DV-523 Posted May 9 Share Posted May 9 I've been bit. I love these little wagons. Rust killed my first one, so I bought another broken Loyale, and I'm trying to Frankenstein together the best little Loyale I can get. I was too excited to take pictures of the wagon when I first got it home, so the best I've got is this little video My wife made after I pulled it into the driveway. You can see my son and I are already at work dissasembling it... https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6i58VwuP_d/?igsh=cG9rY2IxZmZuMWg5 The car had been wrecked, but the front end on my old one is still in pretty good shape so I figured I'd just swap the body panels over and call it good, But I guess I can't do things the easy way. and now I'm cutting, welding, sanding, and repainting every spot of rust I can find on the thing. Here are some photos of the damage to the fender support and core support. Not terrible, but I will be replacing it. The battery tray has rotten away, so that's coming out as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DV-523 Posted May 9 Author Share Posted May 9 I was really impressed with the condition of the radiator. Only slightly overinflated. I guess a couple cylinders may have taken on part time jobs as compressors since the head gaskets have taken a vacation. Pretty sick balloon anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DV-523 Posted May 9 Author Share Posted May 9 And here we are as it sits tonight. Wiring harness, AC Lines, Cables, Coolant overflow lines, everything has been evacuated from the front drivers side corner. Hope to start cutting tomorrow! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azdave Posted May 9 Share Posted May 9 Other than the battery tray rust, it looks pretty solid. Good luck with the cut! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DV-523 Posted May 9 Author Share Posted May 9 Rain delay today. I'll have to try again tomorrow. Thanks azdave! There is precious little rust on the car which I'm pretty excited about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DV-523 Posted May 13 Author Share Posted May 13 Got to work on it again this weekend. I've finished removing the rust and damaged areas of the car. ready to weld a new corner on. I'll be using the drivers side corner from my previous Loyale since it is miraculously in good enough shape. Here are the photos! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DV-523 Posted May 13 Author Share Posted May 13 And here are the photos of the donor. My old Loyale. Nearly ready to make cuts on it. Just need to remove the hood latch cable and the bumper, wiring harness, and the horn. Also, despite the horrendous frame rust on my old loyale, the body panels are in excellent shape. so as I get a bit farther with the new Loyale, and know what I'm not going to need. I'll likely start parting out what I can. I'd rather see it used than scrapped. At the moment, I'm thinking of hanging on to the engine and trans (I like the idea of having spares), but I don't have a lot of storage space, so we'll see what I wind up doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DV-523 Posted May 28 Author Share Posted May 28 I've got the corner cut off the donor car now. Mocked it up in the new loyale, and I'm pretty happy with fitment. Bolt holes and such are lining up where they need to. Just getting started grinding out the rust around the area and will repaint before I weld it in. I'm thinking I'll put the fender, headlight, and the little strip above the bumper in to line everything up perfect before I tack it in place. We'll see if it works. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azdave Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 Look good so far! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DV-523 Posted September 23 Author Share Posted September 23 It's been a minute since I've got to do much on the Subarus, Work has been absolutely nuts this summer, and now fall. I work in the sports apparel industry, so fall is typically busy for us, but this has been the most busy fall we've ever had. it's good! But it is nice to go home sometimes too. Anyway, Here's the update of the progress I've made over the last few months. I've got the the new battery tray and corner welded onto the car, Sanded, coated with rust converter and primed.(I'll need to get some photos of this) This is the first time I've done any rust repair on a vehicle from the 80's, and I was blown away by how thin the sheet metal is on these cars. It made it pretty difficult to weld back together without blowing a bunch of holes. I wound up having to use the lowest setting on the welder and stitching it together with a bunch of tacs. it's not going to win any beauty contests, but it is on, and can hold my 200lb self, so I think we'll be ok. Then since the head gaskets are blown on the new engine, I decided to pull the engine, and put in the engine from the old car, which I've already done head gaskets on while I rework the new one. While the engine is out, I'm going to take the chance to clean the engine bay and tackle all the surface rust I can find. Hopefully the next update comes a little quicker than this one did! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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