chassis section had had it to so I had to cut away stuff just to get at it and then replace it after.





Not very pretty I must admit but it's got a bit more metal in it than it did have :-)

After that it was on to the more challenging bits

[silverzx]

Looks like some solid welding to me!

[Piggy]

Every winter i trawl ebay etc for one of these...getting rare now. I would love one!

[Paul Baldwin]

Wow that's a lot of rust

Hope he didn't pay to much for it.

Looks like some solid welding to me!

Solid, just not pretty!

Every winter i trawl ebay etc for one of these...getting rare now. I would love one!

Why would you look for one in the winter? Surely buying one in the summer would make far more sense?

Normally with any job I'd attempt to do the hardest bit first but due to a severe lack of space and having an attack of can't be arsed, I had a go with the grinder on the drivers side rear wing.





The return edge on the inner arch was screwed so replaced that completely with a strip. I had a metre square of 0.9mm zintec to play with at this point, it's just a little bit easier to fashion than the 2mm :-) There's a sort of end cap on the sill on these things. That too had to be replaced. The previous owner had removed this but had thankfully stowed what little remained of it in the glovebox so I had something to copy, sort of.

After cutting the new panel down a bit and drilling it for spot welding it was time to get it back to looking something like.



It did warp the area above the new panel a little bit which pissed me off. That's even after trying to balance them out all over it so the heat wasn't too concentrated in one spot. You wouldn't believe how many spots were needed!




Then it was over to the worst side. At least I could only see the floor at one place in the car now tho

[procta]

I tell you what I wouldn't like to see how much that would have cost, if that went to into a garage! for 4 parts on the floor pan, inner arch, outer sill and shock mounts, I am looking at £450!

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there cannot be many left at all on the roads.

[andyyy]

Didnt even know these existed , awsome car good work saving it!

[zx_volcane]

I tell you what I wouldn't like to see how much that would have cost, if that went to into a garage! for 4 parts on the floor pan, inner arch, outer sill and shock mounts, I am looking at £450!

Paul has bust a nut on this bloody justy. Doubt a garage would have touched it for the amount of work that needed doing on it, you'd be in 4 figures no probs.

Epic little machine though, and the paperwork with it is borderline anal so worth keeping and putting right.

Gonna have to put you to use on the underneath on my zx, which has had a number of jacking / axle stand issues Maybe wait until the weather is a it brighter though ...

[Paul Baldwin]

I tell you what I wouldn't like to see how much that would have cost, if that went to into a garage!  for 4 parts on the floor pan, inner arch, outer sill and shock mounts, I am looking at £450!

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there cannot be many left at all on the roads.

Not many at all I shouldn't think, this is the 1.2 manual. The ECVT version was something a bit different too! http://www.dustysjustys.com/ecvt.htm Did you get a garage to price the work on your car?

Didnt even know these existed , awsome car good work saving it!

That makes me feel so old.   lol.

Tom, sure something can be done to shore it up where it needs it

[Paul Baldwin]

So, after I had turned the car around and re-jacked it I could now get access to the other side. I got it up as high as I could with the stands and space I had available.
It turned out half the outer sill and the inner sill on the passenger side was toast as well as the outer and inner rear wing. Thankfully the rest of the outer and inner sill were in remarkably good condition. As I didn't have access to a sheet metal bender and the fact that you couldn't buy new sills I decided to just replace what needed doing.



Let dog see rabbit as some of the old uns say round here.



As you can see from the photo above that left me with a bit of a problem. The inner arch lip was totally missing I had no reference points to work to whatsoever and had a real WTF do I do now session. I simply couldn't get access to replace the missing metal with the new rear wing back in situ, especially as you can't even buy a panel to cut up and use.

Without guessing or taking the wing on and off a hundred times to check progress I decided on another plan of action. I cut another long strip the same width as the return, laid the wing on the bench and cut the strip to allow me to get the curve and contour I needed. I then very carefully welded each cut while the strip was clamped to the panel without fixing the two together.




Then I fitted the new wing temporarily with the strip in place and reached for the set of magnetic sky hooks (I so wish). What I did have handy were some old galv nails. So again I carefully welded the strip without fixing it to the wing so it could then be removed.



That of course gave me my reference and meant I could chop out the bad and replace it with good. Of course I couldn't get too carried away with it as I didn't want to disturb it with too much heat and have the wing not fit! The curve is a twat to cut tbh but I ended up with this



Then after fixing the crease on the poxy spurious body panel and drilling it I could set about getting it on the car.





That should last a fair old while to be fair as the zintec is good stuff by all accounts and I sprayed everything liberally with a zinc rich primer too.

[procta]

yeah I did, one of the lads who is repairing mine, works for the coach works as a welder, but him and my cousins other half do a business on the side. So they have under cut the garage I would have took it to by well over a 1000!
I have had to get hold of the panels too so that they can repair the car. Mad thing was I just reshelled the bastard and this shell fails on the same things that I binned the old one on!

[Paul Baldwin]

That's quite a saving :-) At least you have a chance of finding some panels for your car too, even tho I know Met-rots are far from immune from tin worm!
Has it rapidly set in since you bought the car? I would have thought you'd have been over the new donor with a fine tooth comb.

[procta]

That's quite a saving :-) At least you have a chance of finding some panels for your car too, even tho I know Met-rots are far from immune from tin worm!
Has it rapidly set in since you bought the car? I would have thought you'd have been over the new donor with a fine tooth comb.

sadly I never really got the chance to get the carpets up, as we needed the space, so I couldn't really pull the new shell to bits in an extent, like I did with the 1st one.
But from what I was told, and looking at the mot, history. It should have failed the mot last year. So I think it was just given a pass for the sake of it. As when I bought the car, there were mot failures, pedals, the handbrake. ( that didn't even hold the car)
As for the rot setting in, nah it didn't rapidly set in at all, as the lad who welded the floors said that's, been like that for 3 to 4 years tbh. The mot history had put it as advisory back in 2012. So its had a bit of an easy mot tester, in fact a little to easy really.
But Ironed out the mot failures, as was bolt on shite.
sadly panels for these cars now are starting to get very thin on the ground. So I have snapped up what I can now for the other side, if it goes.

got to say you have been lucky getting panels for this, if they are rare!  But then again it could be one of them cars, plenty of spares, but not the cars.

 

[Paul Baldwin]

Mm, sounds like a "friendly" mot tester was involved like you say. Bit of a bugger but at least it hasn't been clagged and bodged like this Justy. Avoid cheap underseal is all I can say, it's a false economy. Saying that I'm not much a fan of waxoyl etc either unless it's the clear stuff. I reckon old engine oil and diesel mix is the way to go.

From what I can tell the rear wings are pretty much the only available panel left for these. I searched and searched for sills. Rang a few places that specialise in scoobys and a couple of places my mate in the trade recommended. I asked on the justy forum and even contacted someone at a company in europe that stocks the rear wings. Anything other than those was a resounding no.

[procta]

a farmer of a camp site we stayed at said you cannot beat old engine oil and diesel as a rust proof!
My mot tester said this one has had a bit of a makeup job, but its not been recent at all. as it has had replacement arches like what you have done.
I am going to stone chip rather than underseal and hammerite, as that shite does f*ck all! I have heard waxoyl can cause more harm that good too.

mad thing is, for my car, I have had to go over to the Netherlands to get bits for this! as rimmor bros don't do the bits anymore, In fact they are a waste of f*cking time! They do f*ck all for the landrover, and they have the cheek to say they a good supporter of landrover and mgrover!
Can you get some of the panels second hand? as I was offered a few panels second hand from the Netherlands dealer

[Paul Baldwin]

Farmers know what they are on about. The only thing they do to keep the tin-work tidy on the old show tractors I know of is an oily rag. yYes it dulls the paint but so what if it's underneath a car. Even rusty old tractors have decent metalwork around the fuel filler neck and tank when people aren't careful filling them up. Diesel is so thin it seeps in to the joins when under-seal just sits on top.
Sounds like a good excuse for going abroad that. You'll have to stockpile as many bits as you can by the sounds of it! Sadly I couldn't find anything anywhere for the baby scooby.

[procta]

sadly paul, it could be one of them cars, that just didn't clock on quick enough of they did but the internet wasn't about. Might be worth looking to see what its related to, for spares wise.

[Paul Baldwin]

Mechanically I don't think bits are so bad, just panels are. Doesn't matter now anyway as I made the bits I needed for the sills and floor :-)

[procta]

Mechanically I don't think bits are so bad, just panels are. Doesn't matter now anyway as I made the bits I needed for the sills and floor :-)

i think that's the way its going to go with mine sadly, the lad had to use a arch panel to make the inner and out arch.
you cannot beat metal work can you, something i would really love to have a go at!

[Poodle]

Great little cars these, nice to see someone doing something other than running it into the ground. The rot tends to mean people scrap them come mot time, did one at work last year, shame really.

[Paul Baldwin]

It is a shame, they make a lot of sense in the right circumstances. Not as good on fuel as your modern equivalent but they are cheap to tax, classic insurance available, reliable and good in slippery condition and even off road as long you don't need to cover terrain that needs too much ground clearance. I love the way that 4x4 is engaged instantly at the push of a button on top of the gear knob. As soon as it starts to spin the button is immediately to hand.
Scooby's were fully loaded with toys when they first came over here. We had a 1986 turbo auto estate, it had self levelling suspension, an option to raise the ride height for off road that lowered itself back down automatically once you hit a certain road speed, automatic 4x4 that cut it when it sensed wheel-spin, 4x4 that engaged when you turned the wipers on, all round leccy windows, headlamp washers, etc, etc and a 1.8 turbo that went like heck at the time and sounded great when you gave the boxer some stick Years ahead of the competition in many respects but they certainly didn't take rad salt in the UK into account when they built them
The manual estates made awesome tow cars too, they would pull silly weights in first gear in low box if you needed them to. Even they had a hill start function. Clutch down up a hill, apply the brake, then lift your foot off the brake and it would stay exactly where it was. Simply give it a bit of throttle raise the clutch and off to go. I could never understand why this wasn't fitted to every car?

[procta]

all those toys now are probably fitted to the new range rover thing.