Adam
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Joined: 04 Oct 2001
Posts: 682
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 Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2001 7:01 pm Post subject: The story thus far (part two) |
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We then decided that the next logical thing to do was to start on the body, I noted that there was about 3 pinholes of rust in each of the front passenger and (both)rear footwells. So in an attempt to avoid having to chase my tail over rust on a permanent basis, I decided to weld entire new plates into those three sections. Armed with the trusty angle grinder I removed massively too large rectangular sections and then Martyn and Hugh used the power drill fitted with a wire brush to remove the body deadener and paint for around two inches around the holes.
Martyn wirebrushing the rear floor
I then used the angle grinder to cut two sections of 3mm plate steel for the rear floor sections and bashed them to shape by sitting the plates on a stump and bashing them with a big hammer, then comparing the shape to what was needed, bashing some more, compare, bash, compare, bash, compare... Once I was happy I rang Alan and begged to borrow his MIG welder, Alan kindly agreed and we dragged his mig unit over later that week. Once I had him captive I broached alan on the subject of how to shape steel to the more complex shape required for the front passenger footwell. Alan (bless his cotton socks) then sourced some thinner 1.5mm steel sheet to use for the front section, he cut it to shape using a 'nibbler' and made up the panel perfectly to shape and size in about half an hour from start to finish.
A careful inspection of the rest of the body revealed two other spots requiring welding, the first being high in the passenger footwell on the firewall, a spot of isolated rust had appeared, caused I suspect by a combination of the heat from the exhaust and moisture being trapped by the sound deadening matting. The second rust spot being the end of the sill panel on the passenger side under where the quarter panel would normally sit, caused no doubt by the quarter panel trapping dirt and water against the panel for the last 20 years. The first was repaired using a small scrap of 3mm left over from the rear panels, the latter involved fabricating two complicated small panels from 1.5mm steel.
With all the plates made it was time to start welding, starting with the rear panels...
In the picture they have already been painted with kitten rust converter
Then moving onto the front panel and the firewall repair section...
Alan welding in the front plate.
The finished plate was a thing of beauty.
Once these were done we encountered a problem, the sill had previously been patched over using an aluminium plate rivetted in place, upon removing this plate in preparation for welding we found that the sill had been filled with a combination of tar body deadener, rust proofer and what looked suspiciously like engine oil... Now removing this proved to be on the dificult side of impossible so we decided to weld with it in situ, this would cause the weld to be weaker but we didn't really care at this point, as the weld wasn't structural and would be covered over with rust proofer, body deadener and eventually the quarter panel.
Immediately after taking this photo I jumped inside the car and helped try and blow the fire out
Note the drips of molten tar on the ground below the plate.
As you can see from the photos above welding the plate caused a fairly substantial fire in the hollow section which runs from the sill up to the scuttle panel, this wasn't too serious and was easily extinguished once the welding had been completed. Once the plates were in they were all coated with a layer or kitten rust converter and a layer of bitumenous tar body deadener.
To be continued... |
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