Stripped out the front

This weekend I spent pulling the front of the mr2 apart. I already knew that the front had the most rust, so it's something I've been not looking forward to.

I pulled back all of the trunk lining, and saw that there was the beginnings of rust underneath the brake master cylinder - someone must have spilt brake fluid there, and not known that brake fluid strips paint...




Where the right hand headlight mounts, there is a reasonable amount of rust. So the light fitting had to come out.

Looking at the otherside of the panel where the light mounts, you can see how bad the rust is:


Removing the light was a long process. After removing the four bolts holding the light shroud on, I had to remove the cowling underneath the car to find another bolt. Once this was removed, the light still wasn't coming out - the light adustment control which is mounted to the light shroud was still protruding through into the trunk, and had to be unbolted from the shroud. Once this was unbolted, everything was free to be removed, except for the wiring. So whilst balancing the heavy light with one hand, I attempted to remove the plugs.... Not the easiest way to do things... (The other light came off much easier, having already figured out how they are bolted in)

Once the light was removed, the full extent of the rust was clear:


I'll need a new light shroud, and have to cut the rust out and weld a plate in.



The left hand side light mount was spotless - so at least I'll have something to model my replacement plates from:




I also removed the front bumper - I'll need a replacement bumper because this one is long gone:



Once the front bumper was off, I removed the air conditioning radiator. Before I started removing pipes, I had a look in the BGB (big green book) about the Air-Con system, to see if there was anything I should look out for. Essentially, the book just said not to spill coolant on yourself, so I decided to release all the pressure in the system first.
I used a screw held in a pair of pliers to carefully press the valve release pin and allow the pressure to be released. As a precaution, I used the "turn your head and hold your breath" safety method.

I then unscrewed all of the mounts for the air con radiator, and unscrewed the pipes going into it. The whole air con system is quite elaborate, so I'm looking forward to the weight loss that the car will get from removing it all.

The car looks a bit sad now, but it all needs to be done to make sure it's as good as I can get it: