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SR ROLLA's 1974 Mitsi Colt GTO


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The next thing to have a look at is the brakes. It all seems pretty straight forward but I'm having a lot of trouble getting new parts. I've managed to track down some pads, which seem quite pricey for regular road-going brakes, they are not performance parts or anything. No one seems to be able to find a compatible rotor though. Everyone I've talked to doesn't really seem interested in doing more than looking it up on their computer and it appears that they are just too old turn turn up on anyone's systems. Mitsubishi has some of the bearings and seals, but that is all, everything else is listed as 'obsolete'.

 

I'm don't think there is enough meat to get the rotors machined. They are 12mm atm and the minimum thickness in the manual says 11.4mm

 

Anyone have an idea where I could source something that will fit? Discuss

 

 

Crappy pics:

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
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I finally managed to source all the parts to replace the pads, rotors and wheel bearings. Ended up having to go through three different places.

 

Crusty old bits out:

kljrh21z.y4x.jpg
 
Shiney new bits in:
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All assembled, greased up and ready to go.
 
Quite proud of myself, although not major by any stretch this is one of the biggest tasks I've taken on completely by myself and so far the car stops right and nothing has fallen off. Yay me.
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  • 1 month later...
Boring progress ahead:
 
So the rubbers above the windows have always been pretty ropey, they had had an extra foam strip glued on at some stage and they were getting hard and brittle. I managed to buy the last NOS item in the country from Mitsubishi (one side only) a while ago, for a retardedly high amount of money. Sadly, after sitting around all those years it turned out to be pretty average too.
 
Already splitting after being on the car a few weeks:
 
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Not too chuffed about that. I also got some generic ones from Rare Spares but the cross section was so different that I thought they weren't likely to fit the same channel. Turns out that the indicated dimension is close enough that it can be squished into the rail and actually makes for a really good fit and a pretty easy install. The only difference being that the new seals do not wrap around on the inside but that is no big deal.
 
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Both sides are all fitted up now. I spent ages adjusting the window positioning on both sides to get the fit right and they are sitting pretty mint now. It looks much better, the rubber is firm but not too hard, seems nice.

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  • 4 weeks later...

So first of all, I drove from Auckland to Rotorua and back without any major issues. Was getting some noise from the front left wheel by the time I got home though.

 

wbapsdck.uwi.jpg
 
Fuck.
 
No doubt something I cocked up when I put them in. The leading theory at the moment is that I just did it all back up too tight and the long drive at higher than norm speeds cooked it. Anyway, replaced and sorted now, seems to be okay.
 
Next thing in trying to continue this project on a bit with effectively zero budget is getting the original wheels back in a better state. I'm going with a darker grey and decided to try the Lyndar paint system from Supercheap. I got a can of VW Pepper Grey mixed up, seems to be pretty good.
 
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This is the first coat, over a dark grey primer.
 
 
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Couple more coats, goes on easy without tooo much stippling/orange peel. I think it should come up good with a clearcoat
 
 
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Shiney bits just sitting in place
 
 

 

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  • 1 month later...

So, I've not had the best time of it lately. First some lovely chap decided to break into the garage and nick every single power tool and hand tool in there. Was very tidy about it. Cunt.

Also, weirdly, stole a spare (new/unused) water pump for the GTO and, I discovered tonight, my Haynes workshop manual and original owners manual too. Any oldschool Mitsubishi enthusiasts on here who are inclined towards the occasional burglary?

 

Then I started having headlight problems. One side's lowbeam stopped working, the inner lights and the outer's highbeams were all good. I thought that the bulb was playing silly buggers, which was odd because they are not very old. I decided to take the opportunity to upgrade to semi-sealed so that I could actually see where I'm going at night. However when I plugged in the new unit it still didn't work. Balls.

 

I thought "I'd better just check the fuses in case it's something super dumb like that" and discovered this:

 

p555ci1h.smj.jpg
 
The fuses for "Upper R" and "Upper L" have melted halfway out of the fuse box. So. That'll do it I guess.
 
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They are both just regular 10A fuses which have not blown, despite getting hot enough to melt through the plastic housing and fuck things up good and properly.
 
Electrics are not my thing at all so I am stumped as to the cause (has been fine for the past 3 years) and stumped for what to do. I guess find a good auto electrician.
 
 
Cheers.
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  • 2 weeks later...

Have managed to source a new fuse holder, from a Celeste, to replace the melted one but don't have it yet. The car is currently with the auto sparky, hopefully I will hear from him tomorrow and the issues will all be simple ones.

 

While the car has been going nowhere i decided to whip the side vents off and give them a bit of a tart up. They were in okay condition but look to have been repainted at some stage with some less than perfect masking and there were a couple of peely bits.

 

after a quick sand on the worst bits:

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masked up:
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painted:
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back on the car
ouebnzg5.ese.jpg
 
I ended up getting impatient waiting for the right conditions and went ahead and painted them when it was a bit too cold, like a dick. So it took ages in front of a heater for the paint to go off and it has ended up a bit stipply (doesn't look quite as bad as the photo above IRL) and shinier than I wanted — it's a satin, should've maybe gone for full matte.
 
Anyway, a bit of a cock up (especially after the ballache of masking them) but not the worst cock up ever. They look better than they did plus nice and clean and crisp. I can easily enough redo them when the weather is warmer with a flatter paint if they bother me.
 
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  • 2 weeks later...

Lights are all sorted now. The good folks at Ron Wood Auto did a stellar job, very nice and tidy. Relays set up in the engine bay now so the lights are much brighter right off the bat.

 

I haven't switched over to the semi-sealed units yet. The locator tabs aren't in the right places for my headlight cups, they would make the lights on a whack angle and also they sit a little too far out towards the outer edge. Do people normally just cut/grind these off?

 

I also got around to checking out a dodgy looking patch under the rear bumper that I've been meaning to get to for a while. There was a horizontal crack in the paint just below the bumper which I could see was letting water in under the paint. So I cracked it off to have a look. It appears there has been a dent at some stage fixed with the tried and true method of filling it with bog and painting over it. It was about 8-10mm thick in the middle.

 

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I've taken off the bog, cleaned it all up and painted it black to seal it up for now. The dent will be added to the list of things to address when the panel and painting happens.
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  • 5 months later...

I decided to get  a can of colour-matched paint mixed up so I could at least make the whole car blue while I wait to save up for a full respray. The VIN plate in this car is nowhere that I can find. A bit of internet research confirmed what I thought I already knew — the 74 GTO only came in 4 colours: Fuji White, Tahitian Blue, Alpine Silver and Athens Olive.

 

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I can't find reference to any other shades of blue, so this must be it right?

 

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Apparently no. I found the colour code for Mitsubishi Tahitian Blue, it was only available in 1974 – 1975. But the mixed up paint is too light and looks too yellow, the original colour is darker and more purpley. I suppose it's possible the whole car was resprayed at some stage… I know in the 90s it had a touch up where the exterior was painted, but not the engine bay, door jams, boot etc Even the racing stripe and badges were just masked.

 

Any ideas? Discussion

 

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  • 2 months later...

I ended up getting some cans colour matched by Auto Industrial Supplies and painted the doors and guards below the white lines and the tops of rear quarters. This has advanced the paint job from 'patchy bogan shit-heap' to 'good meh from far but far from good'. It's at least mostly shiny and mostly blue now.

Went to Caffeine and Classics a couple weeks back, not a bad turn out considering the weather was iffy and Beach Hop was on at the same time. Got some pics with the other GTO guys:

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Turns out my car must have had a full respray at some stage with another, exterior only touch up at a later date. As you can see above dwlee's factory Himalayan Blue 75 is noticeably lighter. No wonder I had trouble finding a match for my mystery blue.

I had a couple of little things done in time for a fresh WOF recently. Rear wheel bearings, nice and quite now, they were getting pretty past it. Tightened up the steering a bit. General servicey fluidy stuff. Flew through the warrant but with the note that the strut tops are starting to get a little perished. Apparently these can be re-vulcanised if no replacement part can be found but the plan has always been to replace with coliovers anyway. Guess I need to get on that sooner rather than later, just need to save up some of my not-enough-money. I don't know a lot about working with leaf suspension for the rear but I think retensioning to lower and stiffen a bit, maybe combined with small blocks would be the go? The slight rake has always bothered me, feels like the bum could happily come down quite a lot.

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  • 10 months later...

Well, been a while. Not a heap going on, finally got around to switching the headlights over to proper semi sealed units


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I quite like the look, yellow looks good against the blue.

 

Also been acquiring the necessary items to sort out the paint work. I have decided that short of a lotto win in the near future I am better off painting it myself. I've done it once before (with plenty of help) with pretty good results. I figure it wont be any worse than it currently is and if it's not great then it can just be a holdover paint job until I can afford the real deal some years down the track. Worst case I can learn a lot.

I've also put in motion plans to rebuild all the suspension to a proper height. Custom coilovers up front with reset leaves+blocks in the back. Just finalising the shopping list at the moment, then it should all get sorted in the near future.

 

Feels like progress. ish.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Welp. No going back now. I've started to strip the GTO back, removing badges, trims and bumpers and started to strip the paint off the suspect areas.

On both sides I will need to sort out the original joins where the roof meets the pillar. Passenger side was okay but the drivers side has a few little holes near where the lead filler meets the corner of the window

4sn0dfua.gxg.jpg

You can see the layers of original primer, original blue, yellow primer, new blue and my previous paint touch up primer and blue.


The sill below the driver's door was always a bit suspect as a couple of the mounting holes for the sill trim were missing. Given that the dent below the rear bumper was 'fixed' by filling with bog I suspected something similar was going on here. Let's see…

qvjladmg.by3.jpg

Yup, bog about 10–12mm thick. Nice.

It wasn't just dented though, a patch panel has been tacked in, but not shaped at all first, just stuck in flat, with the curve built up in bog.

ssgtuef0.h0x.jpg

From above you can see how much it was built out with filler.

t3hnilh5.4tv.jpg

Took the guards off and found that it was all pretty clean underneath. Some surface rust but nothing scary. The passenger side guard is a bit rotten at the bottom but should be easily saveable. All in all really good for 44 years old.

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So the car goes off to a panel beater on Monday to fix the bits which are beyond my expertise. Yay for car, boo for wallet.

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  • 1 month later...

All sorts of progress going on, big improvements by the panelbeater, small improvements by me.

Pillar all sorted

tr10klwy.ext.jpg
 

Rear and sill all sorted

5wneghyq.jwj.jpg


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Other bits all sorted

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The plastic buffers which go between the mirrors and the fender were all hard and cracked, have been glued back together at some point

ud1kvgb0.0aa.jpg
 

I was very surprised to find that someone in Japan is making replicas. They're exactly the same, should fit up sweet as at reassembly time.

kahqx3u2.ikb.jpg
 

I have also taken out the tail lights and cleaned up all around where they go. Was a little bit of rust starting, nothing serious but glad to have gotten to it now rather than let it get worse. Also been cleaning up everything under the guards. The top side, which had a tiny bit of surface rust, will be painted up in blue when I get to the colour stage. It all gets covered up by the guard anyway. This is where everything starts to go off the rails. This is where it starts. This was supposed to be a quick job, with the minimal work needed to get it looking a bit better but then I thought 'while the guards are off I may as well redo the underbody seal bit too' then I thought 'Some of this is a tiny bit flakey, I may as well see how much effort it will be to chip/scrape/clean off the old stuff'. What a ballache, looks all lovely and clean now though.

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But then I thought 'That looks all nice, I should do the whole wheel arch too' So now there's sticky old shitty underbody seal all over my garage and I'm fucking sick of scraping and chipping for the sake of something I had never originally intended to do. Don't think I can be arsed to do the whole arch back to bare. I will just scrape off anything which is loose and give it all a good scrub then do a nice fresh coat over the top. A couple of drives and it will look exactly like it did before anyway.

0yzwbzgx.mcm.jpg
 

Anyway TL;DR Things are still happening, slowly.

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  • 2 months later...

So, I finished the dumb job I probably didn't need to do of underseal re-application a wee while ago. Looks pretty good now, nice and tidy. Plus I know there's nothing lurking under there. I stripped and did the insides of the guards too.

dat5gmm1.xtb.jpg
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And I'm (slowly) getting through the excavation back through the years of paint layers. I think it should come up pretty good and straight. Trying to make sure I keep all the body lines nice and crisp.

zyk2hwlt.oeu.jpg

The yellow strip is where the white decal was – previous painter just masked this (and the badges) up so the paint is a couple layers deeper above and below. Nice.

Between work, the wife, and the kids I can pretty much only work at it for fairly short stints but I'm trying to get out to it 3-4 nights a week for at least a little bit, so I can keep some momentum going. I guess slow progress is better than no progress.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi. Great build thread. Your car is coming along nicely. I just brought one of these today. It's missing a few things here and there and was wondering if you could give me some advice on where to look for bits or websites you use too look for bits? I've been trying all week looking for stuff with not much luck. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

837359858.jpg

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Hey Fourtydog, great to see that one went to someone on Oldschool, there was definitely a lot of interest.

On oldschool we separate the build threads and chat into 2 different threads. I'll chuck some links for you in the Discussion thread over here:

 

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