Uncovered previous owner's mangling of rear cubby area.....
 

Well i began taking the rear cubby hole plastics off in preparation of installing a down firing 10" subwoofer and Arc Aduio k125.4 compact amp. I've had the car for about 18 months, done quite a bit of suspension / drivetrain work but not much interior wise. The rear cubby area's doors never worked quite well, and the small cabinets (towards middle of car) would never sit securely.

Removing the panels i found almost every assembly clip and/or panel mount for clips were annihilated. The panels were not really attached, just kind of sitting.



http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y14...t/IMAG0424.jpg

At first I thought it was factory sound deadening, but noticed alot of the clips didn't have holes in the deadening material.

Pulled the deadender and heres what I uncovered :suicide:

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y14...t/IMAG0425.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y14...t/IMAG0426.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y14...t/IMAG0427.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y14...t/IMAG0429.jpg

Needless to say i'm not a happy camper. Trying to figure out what in the hell this guy was thinking!!!!! He just went completely nuts with a reciprocating saw.

Have a game plan for correcting this abortion, but wouln't be able to complete it for a couple months.

wow. i'd be pissed too. incredible butcher job.

Holy F00king mother of s*it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That really sucks. Where did you get the car? From a private party or dealer? I'd be pissed beyond my ability to express.

Sorry.

Removed a lot of weight, cheater auto cross car? Looks like he removed the factory tar mat too.

Private seller.

I did buy the car with 41k miles for $16,000 flat (2007 base, purchased November 2010) so I got a really good price but yeah this kinda sucks.

I've never been fond of the rear cubby area anyways, my 87 rx7's approach makes alot more sense (Not my picture, but you can see the flat trunk up to the back of the seats.)

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...c/IMG_1647.jpg

Using the broken plastics i have now, I shouldn't have a problem building this to look of oem quality fitment (which isn't a very high bar to shoot for).

Game plan will involve cutting out almost all of the damaged structure, reinforcing any oem mounting points i want to use. Cutting up broken plastics to use adjoining areas to smooth out the shape and go nuts with fiberglass.

Most likely have a small trap door for amplifier / wiring access and mold a 10" sub enclosure facing rearward. Not a fan of the glossy painted interior panels, so I will likely continue the carpet over the area.

Nah he was obviously not the most sports car savvy. This was for a stereo, I found an amplifier ground cable still bolted down in the spare tire well.

that's some s#&$ ass job right there.. wow

For $550 I could a new replacement sheet metal structure and drill out all the spot welds, then weld in new. No biggie for me as I have all the equipment needed.

I'd still have $250 worth of plastic panels to replace, then i'm back to an OEM trunk that has bad rear speaker placement and wasted trunk space.

Will definitely be redesigning the trunk area in the next few months. Now I'm really gonna go crazy waiting to move into our newly purchased home (Great deal on house but sellers stay in it till September 1st)

Wowwwwww, that is ridiculous. Best of luck with whatever you're planning to do to fix this madness.

Remove the whole thing and build custom

edit:retract my statement since it appears it was already covered

Good price and since you want to redesign that area I guess it isn't so bad.

Looking forward to your progress.

Well dug further into to frankestein monstrosity.

The only thing hold the structure in was about a dozen self tapping sheet metal screws, the 7 bolts on the back side, and the two "shoulder" plates they made up.

Took me about 5 mins to remove the whole mess. Got a little surface rust where they had the recip saw blade banging around. I'll be sanding that down and primering to stop the rust. All in all I think this may work it quite nicely.

Starting to think a single 10" sub above surface, pointed backwards might look a but goofy but I truly don't want any more. So I'm thinking of recessing the sub below the new flat trunk extension, with it angled 45 degrees up, and a large (covered) opening in the new floor for the sub to shoot thru.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y14...t/IMAG0432.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y14...t/IMAG0431.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y14...t/IMAG0433.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y14...t/IMAG0434.jpg

instant track car status. id be pissed and kind of happy at the same time, time to call up a welder and have a cage installed :D

also correct me if im wrong but shouldn't there be zero paint on the inside unless it was resprayed?

No when they're painting the car on the line, they just let it overspray into the interior.

If I was going to call a welder i'd be calling myself :icon38: I've got a Miller Syncrowave 250dx TIG sitting in storage until we move into our new house. Time is not right for the car to get a cage though.

Did you contact the seller and call him out for not being 100% honest?

Install a back seat instead!!!! lol

Not worth chasing him down. I was angry for all of about 5 minutes then settled down to how to fix the issues. I'm simply amazed how someone could be so careless and stupid with a car.

I'm trying to decide on how to build up the shape. Would like to use styrofoam to cut out the shape but that will require epoxy resins (toxic fumes, requires sanding when adding a new layer to a fully hardened layer, and higher cost).

If I use polyester resin (which i have a good quantity of already) I will need to use 2 part urethane expanding foam to pour and trim to shape. Problem is the foam requires very quick mixing and pouring. It can make a royal mess if spilled.

With the expanding foam though i can build my recessed sub enclosure, fixture it in cavity, and pour the foam around (fixturing required b/c box will "float" in the expanding foam). It will get locked into the foam and be well supported.

Get 1/8" worth of fiberglass down for the top and bolting surfaces. Should end up being pretty lightweight, structurally sound, and flow well in the interior.

Haha this is funny.... Check out my backseat thread (see signature) in for what you come up with.

There's also a guy in here who removed all that for a sub. Not sure he's finished yet

^^ HA!!! There's the guy.