Post by grumpynorthener on Aug 7, 2022 12:59:25 GMT
Not a lot to show considering how much time I have spent on the car
Ray - I'm going be argumentative and disagree with you - I appreciate that its slow progress but the progress made is very thorough & certainly betters some of the work that I see turned out by so called professional restorers
Not a lot to show considering how much time I have spent on the car
Ray - I'm going be argumentative and disagree with you - I appreciate that its slow progress but the progress made is very thorough & certainly betters some of the work that I see turned out by so called professional restorers
Thanks for the vote of confidence Chris. I am getting a bit better at what I am doing but it just takes so long sometimes and it is easy to get deflated and feel like giving up. When the sills are finished and I can get started on the floor I will be happier. Just need to deal with the mess at the front corner first.
Here here , perfection takes time . I too made a jig to keep the mounting holes in line .I created a dimple by using a nut and bolt to screw down the metal into a tank cutter seating cone , Keep up the work
Time for an update. Before I continue with the floors I have the offside inner seat mounting to repair which has pulled through the crossmember. I drilled the hole out slightly to remove most of the fractures. Then made a repair plate and hammered the dimple into it, then drilled 4 holes for plug welds and welded that in. I had to do that before the crossmember and floor was fitted while I had access.
On then with the floors. I have both sides roughly made and the remaining floor which needs more cut out has been cleaned up in hopefully the correct place for the new floor to be welded in.
The lines drawn on the floor are for the bead roller to follow. That's the near side ready.
The offside is ready to be measured and the bead roller guide lines added which I will do after my dinner has settled. I would leave it until tomorrow morning but the trolley jack is holding the floor up and I never leave tools in the tent over night.
When the floors are ready to be welded the offside inner sill and the crossmembers will be welded at the same time so a bit of a weldathon is on the horizon. Tomorrow I will decide whether to tackle the front corner before or after the floors are done or that might need doing at the same time.
Decided to carry on with repairing the corner of the front wheel inner arch/bulkhead. I had previously cut a section out so made a new panel and also the angle section which fits over the corner. The shrinker/stretcher got a bit of use for this.
Panel fitted in and plug welded on the side and spot welds on the arch/bulkhead.
Then fully welded up.
Welds dressed back and corner section plug welded. Just need to dress them back tomorrow, (might be a few needing another splatter of weld) apply etch primer and will do the seam sealer later. Think I might have put the Bilt Hamber Etch Weld on a bit heavy as it was not good to weld.
Looking for a specific bolt. I've got the car back up on the spit and prior to doing that I removed the last 2 bits to get it as light as possible and now a 100% bare shell. So, the front screen came out easily and then the wiper motor and linkage but one of the bolts just spun round and had to be pulled out. The captive nut has corroded and also the threads on the bolt are non existant. There is corrosion around that area and a very small hole which explains why the flasher relay is corroded to bits as that sits underneath the hole. I can cut out and repair that area and fit a rivnut to secure the linkage. But I can't find a new bolt. It is a shoulder bolt, 10mm-M6x15. I can find 10mm shoulder bolts near enough the correct length, but they are 8mm thread and I don't have any 8mm rivnuts.
Does anyone have a supplier for a 10mm-M6x15 shoulder bolt please? Can have a hex head or a socket head.
EDIT. Now that I know better the bolt size should read 6mmx10-15
Looking for a specific bolt. I've got the car back up on the spit and prior to doing that I removed the last 2 bits to get it as light as possible and now a 100% bare shell. So, the front screen came out easily and then the wiper motor and linkage but one of the bolts just spun round and had to be pulled out. The captive nut has corroded and also the threads on the bolt are non existant. There is corrosion around that area and a very small hole which explains why the flasher relay is corroded to bits as that sits underneath the hole. I can cut out and repair that area and fit a rivnut to secure the linkage. But I can't find a new bolt. It is a shoulder bolt, 10mm-M6x15. I can find 10mm shoulder bolts near enough the correct length, but they are 8mm thread and I don't have any 8mm rivnuts.
Does anyone have a supplier for a 10mm-M6x15 shoulder bolt please? Can have a hex head or a socket head.
Looking for a specific bolt. I've got the car back up on the spit and prior to doing that I removed the last 2 bits to get it as light as possible and now a 100% bare shell. So, the front screen came out easily and then the wiper motor and linkage but one of the bolts just spun round and had to be pulled out. The captive nut has corroded and also the threads on the bolt are non existant. There is corrosion around that area and a very small hole which explains why the flasher relay is corroded to bits as that sits underneath the hole. I can cut out and repair that area and fit a rivnut to secure the linkage. But I can't find a new bolt. It is a shoulder bolt, 10mm-M6x15. I can find 10mm shoulder bolts near enough the correct length, but they are 8mm thread and I don't have any 8mm rivnuts.
Does anyone have a supplier for a 10mm-M6x15 shoulder bolt please? Can have a hex head or a socket head.
Nothing done recently as I have been feeling under the weather. Felt slightly better this morning although couldn't face going into the tent so managed a couple of hours on the wiper assembly before the uncontrollable shivering started again. When the car had the colour change, instead of removing the wiper assembly somebody just painted over it.
A paint strip disc made short work of stripping it back to bare metal.
A wipe over with panel wipe then etch primer.
Followed by satin black. The motor cover was cleaned, adhesion promoter applied and then more satin black.
Slightly pointless as it is barely seen but it was irritating me.
I've messaged johnnybravo regarding the bolt I need but not heard anything yet. Could be very busy or on holiday but there is no rush whatsoever. Next year will do actually.
I've drawn a blank with the bolt I need so will need to either try France or find somebody with a lathe to turn down a bolt to the size I need.
Other than that I am progressing with the floors and photos will follow when I get 1 side done. Talking about floors what it the best way to do this bit please? The photo is not my car but it shows what I need to do. There is a raised section (circled in red) where the subframe bolts on. This consists of a heavy gauge plate and the floor has to be shaped around this.
This picture shows the underside of the floor shaped around the reinforcing plate.
And the same but showing the inside of the floor with the reinforcing plates.
So how do I shape the floor around the reinforcing plates? I can only think to drill the subframe mounting holes and bolt the new floor to the reinforcing plates, (these need to be drilled in any case to fit the subframe) and then heat the floor cherry red (I can borrow a small oxy acetylene set) and hammer it into shape. The bulk of the floor would need welding into place first. Does that sound acceptable or stupid? Hope that makes sense. Makes sense to me but I know what I need to do and understand the pictures so hopefully you get the idea. As usual thanks for any advice.
Post by grumpynorthener on Sept 19, 2022 19:56:40 GMT
Ray - Do you have anything or any way of taking a pattern from the existing or getting another owner / restorer to patten the area up on a piece of A4 paper for you ? - I would make it in the 3 pieces - One being the outer square type plate that sits on the floorpan - then the bottom face of the rebate with the upper / rearward edge just tacked to the square plate and angled down - then with the correct depth measurement you can trim a piece of sheet steel in to make the radius wall connection between the base and the plate - tacked together all round then fully weld it up / dress it back
Hi Chris. I am not sure if you understand what I need to do or if I am not following what you are telling me. The square plates which sit inside the floor pan (shown in the last picture above) I have and it is sound. It is shaping the sheet steel of the new floor pan I have made to as best as possible match the shape of the square plate so I can spot weld them together which is the issue.
Post by grumpynorthener on Sept 20, 2022 6:33:39 GMT
Ah - Apologies Ray its my misunderstanding - In that case I doubt that you will form that shape / indent from cold without a substantial press facility - warming the metal would be easier but will distort the area unless its supported from the underside - Ideally you would need to make a former to support the rest of the floor area around the indented area that you are attempting to form - this would have to be of metal because you are heating the area around it and constructing the former would take some time - You would also thin the metal considerably using the process - The better option is form the indented shape from sheet steel off the car but this would also be a lengthy process has there is much stretching of the metal required to form the shape - By far the easy option is to form the base of the indent from sheet steel and turn the edges for a slight upstand of 10 to 20 mm then form the side wall from a separate piece of sheet steel and tack the two together - trimming & shaping has you go - then you can fully weld the wall face to the base & dress back - Once made then cut out the shape from the floor pan and weld in situ & dress back
Thanks Chris. Going to be a longer process than I thought but needs to be done. I have until the end of October then the shell is going into a barn for the winter. Had a stroke of luck finding somewhere to store it as can't have another winter with the tent flapping about in the wind so that will be packed away until April or thereabouts. Plus there is the condensation problem to consider. Winter will be spent rebuilding the engine and gearbox.
Carrying on with the floor I was aware from looking at Youtube vids that the bead roller would put a bend in the floor due to stretching it, and that you should run it through an English wheel to stretch it in the opposite direction first. The bead roller would then straighten it out but that was something that wasn't going to happen as I do not have an English wheel. However I remembered a chance conversation with an apprentice at work about 2 years ago and he mentioned his dad had bought an English wheel. A few messages later and it was arranged. He had just bought a new (old) one so off I went into the countryside to find his place. His dad was brilliant and when he saw I had the bead roller in the boot he had that out as I got the sheet steel out. Result was both floors perfectly worked.
The crossmember will need to be fitted first and needs just a little bit of fettling first.
Got a few bits to sort out before the floor goes in and visually that will give me a boost. Giving myself until the end of October then the shell is going into a barn for winter and the tent is coming down as it drives me nuts flapping about in the wind/storms. Will set it up again about the end of April.
Hopefully going to be welding in the offside floor tomorrow and looking for advice on whether or not there is a correct sequence for doing the welds as it is quite a large panel. My thoughts are to initially weld in the crossmember which I actually did at the weekend but no photo of that yet. Photo prior to welding this part in.
From there the floor will be clamped into place. Thinking of plug welding through the outer and centre sill into the flange on the floor (not seen in photo) followed by plug welds through the inner sill onto the floor and that part will be complete. Then the plug welds through the crossmember into the floor. After that is done weld the front and rear sections and only then look at butt welding the new floor to the centre section existing floor. There is a considerable overlap on this long centre section and I am thinking of tack welds every 4 inches or so along the full length. then run the 1mm slitting disc through the overlap one section and tack weld at a time so the old and new panels butt together then weld that and repeat.
Hope that makes sense and any suggestions as to a better/proper way to do this welcome as I need all the help I can get on this. Cheers
Post by grumpynorthener on Oct 4, 2022 19:59:58 GMT
Ray - That all appears to be well thought out - My largest point would be to avoid heat distortion on such a large panel so don't concentrate the welding to one area - rotate around the panel leaving suitable spacing between the previous weld and the next - take your time & don't rush the process
