A pleasure but do me a favour - Once you have the car on the road, try not to catch that sill on anything low - it has circa twice the welds of factory sill and would be a proper pain to replace !
Post by grumpynorthener on May 4, 2021 20:15:21 GMT
Need to close the rear of the outer sill
There is a panel available but this creates a flanged / rebated pocket for any road debris thrown up by the rear wheel to sit in
Instead I made my own which is flush fitting - the hole is non factory but there for cavity wax injection access and will be blanked off with a suitable grommet
With the sill panels now fully welded the bracing could be removed
Which allowed much better access for dressing the work up in the front footwell
This weak section in the floorpan requires some attention
Cut out and fresh steel let in & dressed back
Several other areas required attention - like this radius on the edge flange between the sill & A post
Again some minor works around the bulkhead / base of windscreen pillar
I'm now on with repairs to the front inner wing
I have a replacement panel for the trumpet section but the inner wing itself will require some templated repairs
Trial fits underway
Still some trimming back & further repairs to undertake yet
Post by toomanyprojects on May 7, 2021 11:41:10 GMT
Had a couple of minor jobs to sort on the GT parts last night, main one was to sort something I'd done 18 months or so ago when I assembled the front subframe and suspension for the NEC - I needed to turn the front dampers around so the dial was at the rear and not liable to getting covered in road muck. One down, one to go
Simple job to do, it was then able to join a few of the other parts in 'clean storage' as I want to get on with a few bits on the Celica and not cover everything while I'm at it.
Post by grumpynorthener on May 13, 2021 20:15:10 GMT
More progress with the GT with the bodyshell now turned around
And the all important temporary bracing installed whilst the structural works are undertaken
With the bracing linking the bulkhead back to the rear of the car but also picking up on the base of the A post
Door & front wing removed to allow access followed by lots of drilling out of the spotwelds
Outer sill mid removal
Closely followed by the centre sill
The one of worst jobs is drilling the spotwelds out on the underside of the castle rail
Its far from fun laid on your back exerting what force you can upwards through the drill whilst you are getting showered in sharp hot drill swarf - plenty more to remove, clean back & dress tomorrow
Post by toomanyprojects on May 14, 2021 10:30:43 GMT
Hmm that inner sill is delightful, still amazes me what can be hidden beneath something that looks in the most part pretty sound.
Wondering if you can get a collar to fit round the drill to stop the swarf - something akin to a collar you'd put on a cat or dog, I guess then you may lose sight of what you are drilling.
Great work as always, that is a considerable amount of spotwelds to be removing especially to be doing on your back.
Have to wonder though at the amount of rust already appearing on the inner sill panels for a chassis that has been dipped. is this one of the reasons you changed providers?
From my recollection of doing the same job on a Jubilee GT many moons ago the castle rail is heavier gauge steel than the rest of the other sill panels. Patience pays in the end, our Hero has it in Spades! Loving watching work on territory with which I'm familiar.
Great work as always, that is a considerable amount of spotwelds to be removing especially to be doing on your back.
Have to wonder though at the amount of rust already appearing on the inner sill panels for a chassis that has been dipped. is this one of the reasons you changed providers?
I used to send all of my work to the company that did the dipping on this but have been short changed on this one - they haven't washed the ash out of it and the primer that they applied is awful - other things like failing to correspond / answer phones etc and time taken to turn jobs around had me looking for another supplier - we will have this dipped again before starting on the profiles & paint - but this time it will be going up to Ribble Technology who's work is of a far better quality when compared with this
From my recollection of doing the same job on a Jubilee GT many moons ago the castle rail is heavier gauge steel than the rest of the other sill panels. Patience pays in the end, our Hero has it in Spades! Loving watching work on territory with which I'm familiar.
Correct - the castle rail is a much heavier grade steel
Post by grumpynorthener on May 16, 2021 17:29:41 GMT
Castle rail removed
Flitch panel is far worse than the nearside one
I had already planned to replace the trumpet section
The upper section of the flitch panel had been cut into in order access remaining parts prior to the bodyshell going for dipping - A call to Sam revealed that he had a repair section for the flitch panel in stock - he was going to drop several other parts to me over this weekend so this got added to the delivery
Forward section of the inner sill is holed & very thin so this will get replaced
Sill area now dressed back & cleaned up
Bottom edge of the rear wheelarch tub will also require a little reconstructive work
Great work as always, that is a considerable amount of spotwelds to be removing especially to be doing on your back.
Have to wonder though at the amount of rust already appearing on the inner sill panels for a chassis that has been dipped. is this one of the reasons you changed providers?
I used to send all of my work to the company that did the dipping on this but have been short changed on this one - they haven't washed the ash out of it and the primer that they applied is awful - other things like failing to correspond / answer phones etc and time taken to turn jobs around had me looking for another supplier - we will have this dipped again before starting on the profiles & paint - but this time it will be going up to Ribble Technology who's work is of a far better quality when compared with this
Thought it might have been something like that, all the others i have seen you have had dipped looked clean inside. i have heard alot of horror stories about dipping not being done correctly and resulting in massive amounts of rot, Was toomanyprojects Celica done by ribble technology? it looks very well done.
I used to send all of my work to the company that did the dipping on this but have been short changed on this one - they haven't washed the ash out of it and the primer that they applied is awful - other things like failing to correspond / answer phones etc and time taken to turn jobs around had me looking for another supplier - we will have this dipped again before starting on the profiles & paint - but this time it will be going up to Ribble Technology who's work is of a far better quality when compared with this
Thought it might have been something like that, all the others i have seen you have had dipped looked clean inside. i have heard alot of horror stories about dipping not being done correctly and resulting in massive amounts of rot, Was toomanyprojects Celica done by ribble technology? it looks very well done.
It was, I've also had the camper done by them too and have recently sent a mini shell in their direction.
Fair to say there's a world of difference in terms of coverage and the quality of finish. On the one hand it's a bit frustrating having to get it done again, however given the metalwork and other modifications required for this project, it being re-treated once that stage is complete and ahead of the profiling and paint is probably the better way to go, so every cloud and all that.
As Chris mentioned I popped by with a few panels this weekend and to remove some that are now surplus to requirements, suffice to say all is coming together very nicely and we've come up with a bit of a plan for the next stages.
All of which means I now need to crack on with more bits my way and getting my grey matter around researching a few things that I've not tackled before - should prove interesting!
