2007 "Red Yaris" RS Restoration

[zoidberg444]

Originally Posted by mitch9521

Salt makes everything metal-wise an absolute nightmare to do on an older car.

Believe me mate - we have rust in spades in England and I have never encountered something that was seized that bad.

Originally Posted by 06YarisRS

What remains to be done:

- passenger side axle boot, or axle replacement. I have a whole axle and may just do that.

- Driver's seat slider assembly

- Stuck hatch lock tumbler

- despite having replaced an ebrake cable, rear brake job and and topping up fluid, I have a brake warning light on. Will have to troubleshoot that. I think the car has ABS, but no ABS light. I was thinking rear wheel ABS sensor plug corrosion, but not sure what the root cause is. I suppose I should check the ebrake switch. Ebrake and braking system function flawlessly with great pedal pressure etc.

- Optional (as they're not that bad), rear axle to frame bushings. I have 2 new ones. I expect that will be a tough job getting them out. I have an air hammer and will attempt to walk them out. I know you bought a bushing remover and I may end up having to do that too.

- Full repaint, though this will not happen this year.

Plugging along slowly, but the car is coming along nicely. It will be pretty nice, solid and reliable when done. A lot of work! I undertook this for a few reasons: 1) it's an RS and 2) I've always wanted to buy a cheap (though good quality car) and tackle such jobs as welding/structural repair, and one that involved more than just simply bolting on parts that obviously needed to be replaced. This car, provided both! 3) everything from the rear axle forward is in pristine condition from a rust perspective. The owner had it rustproofed really well from the axle forward. A true learning experience and one that's honing my 'rebuild skills' to some degree. I would say that a car that needs this many repairs is on the far edge of projects that I'd be willing to take on again, though. Haha.

In regards to rear axle bushes - I replaced them on Betty.



I used the air hammer to fold the lip out and then cut the lip off with the grinder.



That meant I could get my bushing extractor on. It took an enormous amount of force. I actually damaged the M12 forcing screw in the kit. I would suggest adding heat to the metal sleeve with a propane torch. It might help them come out.



Mine weren't in great condition. They were causing a "clunking" from the rear when I was braking. It was quite annoying. My rear shocks were dead as well. Also my rear axle was very rusty so I needle scaled, sand blasted it and painted it with Jotun 87. The amount of rust scale the air hammer and needle scaler chipped off it was shocking. It may well have rusted through somewhere if I hadn't treated it at the rate it was going. Seen as you have to drop the rear axle to do it you might as well clean it up.

As for your brake light being on - I would sometimes get this if I was driving on a wet night when the roads had been salted. Near as I could figure out salt water was getting into and shorting out a connector somewhere because it would go away when the car dried out. The main culprit on mine was one of the rear ABS sensors. So I stuffed the connectors with vaseline to keep the water out and it seemed to cure the problem.