1974 Toyota Celica Gen 1 'TA22'

You’re welcome.
Delivery of boot floor scheduled for next week and to coincide with disappearance of the aforementioned beers!

Is everyone sitting down? Good. I May have done 'something' on the Celica... I know, I know

Asides the quick play with the shrinker and stretcher for the windscreen/roof repairs (see workshop thread here)


So starting with the ethos of just doing 'something', my plan was to start on the panel making once more where there are, errr, 'issues'. Slowly, slowly, catchy monkey and all that.

It all started simply enough, a spot of CAD that resulted in a couple of strips of new metal


before shaping up


it was then time to deal with the 'issue'


a bit of drilling, slicing and dicing later and we get the following.



Lovely!

It's now decision time, in an ideal world I need to go further as it all needs a bit of attention. This top rail was apart in the very early days but the repairs made then are far from ideal and I 'think' can be done better


My thinking is to drill everything out, dismantle as far as is necessary, then build back up replacing and repairing as I go. Especially as I need to repair the rail on the bonnet side also


You'll also notice from the above the wing under the front battery tray, not pretty. Another area to cut out and repair then. Perhaps I ought to add a swaging tool to my xmas list...

More soon...

Doesnt look too bad, im no professional but take lots of pictures/measurements, do one panel at a time so its not too daunting, shape bits of wood for formers and dont go too thick with the replacement metal, thats all I can offer!

Good advice, many thanks gents.

I think slowly, slowly is the way forward here, I'm going to make up the simple panels first while they are off the car and can be simply done, then we can move on to the fun stuff. As you say Chris, doing things in sections may be the way to go. A metal folder may just now be on the birthday list for the end of the month however

Nice work, good to see you getting back to this one!

I find that welding projects can be quite daunting. Simply in the amount of work involved and the risks associated with them. The many layers that often need to be peeled back before one can start rebuilding. All the while risking losing references/templates etc. And this is even when people involved can at least weld and there is at least something left to template. I'm always in awe of those who tackle these type of projects, like you. Things like moving houses and the like always have a big impact on life anyway... So well done for doing all you do, juggling several projects as well!

No I've 2.5 years of storing up the boxes while I did nothing 🤣🤣

Some more minor progress last night albeit with a slight distraction that I'll come on to.

Main task was to finish templating the last section to be removed around the suspension turret


Essentially to get it to a rough form/curve similar to the offside


Once relatively happy it was how I wanted it, I dug out one of the wings to ensure the profile roughly matched that of the wing.



All looks reasonable to me. Given that's the only datum I have, before cutting the last section out I'll take some measurements and compare them to the other side also and that should give me the correct height to aim at with the repair piece.

I've a relatively clear weekend coming up so hoping I'll be able to start making the sections up in metal... well assuming last night's slight distraction doesn't get any worse


Yeah that doesn't look particularly clever!

There was evidence of it also running down and dripping further down and I found other puddles in the far corner of the workshop. From an initial look, I suspect it's coming from the join between the buildings/roofs but need to get on the roof to investigate more. With the wind and driving rain we've had recently it could have come from anywhere. Another job on the to do list though 

Time to transfer my CAD templates to metal then



A bit of careful cutting out with the grinder and slitting disc later


It was then on to the time consuming stage - forming and shaping everything. The trickiest being the side piece which has an indent as well as curves up at the end to meet the top section that the wing bolts to. Given that I had a jog sat there in the form of the O/S I thought I'd start with that.


A bit of time with the shrinker/stretcher to get the right movements resulted in things shaping up () nicely.


On with refining some of the other sections then, the bottom piece is relatively straightforward asides two cutouts, one at the side to mirror the, err side piece, and one at the end, because err, Toyota.


which meant I could test fit things together



and would go on the car like so



Not a bad position to get to given I only had a few hours on Sat. However the top piece niggled me, it just wasn't right and needed fettling both in terms of it's profile around the side curve and length, in an ideal world it would tuck under the last rectangular section I'd previously made to mirror the other side. Having slept on it there was only one option...

Back out with the templating


The rest by this point though I was rather pleased with


New top made, shaped, and a stepped section added at the bulkhead end saw a much better outcome



Time to lose the clamps and replace with cleco pins in order to check everything




Pretty happy with that, now I could do so, it was time to check with the wing in place


all seemed to sit as intended - happy days.

A bit more fettling saw things improve further but I was still battling against some of the old metal that I'd left in place as a reference, particularly behind the suspension turret and at both ends where the wing meets the slam panel and where the top rail joins the bulkhead



Time to swallow a couple then and breakout the spot drill once more



Yeah that wasn't doing much!

That left me with this



Nothing for it but to have a clean up, see what was still solid enough to work with, and then build up once more. This time in final position


This also meant I needed to bring the existing join to the suspension turret into play


Which could be fixed like so


Marked using the top piece to give me a join line


and trimmed




Very pleased with that and much better than what I started out with.

Before all gets fixed in place I've a few other localised repairs to make as well where the metal has thinned and perforated



Then it will be on to the front sorting out the mess of crash damage/leaking battery/previous attempts at solidifying things


It's all got to just come out and get remade I think... just not sure quite how I'm going to tackle it just yet.

The other areas will just get small repairs to strengthen them back up


I'll finish making those small bits up and progress can then resume once I've requisitioned my welder back from her ladyship. Sods law states that as soon as I start it'll run out of gas!

It's certainly not pretty and it always takes far longer than I think it should, but I must confess it feels good to be stuck in once again.

More soon