Mitsubishi 360 screaming "Save me!"

75wagon · **Posted:** Sat Feb 27, 2010 2:42 am

How good is that?
That's awesome, I love the suicide doors on it too.

Congrats again Dave on a great purchase, hope you get a lot of satisfaction out of restoring it...

ben · **Posted:** Sat Feb 27, 2010 8:34 am

It's aliiiiive!

Camshaft · **Posted:** Sat Feb 27, 2010 12:03 pm

That's awesome! Considering how well the mechanicals worked out, and how solid the body is, I'd say that was very well bought!

RedSunday · **Posted:** Sat Feb 27, 2010 2:13 pm

Awesome story,

judging by the vid either you guys are really tall or thats one small car!

Nakazoto · **Posted:** Sat Feb 27, 2010 9:07 pm

Thanks for the comments guys!

Toyguy beat me to the punch a bit posting the video, but here's how yesterday went down! I went and paid for the car and got all the paper work and the keys. I really didn't want to drop $150 on a car carrier and then have to maneuver the thing down tiny Japanese streets so I figured if the tires had any air left in them and the brakes work we'd just tow it back. Asking for inflated tires and working brakes from a car that has been sitting in a field for 6 years is a tall order.

To our surprise though, it had both inflated tires and working brakes! We pulled it out, hooked a tow strap up to it and towed it home. It went completely smooth without a single hitch! I was utterly shocked!

Here she is sitting in her little corner waiting for us to get started.

Toyguy and I got out there and started pulling weeds out to clear the car off. Oh, and RedSunday, I am a tall guy, but that is one tiny car!

A shot of the interior with the door open. It looks pretty bad, but with a little cleaning she'll look brand new!

Thunderbird 1 in position!

She's free of her old prison!

While we were cleaning out the interior so I could sit in it we found this little guy running around. He ended up hanging around for the entire ride back to my apartment!

The engine, all filthy looking (scroll down for what she looks like after only a spray down).

Is that a circus bear in that car?

Towing her home!

Opening her up to clear out all the junk inside.

Sitting in front of my apartment.

We found these in the trunk, I assume they are the original plug wires. It's also the only indication of a year that we can find anywhere on the car!

We decided to take her around the side and spray her down with some water and a cleaning agent meant for stove tops.

Ahhh, nothing like a good shower! Looks completely different from before, haha.

Pushed inside.

The engine while we were getting it running (looks much better than that filthy picture up top, haha).

Awesome car for an awesome day!

The rust is really not that bad, the worst bit is on the hood. Everything else is just surface rust. Planning on grinding the rust off, throwing some cheap primer on it, prepping the whole car and then dropping it off at a painter for a new coat of cream white.
While she's getting painted I can find or make new glass and clean up the trim and interior pieces.

She doesn't need much since she's incredibly solid, so a full frame off restoration might be too much. Going to stick with a light restoration and restore her to driver condition.

Should be an absolute blast!

Oh, and gonna post the link to the video again for good measure, haha.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x9VC71imok

Thanks again for all the inspiration guys!
Cheers
David

F3ared · **Posted:** Sat Feb 27, 2010 11:56 pm

I think this thing would be ridiculously awesome with a set of SSR reverse meshies, and a 660cc EFI Turbo from those lil Mitsubishi Kei cars or a GSXR1100 motor

Camshaft · **Posted:** Sun Feb 28, 2010 1:34 am

Nakazoto wrote:

While we were cleaning out the interior so I could sit in it we found this little guy running around. He ended up hanging around for the entire ride back to my apartment!

Direct quote from my girlfriend: "he is just trying to sell him insurance, duh"

:lol:

Did you keep him/her/it?

Nakazoto · **Posted:** Sun Feb 28, 2010 4:37 am

F3ared wrote:

I think this thing would be ridiculously awesome with a set of SSR reverse meshies, and a 660cc EFI Turbo from those lil Mitsubishi Kei cars or a GSXR1100 motor

I was thinking the exact same thing about the wheels, but the way the hub on these things is set up, aftermarket wheels are actually impossible to put on. It's kind of hard to tell in the pictures, but if you look closely at the wheels there are two distinct colors, the black center and the white lip. The black center is actually the entire hub and the white lip is the entire rim, pretty wild, haha. Guess I just gotta clean up what is on there. I might be able to custom make some wider lips, but that'd probably cost more than the whole car. ;P

Camshaft wrote:

Direct quote from my girlfriend: "he is just trying to sell him insurance, duh"

:lol:

Did you keep him/her/it?

Haha, it made the ride the whole way back here with me, but we let him out of the car and he ran off. I thought he'd just run away but today I was pulling some more stuff out of the car and there he was! He found his way back to the car, haha. We snapped a few more pictures and then set him free in the grass again. If he comes back I guess I'll have to buy a cage and keep him around. ;P

Setting him free!

He's the official mascot of this car now, haha!

Nakazoto · **Posted:** Sun Feb 28, 2010 4:54 am

Headed back out to the garage for a bit more work on the little beast today, haha.
I mostly just pulled the interior out in an attempt to get the car closer to getting ready for paint/rust fixing.

Pulled off the cover for the rear trunk lid thing. Everything is surprisingly rust free (well, cancerous rust at least ;P)

Looking from the trunk forward.

Better shot of the dash.

Door panels out, these don't look too bad, a little cleaning and they might be reusable.

Inside of the driver door. Whatever broke the passenger rear window flew straight through and hit this window shattering it too. The rest looks to be in good shape though.

Front seats out. The driver side seat is pretty rough, but the passenger seat looks good!

Fifteen seconds of scrubbing and some armor all and this seat looks good!

Another picture of the dash. You can see the one speaker for the radio hanging out below the dash tray on the passenger side. Heater control is a slim lever just under the dash tray in the center. Straight up in the center is the ash tray and the two knobs for the wipers and the choke.

A close up of the speaker.

Close up of the radio.

There are these little access panels on the transmission tunnel that give access to various parts. This panel on the side gives access to the speedometer cable!

The access panel on top gives access to the shift linkage.

There's an access panel behind the pedals that lets you get to brake linkage.

Transmission tunnel trim piece out.

Fender mirrors off.

And that's all the excitement for today. Next step is to find a good angle grinder and an attachment for rust!

Thanks for the comments!
Cheers
David

ben · **Posted:** Sun Feb 28, 2010 8:43 am

It wouldn't be the first time a lizard was the mascot for a Mitsubishi.
http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/blog/20 ... zard-boom/

Lovin' the updates. :tu:

pancho y onions · **Posted:** Wed Mar 03, 2010 2:49 am

Wow that is tiny. Cant wait to see some more pics. I can def see getting the glass being the hardest thing to get in the whole project.

lordairgtar · **Posted:** Fri Mar 05, 2010 12:01 am

Looks cool. Can't wait for the restoration.

75wagon · **Posted:** Fri Mar 05, 2010 3:03 pm

Just as a matter of interest, what sort of suspension set up does it run? Got any pics of underneath? I just a curious sort of bloke, I've never seen one of these before (or knew they existed). I see it doesn't have strut front end (or doesn't appear to). So I was just wondering what it did have.

Nakazoto · **Posted:** Sat Mar 06, 2010 7:44 am

Thanks so much for the comments guys!

Update time

Before I stripped her down fully I decided to throw one seat in her, hook a battery up, fill the tires with some air and take her for a short spin, less than 100 yards, but she moved on her own power!

Pictures!

That's a lot of smoke, haha!

Making sure the poor engine was up to the task.

Even the reverse light works!

On the street!

And she's back!

The engine runs pretty good! There was a considerable lack of power, but that was too be expected. Both the gasoline and the oil in the oil tank are over 6 years old, which means the carb is probably pretty seriously gummed up. Also, judging by the oil that was dripping out of the tailpipe, I would say the old oil was having a hard time burning, which probably didn't make the already 6 plus year old spark plugs any better, haha. The biggest problem was that one of the brakes is sticking so the engine is trying to push through that too. After its all squared away mechanically it should be a fun little car!

Once back in the garage I decided to try out my new toy on one of the rust spots.

After a little grinding with one of those pads that looks like a scotch bright scrubber but says its meant for rust.

Folded myself inside to remove the bolts on the back of the trim.

Door trim and rear quarter trim off.

Various bits of the interior out.

Upper support in the front of the car.

Grill out.

How she was sitting when I called it a day. Not your conventional looking engine bay, haha.

Before I ran inside though I remembered that you were asking about the suspension, 75wagon. So I slid the camera under and snapped a few pictures!

The front suspension has individual shock absorbers and one leaf spring running from side to side. You can just see the leaf spring in this picture.

Shot of the upper shock mount.

Looking down the car from the front. This car is the definition of simple!

Here's the rear setup.

The underside of this car is quite shocking actually, it looks phenomenally clean! Even though I didn't drive it far there was no driveline shuck, bottoming out of the suspension or any weird noises at all (aside from the pops and pings of a two stroke, haha). I may replace the shocks, but I think for the most part I will leave everything under there alone.

Panchos y onions, I was worried about glass too, but I was looking at the pieces of the broken driver window and its just a flat non tempered square with rounded edges. Near as I can tell the passenger and driver windows are interchangeable, which means I can just go to a glass shop and they can cut a new one up for next to nothing!

I can't wait until this little beast is back on the road!
Thanks again for the comments and inspiration!

Cheers
David

Nakazoto · **Posted:** Sat Mar 06, 2010 5:45 pm

My buddy took a video of me driving it, awesome!
Check it out!

Backing out of the garage!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu8Lkul1o_Y

Driving her!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbGZWWr5UWs

75wagon · **Posted:** Sat Mar 06, 2010 8:31 pm

Thanks for that Nakazoto.
I wondered whether it would have a front leaf spring just like a Datsun 1000. I can't believe how clean that car is for 6 years with weeds growing over it?

Good to see in moving under it's own steam...

hillbillyhector · **Posted:** Sun Mar 07, 2010 12:56 am

sooo awesome to see it go from "field find" to you jumping into a restoration! congratulations. the thing is lookin a lot better already.

Mazarin · **Posted:** Mon Mar 08, 2010 10:18 pm

I laugh and marvel @ the same time. Good show!

I like how it looks like she's moving purely on willpower

Camshaft · **Posted:** Mon Mar 08, 2010 10:33 pm

Nakazoto wrote:

Do you by chance have a higher resolution version of this picture? I'd like to use it as my desktop background. :tu:

Nakazoto · **Posted:** Tue Mar 09, 2010 5:23 am

Thanks so much for the comments guys!
I've been thinking about the pitting from the rust and figure I have a few options.
Option 1 being just cut it out and weld in new steel, best option for killing the rust dead, but also the scariest and easiest to really really mess up.
Option 2 being to grind the pits out but I'm afraid that the metal will then get to be too thin.
Option 3 being to sand blast it and remove all rust, then put filler over top and sand smooth. Not the best option but I think it will effectively stop the rust and look good for a final product.

Still not too sure what to do but definitely leaning towards option 3 since it is by far the cheapest, easiest and will probably end up looking the best.

Anyways, thanks again everyone for all of the comments!
Expect more updates this weekend!
I do have hi-res pictures of everything, so feel free to ask! (PM sent Camshaft ;D )

Mitsubishi 360 screaming "Save me!"

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