Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 3 project

[jongsr4]

Hi Guys


Thought I would make a thread for my Lancer Evolution 3 GSR which I am attempting to bring back to its former glory sorry there isn't many pictures just yet but ive only just decided to document it so I'll take a lot more pictures (hopefully much better!) from now on


A bit of background info


I have always had a soft spot for the early Evos as a few years ago when I was at college, a friend of mine (who was 17 at the time!) drove a Lancer Evolution 1 RS, His dad was a rally driver and he had given his old rally car to his son, my first ride in this car absolutely blew me away, completely stripped out, 260bhp, 4WD, around 1100KG in weight, the 0-60 time something like around 4.5 seconds, certainly very special for a 17 year old! especially when the rest of us were driving around in 1.1 Escorts etc! so anyway to cut a long story short, That first drive had led to me having a few Evos over the years but I had always promised myself a early Evo in White, especially as the early Evos also now qualify as classic cars with a few insurance companies now So about 6 months ago I set out to find one.


I looked at Pistonheads/Autotrader/eBay/lancer owners clubs all the time waiting for a good one to come up for sale.......but nothing came up at all....months and months I was looking but it became obvious that finding a good early Evo, non modded, not messed around with silly mods, in good condition, not rotted away was virtually impossible...I am sure they are out there somewhere probably hidden away in peoples garages etc but they very rarely come up for sale


so anyway, at Christmas this one came up for sale for 2k..

I know what you're thinking.....It looks horrific with those gold wheels and Black bonnet but it was advertised as a fresh import and mostly standard (just a HKS style exhaust) so I thought it would be easy enough to source a white bonnet, correct OZ Racing wheels and standard exhaust so I went to go and see it


When I got there it was clear the car needed much more work than I originally expected, the boot was literally swimming in water, it had absolutely no brakes whatsoever (no idea how it got an MOT) and it was utterly filthy, covered in little dents and dings, basically the car had been imported in Jan 2012, the original buyer pulled out and it was left in a car park for nearly a year....but after having a good think about it and realising that a good one just wasn't going to appear I decided to take a chance on this one and get it fixed up myself as even if the worst came to the worst I could break this car for parts and probably make the 2k back


Closer inspection once I got it home revealed a few more horrors


The first thing to work out was why the boot was swimming in water, I hoped it was perhaps just a dodgy rubber seal but on lifting the rubber seal up I found this

What had been happening is that one of the bolts that connect the spoiler to the bootlid had rotted/rusted away, letting water into the sill area which had also rotted away...letting the water into the boot....not good


There were also many other problems/issues, here are just a few of them


rust in the boot because of the leak...after bailing out the 6 inches of water!

faded paint on the door window frames

roof starting to rust

most/all of the black plastic trim on the car completely faded

There is a thick black line of dirt literally around the whole car! door trims, indicators, door handles and best demonstrated here on the rear wing, very difficult to get rid of, t-cut doesn't even touch it

Some strange sort of jap sat nav had been installed on the dash and removed, leaving a very strong sticky foam pad on the dashboard, also the air con/heater unit works...but the display has failed :-( ...look at that lovely plastic lol

The drivers seat bolster has failed, also the alcantara has become extremely shiny

Scuff on rear door

Picture of the petrol filler cap, always a good indicator of how well a car has been looked after....so not very well then!

Engine bay and the 4G63 Engine looking relatively good surprisingly!

Despite these issues, the reason I bought this car is that underneath it is actually very solid indeed, not a hint of rust or corrosion (hard to believe I know!) presumably because although it was left in a car park for a year it was not driven on our salty roads, In fact I have since taken it to RG Motorsports (Evo specialist) who said that it is actually very good underneath and even better than some Evo 8s that he works on! Also the engine is very strong and feels like every one of the standard 270bhp is still there, gearbox is good as well and doesnt crunch in any gear which is a common problem on the early Evos.


so the current plans are..

• Completely de-rust the boot, get a new sill welded in and get it painted and protected

• Attend to various bits of rust on the body, front of the roof etc

• Get engine/gearbox/transfer box all serviced

• Attend to brakes!

• Get it undersealed

• Find correct OZ Racing wheels

• Find white bonnet or spray existing one

• Find and fit standard exhaust

• Replace perished suspension bushes

• Various missing parts on the car need to be sourced, all wheel arch liners are missing, both rear door sills, various nuts and bolts, luckily Mitsubishi still stock a good amount of parts for this model which is surprising as it was never officially imported...good for me anyway

• Massive clean!!

...possible full respray as there are so many little paint issues here and there, but I will get quotes etc before deciding


These pics were all taken a couple of months ago and things have moved on a bit since then so I will get more pics up soon but the end result is hopefully going to look like this!

Will update soon

 

[Stefan.]

:approve:

 

[Robiniho77]

Really love these cars!! A great looking car which is still ageing well.

Will be keeping an eye. Good luck with the project!

Liam.

 

[Chip-mk1]

Fast protons are cool, shame about the amount they rust though!

cool car

 

[Rob]

Please keep this update, thoroughly, really interested to watch this take shape.

 

[ElkWorks]

could be good,

dnt understand how these share chassis parts with the volvo v/s40's when the gearbox is on the otherside ofthe car!

 

[ch!ppen]

A great looking car which is still ageing well.

I swear the majority of this forum is blind...

However, brave man for taking on a project like this. Good luck with it.

 

[Robiniho77]

I swear the majority of this forum is blind...

However, brave man for taking on a project like this. Good luck with it.

depends on your taste!!

 

[Chrisjk]

I do like old lancers, can we be evo buddy's?!

 

[Heez]

This will be awesome. Keep it updated!

 

[jongsr4]

Thanks everyone,


A bit of an update


one of the first things we wanted to tackle was the boot.


Again sorry I havent got great pictures, hopefully I will get better at taking pics!

So as you can see, there are plenty of rust spots here and there...and dirt! but considering the boot was swimming in 6 inches of water it could of been a lot worse




This is the cause of the water ingress, looking a bit better after a clean up but obviously still needing a bit of welding to sort this out

My cousin (AdamF on here) helped out on this, the boot was de-rusted using firstly a wire brush to get rid of all the loose rust,


then a Drill with a rust brush attachment was used to bring the boot right back to the bare metal,


The boot was then zinc primered and painted

Boot looking much better now

Also after looking for around 6 weeks or so, I found a set of the original 15" (Yes 15"!) OZ Alloy wheels for sale in Norfolk


These will be refurbished and fitted with new tyres, quite an unusual size (205x60x15) so I need to a bit of research for which are the best tyres to use

Have also bought new discs and pads all round and new suspension bushes to replace the worn out ones

Also last week the car was sent off to RG Motorsport in kent to be fully undersealed/waxoyled and protected underneath, as ultimately it is usually rust/rot that kills Evos, even the newer ones,


seam sealer was applied to all the joins of panels inside the wheel arches as these are where water creeps up into the engine bay and cause rust on the turrets.


Stonechip was also applied to the whole of the arches for protection.




here are some pics of the undersealing..

Stonechip protected arches..

And completely sealed underneath...

while the car was in, I also had the transfer box oil changed, apparently all that was in there was a load of sludge...filled with metal shavings! so im glad that was changed, same for the gearbox oil


Also the new suspension bushes were fitted, quite surprised how much of an improvement it made actually!




So currently the car looks like this (completely naff) ....still basically the same except now even worse as I have taken the spoiler off, which I had to do in order to get underneath and attend to the rust where the water had been coming in through the spoiler

I feel much happier about it now, knowing that it has got very good protection against any rust


I strangely dont mind driving it around without the spoiler, as its a bit of a sleeper now lol, but dont worry it will be going back on




Im now on the hunt for a good bodyshop who can bring the bodywork back to life

 

[Poopensharten]

Great progress mate!

Those original wheels will look fantastic once they're on!

 

[jongsr4]

Thanks mate, hopefully yeh, they are very small by todays standards being only 15s, but I still think they look quite good, they will be refurbished soon, I'm looking forward to putting them on near the end actually as a nice finishing touch

 

[Poopensharten]

Cheaper tyres is always king!

 

[Andrew_P]

Brilliant, always loved the Evo 3! Yours looks superb. My wife and I had an Evo VI GSR for 2 years, we got it just after we got married, loved every minute of it

 

[Mr R.]

I like this, lots!!!

Well done so far cars going to be nice...

 

[James28]

I think it actually looks quite good without the spoiler lol.
Look forward to updates.

 

[Eddie.]

Good stuff.

Love this kind of restoration. Not old enough to be classed as ancient, yet old enough to warrant some time and love.

will follow this closely

 

[Rob]

Cracking work so far, keep us updated.

 

[Gaz.]

Keep it up fella, should be spot on once you're done.

 

[Naith]

really good thread, keep us updated please mate. will be awesome when done!

 

[Matt26]

I love Evos. I'm sure this will be brilliant once you're done.

 

[Daz.]

Got my eagle eyes on this one!

 

[mantis946]

Love things like this, especially on such a special car. Subscribed.

 

[Marky_]

Cool project

 

[jongsr4]

Right Id better update this one! Ive seen some of the links have gone on the first page too so i'll try and fix those, bare with me

 

[jongsr4]

Next on the list was the interior, It really did smell bad! a combination of years of cigarette smoke, plus the damp where water had been getting into the boot as a result of the rusted sill, and years of just general dirt, I dont think the car had ever been properly cleaned


First thing I thought to clean was the headlining, as the car seemed a bit dark and dingy inside, so I masked off a small section to clean it, just so I could compare with the bit I hadent done...

So....I definitely needed to clean the whole thing!

This made a big difference, the smell was improved quite a bit and it felt much brighter inside the car


Whilst we had all the handles etc off we dropped the headlining and checked underneath for the dreaded roof rust, I feared the worst but im pleased to say I couldnt see anything at all...I will check this from time to time though

 

[Breamy]

What did you clean it with?

 

[jongsr4]

Continuing the theme of cleaning the interior, the carpet needed a really good clean, so the seats were taken out and refurbished....more on this in a minute.

Again I apologise for the poor pictures, my garage is very small so its hard to get far enough away to get a good shot if that makes sense

so..The carpet was removed....

taken into the garden and jet washed!

And then left to dry in the sun, much much cleaner

 

[jongsr4]

What did you clean it with?

I think it was Autoglym Interior shampoo, it certainly did the job anyway

 

[jongsr4]

Ok so the seats were in a terrible condition, which was a real shame because they are fantastic seats, same as in many other cars, I think type R Hondas and some E30 M3s used these seats amongst many others, but yes mine were in an absolute state, bolsters had completely collapsed on both sides and the alcantara was so shiny you could slip off the seats almost going round corners!

Again sorry for poor pictures....this will get better!

this was the drivers side bolster

So I bought some of this stuff....which was excellent

And got to work with cleaning the alcantara, I was soon able to see the proper texture again and the nice original alcantara started to come through

this took a surprisingly long time, but to cut a long story short I was left with near enough perfect alcantara

This was the dirt from the drivers seat!

What needed to be done next was replace the bolsters and seat bases....

 

[jongsr4]

So I bought new seat bolsters and a seat base from capitalseating.co.uk, passenger seat base was ok so left the original in there

Then had to get the seats out and remove the runners (runners were sanded and repainted while this was done)

Then lift up the alcantara and remove the old bolsters

Old and new

New bolsters going on

Alcantara back over the bolster....surprisingly awkward to do!

and the completed bolster, with clean alcantara....This was done for each side

and the base covers were put through the washing machine!

and...the completed, repaired seats....what a difference this made, bolsters now actually hugged nicely, alcantara looked and felt nice....and they no longer smelt terrible!

 

[Jonnio]

Excellent work!

 

[jongsr4]

At this point, the car was not insured or taxed etc but I knew the car had a bit of a misfire, it tried to stall when moving off and the idle was very low/spiking etc

Knowing nothing of car electrics, I had the car sent off to Fusion motorsport in Surrey to fix the problem, and get the timing belt etc done at the same time, so off it went

You'll notice at this point, the car was still looking pretty terrible, all the nice clean interior bits still waiting to go in (bar drivers seat) Black bonnet (which I hated) gold Sparco wheels which I wasnt keen on...and no rear spoiler, so I did a deal with another early Evo enthusiast....yes there is more than one of us for a white bonnet, swapped for my black one, some original OZ wheels (painted black, but swapped for my sparco ones and a bootlid complete with spoiler

....

 

[jongsr4]

Rather embarrassingly.....the misfire turned out to be nothing more than a coil pack!....Doh! but anyway, lesson learned and something I will check if it happens again, the good thing is while It was there, Fusion did a complete once over the car and said it was a very good example indeed (mechanically at least), with a very strong engine. I taxed and insured the car to get it home and the drive home was fantastic, baring in mind that there was no interior at this point and engine now fully firing, it was immense! the power and the way it picks up speed is just awesome! very noisy with no interior and the massive exhaust! but I actually felt like a rally driver lol quite difficult to not actually put my foot down coming out of slow corners just to get a quick blast of power...loved it

...

 

[jongsr4]

So, anyway, the car came back looking like this..

The new parts id acquired were really dirty, as a result of being in storage for a long time....but I knew they just needed a bit of a clean, I was pleased that it was at least starting to look like an Evo again....although the black wheels were not my taste, it was just part of the deal I had done, I still had a good set of original wheels to go on

 

[jongsr4]

Lots of little things were being done as and when we could, for example, all of the door membranes had pretty much perished so I bought new plastic linings from ebay along with new Butyl tape (the black adhesive)

All the doors membranes pretty much looked like this, which obviously isnt good for letting in...road noise, dust, dirt and water

So they were replaced

measured up..

Butyled

and fitted

and done.. this was done to all doors

 

[Christopher.]

What a transformation on the interior so far ! Love these shape evo's so much i want one !

 

[jongsr4]

Lots of other little bits and pieces have been done as well, various bits of missing or tired trim has been replaced

Door handle covers replaced all round

Missing trim replaced

New Pedal rubbers

More missing trim

New gearstick gaitor

Luckily Mitsubishi still stock all the parts so no problem with getting most stuff

Lots of other little bits and pieces have been done too, so the interior is looking much better now......will get some pics soon!

 

[jongsr4]

So the bootlid cleaned up quite well (thanks to my cousin )but was missing the original stickers, so again off to Mitsubishi I went and got the OEM ones (after a 2 week wait)

So at least people knew what the car was now...still quite unknown even amongst car people I find