[car_overhaul] What's This? A Road Car!?

[Daviewonder 533 3 Cars]

This is getting very impressive

[j_turnell 137 3 Cars]

Looks like your doing a cracking job on the panel repairs mate

[feb 47]

That's a fantastic job you have done!

In which case is a MIG welder preferred as opposed to a TIG welder? What's the difference between the two?

Edited July 17, 2011 by feb

[Fox 3]

Nice! This is going to look like new!

[Cameron 16]

That's a fantastic job you have done!

In which case is a MIG welder preferred as opposed to a TIG welder? What's the difference between the two?

 

TIG is great for perfectly clean or new metal and for the really thin stuff, or for where you want lightweight and strong welds as you can control the heat and wire completely independently, MIG is much quicker and adds more material, so good if you've got gaps or if the surfaces can't be perfectly cleaned - perfect for cars!

 

So more work today, and not as much visible progress as yesterday as I had a really really fiddly and complicated job to do! I decided the best thing to do would be to repair the headlight panel first as it really helped with positioning everything correctly on the nearside, I can use it to make sure everything gets put back in the right place when I come to weld it all back together.

 

I started off with the top piece, cutting the rotten bits out.

 

 

Then had a bit of a montage making patches, welding and smoothing everything off, so didn't get to take many pics. I ended up with this:

 

 

And clamped it back into place, and marked up the larger part of the panel to cut out the rusty bits.

 

 

 

I got a little way through making the patches and it started getting very tricky, so decided it would be much easier to assemble as much as I could back on the car then cut and shape the patches in situ, rather than risk getting them wrong. To do that I had to repair the remaining part of the panel, which had corroded through where it attaches to the chassis leg. Unfortunately this is a tricky bit to make as it's a raised pressed peak, so some careful cutting shaping and welding later..

 

 

And I could then use that to start tacking everything together and get the tricky patches right.

 

 

Finally finished it at about 6.30, took all day! A hell of a lot of work though.. I ran into some difficulties getting the welds all blended back as there were some really tight areas that I just couldn't get the grinder into without damaging other parts, so I decided to leave it as it'll never be seen anyway!

 

 

Gave it a blast of anti-corrosive primer and called it a day.

 

[BusEngineer 7]

Some excellent fabrication work there Cam, very impressive.

 

Keep it up

[hman205 1]

Are you welding against a copper block to get such neat welds?

Edited July 19, 2011 by hman205

[Cameron 16]

Nope, just got mad skills. (and a good MIG machine)

[allye 530 3 Cars]

I can't weld, but I'm aware it's quite an art, and you sir are a master artist! Very impressive work.

[peterjohnson6037 0 2 Cars]

Nice work, it's good to see some proper repairs instead of just buying replacement panels.

[Cameron 16]

Today is a good day!

 

You'll have to forgive me for posting a week's work in one go, I didn't want to keep updating a photo or so every night. I've been doing a couple of hours a night this week and tonight I managed to finish the fabrication and welding, it feels very good!

 

So picking up from the last update where I'd finished repairing the headlamp panel, I started off by cutting out all of the rotten bits and ended up with a very large hole! The state of the inner arch was pretty horrific and most of it had to be removed. This left me with a very tricky repair to make, as I wanted to retain the existing "dimple" (for want of a better word) so that I could fit the standard jack, but more importantly so it wouldn't look obvious it had been patched up. I didn't take any photos of the steps I took to do this, but basically I cut the large sheet metal patch to shape, then removed a circular part from it, and formed a little indented circular patch to sit in the hole. You can see it in this pic, where I'd welded the dimple and the large patch in place; I'd clamped all the panels back in to make sure it was all in the right place.

 

 

Then ground the lot down as smooth as I could!

 

 

So then more lack of pics really.. I had a montage repairing the upper part of the inner wing so didn't take any, but it's basically the same as the other side was! I also welded on the lip that the headlamp panel would spot weld to.

 

 

 

So then a big spot-welding montage later..

 

 

Then gave it some paint!

 

 

 

Unfortunately, I ran out! So I need to order some more before I continue.

This shot from the underside demonstrates pretty nicely how much metal had to be removed!

 

[Cameron 16]

Let there be paint!

 

I primered everything this morning before work, then rubbed it down and "shot some colour". I'll let the pics talk..

 

 

 

I'm really impressed with the paint from Paints4U, the cans have a nozzle that sprays in a fan rather like a paint gun, so it's really really easy to get a smooth layer of paint down without any thick / thin patches. The amount of paint that comes out is really nice as well, not like Halfrauds ones that seem to blast 3 tonnes per second out for the first few squirts then barely manage to dribble! The colour match seems a little dark at the moment, but the old paint I'm comparing it to is covered in dust so it's difficult to tell for sure.

 

The ultimate proof will be to see how long it takes to harden enough to be rubbed down.. I'm going to give this layer an hour to set then put another one on, then come back to it tomorrow evening to see if it's good to go.

Edited July 26, 2011 by Cameron

[GeorgeXS 32]

Really impressive work Cameron! Mad skills indeed!

[Flozman 4]

Top notch work, I never understand why my car has none of this behind the scenes rot, yet the paintwork would have you think it was scrap yard ready in comparison to this nice motor.

[SurGie 54]

Very good work Cam, lets hope when you fit all the lights back it all looks straight.

 

For me i would have sprayed the front panel with stone chip the same colour, but thats me.

[Cameron 16]

Top notch work, I never understand why my car has none of this behind the scenes rot, yet the paintwork would have you think it was scrap yard ready in comparison to this nice motor.

 

My black one is exactly the same, shoddy faded paint but 100% rust-free!

 

Very good work Cam, lets hope when you fit all the lights back it all looks straight.

 

For me i would have sprayed the front panel with stone chip the same colour, but thats me.

 

Yeah I'm hoping the lights etc fit back in properly and all the shut lines are good, I can't see why they wouldn't be though! The lights have a lot of adjustment in all directions to allow for the manufacturing tolerances, as does the bumper, so it should be ok.

[Cameron 16]

Today was my birthday, and I did this..

 

 

Took the day (and tomorrow) off work to have a mega-montage on the car, and it's looking really good! Fingers crossed I'll get it done in time to drive it tomorrow, then (as long as nothing goes wrong) I'm going to take it for a very long drive over the weekend.

[Anthony 1,003]

Excellent work Cam

 

(belated happy birthday too!)

[Cameron 16]

Thanks!

 

Well, today didn't go so well.. a lot of things went wrong (coolant gallery cracking being the main one) and I've had to admit defeat. It's very very difficult for me to walk away from a job once I get going, but I was just getting more and more impatient so had to walk away.

 

Will resume again tomorrow afternoon, but for now I'm off for a well-earned birthday celebration.

[allye 530 3 Cars]

I want to see some finished, polished pictures!!

[miamichris 9]

I want to see some finished, polished pictures!!

 

Me too!!

[Cameron 16]

I'll go take some now!

 

Sorry, I've been so busy getting it running the past 4 days that I've barely done anything else!

[Cameron 16]

Pics as promised..

 

Went to a little place I go running as there's always a pretty decent sunset, unfortunately there wasn't much of one tonight.

 

 

 

 

Bit of a variety of styles there, think my favourite is the top one though.

[allye 530 3 Cars]

:0. Looks lovely, top one is best. You've turned that round really quickly.

 

What's the plans now?

[Cameron 16]

Thanks! Yeah the idea was to get it sorted asap so I could enjoy it over the summer, so I had to work very quickly!

 

Plans are to fit a decent stereo in the form of an mp3 only head unit and some good quality speakers, then just enjoy using the car! I still have a few little niggles to fix, like the heater blower doesn't work and the central locking is a bit temperamental. Other than that it's just going to be a nice clean honest road car.