Christa was careful to seal all of the seams and going over them a second time looking for gaps after the first pass dried.
The sealed seams are ugly, but Christa’s job is much neater than the original seam sealer.
Next, Zach welded in T3’s subframe connectors. The stock front and rear subframes end at the car’s floor, and T3 makes a part that connects them on the inside of the car.
Here is the subframe connector welded in place. Now there is one continuous rail from the front to the back of the car. Now the chassis is much stronger in the formerly weak middle floor. The T3 part does not interfere with the seat brackets.
Finally, Zach welded in T3’s lower trailing arm mount gusset. This ties the trailing arm mount to the lower frame rail, reinforcing this critical but weak part of the chassis.
Our repaired unibody is much stronger than stock, and we eliminated all visible structural rust. Being an old car, every AE86 we looked at had this much or even worse rust. With extensive front and rear welds and reinforcement, our car is going to be much stronger and stiffer than ever before.
However, an 80’s car is like a beer can, and for a modern suspension to work well and for safety, we are going to install a roll cage by cagekits.com to bring the chassis stiffness closer to that of a modern car. One reason was the dismaying cost of restoring and making the car’s semi-stripped interior complete. AE86 interior parts are like gold nowadays, and a racecar-style interior is much cheaper than making it a street car!
Souces
ZSM Custom
T3- Techno Toy Tuning
