I have only had the car for 3 days, I work in a car yard and I bought it as a trade in, it looks like the water has been there for sometime, and also the driver side where the Clutch is also full of water and rust marks, the Heater core box is dry however. But the car leaks coolant pretty bad from under the engine, I think the water pump is gone, and I have been told it is wise to do the time belt togeter as well, any idea how much should it cost, (Timing belt and water pump.) There are lots of rust under the floor, this is a project car and I knew it from the begining, cost $3000 for a Zed there's gonna be something wrong, so far the Zed owes me $6000, I have allow myself 6~8months and another $2~3k for this girl to come back to life. After all most of the good Zed starts around $12~15grand anyway.
The hole is about the size of a five cent coin, and rusts are just everywhere, a batch here and there.
sounds like a bit of karma kicking in ...????? work in a car yard and get caught with a rust bucket ... lol....:rolleyes2: .. anyway, good luck with your efforts and trust that you will have all up and running soon ....
There is no karma, I paid $3000 for a TT 2+2 Manual, Engine everything runs fine, the rust are mainly on the floor area, worst case, I could strip everything and sell it on ebay, and I will still make money, $3000 that is with a set of 18" alloy and new tyres, plus 8 months rego'. Rather you like it or not, if you take your car to any car yard, even a Nissan Dealer ship, if your car is a grey import, doesn't matter is TT or NA, they all start at around $2500 to $3000 as a wholesale price. You are talking a 18 years old car, of course there is going to have rust, buy a 1990 Camry and it will still have rust some where, but I think the guy who had it before he always park the car outside and I have been to Japan, most of those cars they just sit at the wrecking yard for years until someone buys it and ship it to Aus...
show som pics of the rust.... my zed is the same age and doesnt have any.. all depends on how its looked after... 2-3k budget... just hope like hell the rust is all that is wrong... unless your going to cut it and reweld it yourself.... id be alowing more then that.. if the car wasnt kept in a good enough condidtion that it wont rust... then im scared of whats going to start breaking when you turn the boost up... but you are right you can part it and get your money back.. a half cut will sell for 3k+ everything else you have to sell on it
100K service (timing belt water pump etc) is about $700 in parts and a whole days labour for someone who knows what they are doing.
Since I am Junior member, can I still send photo, if so, how? Anyway, I suspect the car was one of those that sit in those open air wrecking yard in Japan for sometime before arriving to Aus. The guy who sold it to me said that he bought it from another guy in Queensland 2 years ago. The rust is not those surface rust that you can just sand it, they are the one that already have eaten the metal, that is why there is a 5 cents size hole, and yes I need to cut it up and weld it back, but that is easy fix, the hard thing is trying to locate where the water is coming from. I have already removed the dash, floor, all the air ducts, tomorrow is another day, I will check it out again, my machcanic will do a coolant compression test for me and see if it is one of the hoses leaks coolant into the car.
You might want to try running water with a hose over the top with it closed up and have someone inside watching to see if it's a external body leak .
