1987 3.2 Carrera Backdate project - Sladeys hotrod

[DustyM]

I also picked up one of these little puppies over the weekend


You can't have too many things to cut with!

You'd be better off with a bread knife! I've had a few of those of varying makes and none of them have been any good, let me know if that one works for you?



Oh and in case you're feeling lonely in your quest for solid metal I uncovered this delight on Saturday - nice



Cheers
Jon

[sladey]

Thanks for that Jon - yes it gets a bit dispiriting when you just cut stuff away - Ian helped to talk me in from the ledge on Saturday afternoon. Feels a lot better to have started welding!

On the cutter it worked well for the limited job I asked it to do - it got into the inner flange thing nicely and cut it off well (although I did bend a blade). Also found it useful for finer shaping of a part I'd cut out - but I can accept it's not the strongest of tools.

[sladey]

OK another weekend gone and I finally feel I'm starting to make some progress.

First I'd got corrosion towards the rear - that inner flange thing I was talking about previously and the inner sill as well. The best way to look at it is looking inside the rear footwell. With these photos it's hard to get a grip on what you're looking at sometimes.

OK so I've cut the inner sill out and the middle flange - you can just see the middle flange poking through. The black underneath is the floor repair section - I've screwed it in place to I can make sure the repair bits I'm making will be able to attach to it

[sladey]

So I made up the middle flange.

First I tried making it out of one piece of steel. This took a while but eventually I got something that was the right shape. I then went to trim it down to size and managed to cut it too small, thereby making it useless, and wasting a couple more hours of my time. Tuesday night wasn't a great night in the sladey household.

The next night I did it in two pieces, and got them made up and welded in within an hour


Now having looked at the original I know that the flange at the bottom of this middle piece should fold back on itself. However I felt that was going to be too hard to make and also once made would be very difficult to get into place. I therefore put the flange on the other side. It will still attach to the floor and give the strength needed

[MT]

I also picked up one of these little puppies over the weekend


You can't have too many things to cut with!

You'd be better off with a bread knife! I've had a few of those of varying makes and none of them have been any good, let me know if that one works for you?

Cheers
Jon

I have a Sealey version and it works well as long as the compressor has enough umph. I have also found you can make replacement (and better) blades using standard hacksaw blades cut to shape (any shape you fancy!) with some standard tin snips.

Mick

[sladey]

Next is the inner sill

This is how it looked when I cut it out


And with some cardboard added to help me make the template


Repair piece tacked on


And welded together (this is the view from the back of the welds - I got good penetration (!)


Ground the welds down


And welded it in place

[Gary71]

Coming together

The reconstruction phase is so much more satisfying!

[sladey]

Next we've got the seat strengthening piece that sits under the outer runner and attaches to the floor

This with what it looks like when Barry makes one - fantastic work!


The top half of mine was in good nick, so I decided to just fabricate the bottom half. It wouldn't be as pretty but will be plenty strong enough. As you'll see from Barry's piece the flange along the bottom has a step halfway down. After thinking this through I decided to make it in two pieces


(The bent bit in the flange is to fit around a bump in the floor)

I went to fit it and found a bit of corrosion I'd forgotten about - and realised I'd need to sort that before I could weld on the seat strengthener.


Piece made and welded in


Then welded the two seat strengthener pieces in


Then we went to a friends house for tea and cake. Hurrah!

[sladey]

Oh and before anyone comments yes I know the wires are cut in this picture


Some exuberant cutting a couple of weeks ago! Ian has kindly volunteered to solder them back together

[sladey]

Planning a busy week-end ahead, but I've got a couple of questions.

At the front of the sill - down from the door hinges there is a strip of metal that I'm holding in place in this picture



I've found it hard to se a decent pic of one of these in place - it doesn't fit at the top but I don't know if it should be wleded on at the bottom or along the side or what. Any clarification would be greatly appreciated

My other question relates to the same area but is in relation to the new inner sill. At the front of it is this little ridged bit of steel.


Do I cut this off to form a smooth line going down as shown by my white dotted line?


If not, how or what does that fit onto?

[DustyM]

Not sure if this helps, it's hard to explain




http://www.restoration-design.com/mm5/m ... Code=P236R

The inner sill joins (overlaps) this part (don't cut off any thing!)

Which sits between the lower a-post and floor, it would originally be part of the inner front wing.

I think that small part you have is the rear edge of this.



I'll be in the workshop tomorrow if you want to give me a shout to go through it, with the parts in front of you.

Cheers
Jon

[sladey]

Ahaaaaaaaaaaaa

That's brill - I get that now - thanks for that Jon

[sladey]

More progress over the week-end but not as much as I'd hoped

Started work on the bit underneath the door jamb


I'm quite pleased with the repair section I made for this


I'm not going to weld it in yet - I want to jack up the door and weld in the floor and this piece at the same time to get the strength back into the door jamb. I was concerned that just putting this piece back in (even with the door jacked up) won't be enough on it's own.

The blackness you can see it because I attacked much of the rusty bits with FE123 from rustbuster - has done a good job of converting the surface rust.

[sladey]

Progress has slowed recently as real life got in the way. Also sorting the floor out has taken longer than expected - welding then grinding then welding then grinding and so on.

Finally ready for epoxy resin today


Gone for the buff colour as it's closest to the original coating (not that close, I'll admit), and when I put the dinitrol over the top it will show through any bits I've missed

[jtparr]

Mark
Glad your making progress
Always look forward to the updates on this thread..

Jp