FTO AUSTRALIA

Hey guys so this is my 1995 FTO GR in "Black" its got 193000kms and has a few mods to it! Such as
-Borla Muffler
-Black Sprayed Lightweight 17" Rims of unknown make
-4 Varying Race tires! ONES A MICHELIN?!
-Full Body Respray
-DIY Front Grill
-Aftermarket Steering Wheel
-Full alpine stereo with RType 6x9 in the rear and SType 6" in the front with a JVC deck
-A load of crappy resprayed silver and black parts
-The best one of all? A WHOLE LOAD OF ELECTRIC TAPE

So its gonna be my project over the next year to restore this poor neglected FTO to good working order and back to a pristine appearance! Ill continually update this thread with stuff on how the project is going! I intend to do a few DIY mods myself as theres some I'd like to test out! So heres the car!





Doesnt look to bad right? Heres some more



Now lets get into some of the disasters of the car

Just casually someone has drilled three holes into the body there and then covered it back up with electric tape. Okay......


The roof has 4 more counts of drilled holes! all covered with electric tape. Also the roof has various butt dents where people have been sitting on the roof it seems!


Has to probably be one of the worst front grills there is. I reckon T-Pain has got better grills than this. Its all bent in places and makes such a racket cause its not secured down properly!What an eye sore/


The black resprayed rims got gutter rash all on the left side. Its also flaking everywhere and bubbling. I think I might try my hand at respraying these bad boys as I actually do like them!

Into the inside on the next post!

Next up is the inside! Upon opening the car you see that the car was once a lovely red. The spray painters were so lazy they didnt even do the inside of the doors! Mind you the respray is pretty poor quality as it is!


Next up the cockpit!

Can you spot the electric tape? Take a few guesses where it is!


First is the steering wheel. The whole bottom half of it is covered in electric tape! Also the screws to remove it arent all sitting in the wheel properly and are stripped and of all different hex key sizes. What in the woooooorld. You can see the cluster has had a respray and is the only good respray of the car! However the lighting behind there had small blue LEDS that blinked a lot and didnt provide good brightness. So I used some of my uni knowledge to drill out the existing light holes and fit T10 Blue LED wedges in there! Much better! Ill do a thread showing that at a later date.


You look at your feet and you see these! Well I wouldnt mind so much as long as they were alligned but the clutch is on like a 45 degree angle! How strange? I took a guess that the other driver had really small feet and wanted to have a small distance between brake and clutch? Or they were just really crap at installing things! Who knows?!


The handles have been resprayed and pretty badly too! These will need fixing as they arent even secured to the door frame properly!


So as we can see there is a missing part of the centre console! I believe one of the moderators has a group buy going on in getting some of these so I might have to invest in both as you can see! its held there with MORE ELECTRIC TAPE. There was a minor fix to that already as the deck and din holder werent secured in and had zip ties and cardboard to wedge them in place there. Also I think the dials on the top of the dash are missing some of there covers?


Here is the masterpiece! So the head on top of the shifter is loose. There are no screws holding it in place as there should be so it wobbles when i shift gears as the only thing holding it down is MORE ELECTRIC TAPE. Which also is holding the leather to the knob. Yay! The handbrake also has had the same treatment, there is nothing holding the new grip from spinning and is finished in wonderful electric tape. Looks like I have my work cut out for me ay?


Heres a nice pic of it yesterday with my friends BRZ. Those aftermarket tail lights had to go!

So was gonna post up the photos last night but to my surprise Australia Post had a nice package awaiting for me when i got home from uni! Ive managed to source myself some NEW rear tail lights!

TADA! These are so beautiful I love the stock tail lights of the FTO!


Heres a pic of the difference! Much better although I think the aftermarket ones looked a tad bit mroe aggressive. However I didnt realise it for the three weeks that ive owned it that it didnt have reversing lights. Could of got defected! That would have been a disaster! Phew!



So I ripped them out and studied them. They seem to be made of fibreglass and plaster? Odd stuff. Either way theyve been crackling and not even sitting in properly to the mounts of the car. The left side was only mounted with two bolts that were drilled into the body and secured with more electric tape. One of the bolts was also coming from one of the broken lights. The right one was secured with 4 bolts at least and was secure.

So here's what she looks like now! A lot better!



I have no idea whats next for the car. I think I want to fix all the interior lighting as they are pretty much all different types.

Awesome! Can't wait to see how it comes along! I just bought my fto today and you'll be quite happy with the interior of your car after seeing mine haha :p

Wow, a bit of a project there!
And those were some interesting tail lights....

Looking good!.

You do know someone will buy those taillights off you dont you (waits for seagulls).

dstocks wrote:Looking good!.

You do know someone will buy those taillights off you dont you (waits for seagulls).

hmmm

That sideways clutch pedal would suggest it's been manual converted badly.

Have you got your VIN number handy?

LOL

Daniel2019 wrote:sideways clutch pedal

Holyshit lol

It's just the pedal cover that's crooked.

Vectose wrote: It's just the pedal cover that's crooked.

Look at the arm !

Nah, it's meant to be like that.

FTODreams wrote:Well I wouldnt mind so much as long as they were alligned but the clutch is on like a 45 degree angle!

My bad, I read that as the actual pedal/bracket arm was sideways. But looks to me as the pedal arm is kinda more sideways than it's supposed to be....

Edit: Surely that's not how it's meant to be? Looks way off to me

Nah, it's normal. Just the cover is crooked.

Here's a pic of mine.

Ah, fair enough.

On with the thread, sir.

Still better than my FTO when I got it lol blown engine first day yay

I've got a brand new stereo surround for sale $160 inc postage. PM if you want it.

Thanks guys! Hey Vectose where did you get those pedal covers they're awesome!

Hey if someone wants those tail lights PM me and we will sort something out. They'll even come with globes
I'll also get you guys some better photos of them if you want them.

Gotta wait till I get paid again before I buy anymore stuff. After that I'll start looking into getting those stereo pieces.

I'm gonna ask the question nobody else seems to have. What's the exhaust doing on the other side? is the gap from the stock one still there as well??