1982 Lada Niva

Maybe they should start putting lead in the tires for demolition derby cars. Or how about junker drag racing. The first car across the finish line with 90% of the starting weight wins.
 
After fighting with the rusted bolts for couple of days a good shake like that would made my job a lot easier.
 
Today after a visit to the tool/flea market i bought some heavy duty concentrated degreaser and pressure wash the rear axle with it. There was years of caked on grime also lots of rust, my dilemma now is do i leave the housing alone just clean it and paint it or do i reinforce it and make it as good as it can be, it won't cost me much just time and supplies, what are your thoughts?
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It depends on what your long term goals for that car are gonna be! If you plan on keeping it and driving it until the wheels fall off? Then yes Absolutely invest in the upgrades but if you plan on flipping it for a profit then paint that axle and reassemble and move on.
 
It depends on what your long term goals for that car are gonna be! If you plan on keeping it and driving it until the wheels fall off? Then yes Absolutely invest in the upgrades but if you plan on flipping it for a profit then paint that axle and reassemble and move on.

After all the work i've done to it, it is staying, the plan is to drive it till i can and do improvement along the way probably during the summer as is better in the winter than my daily driver. Now the question is do i reinforce the axle from the bottom or from the top?
 
Is the rear axle a know weak point and if so how does it "Usually" tend to fail when one decides to self destruct?
 
They are known the get bent, the ends up from jumping, and back to front from hitting stuff. I've seen one with welded pieces from the bottom.
 
Looking at it if i were to flip that jotted i would probably start by removing the spring, slick and brake mounting brackets then i would find a adequate steel pipe that would fit completely around the axle, split it into 2 long wise and then clam shell it around the existing axle and welled it up so that the original axle is incased in the pipe. Wild the brackets back on, paint and put it back on the car. You shouldn't lose any clearance to cause interference issues either.
 
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