Meet Ralph - 1970 ST project

[rich73]

Hi Dean, The compressors are ABAC 50 litres which are on wheels, they got quite a lot of use in the house renovation we've just finished.

Another thing that I didn't mention is that you need to get the water out of the air too. I have a setup based on this made from copper.

https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/air-system.htm

Noise isn't really too bad, its the dust that's a nightmare.

One tip when running 2 compressors is to adjust them so they don't both come on at once and trip the supply. Also helps now I have a dedicated garage supply rather than the spur from the house it was running off. Especially important as my partner works from home .

For the fiddly bits I'm using a selecting of wire brushes from tool station, they are really cheap and work amazingly well on a modern battery drill.
2021-11-05_03-13-22 by richard cannings, on Flickr


More blasting action today...
2021-11-05_03-09-14 by richard cannings, on Flickr

Think I'm over half way there with the blasting and epoxy.
2021-11-05_03-09-38 by richard cannings, on Flickr

[Gary71]

Looks like you’ve got a great shell there. Must be great to blast it back and it not end up in holes!

[rich73]

Found the odd bit when blasting but looks like I managed to full weld up most of the holes before hand. Feel like I can see the end the end of the cleaning now.
One of todays successes' was finding the engine lid hinge brackets in this lot.

2021-11-16_02-34-41 by richard cannings, on Flickr

2021-11-16_02-35-04 by richard cannings, on Flickr

Started to clean up the engine lid too quite like its original colour.

2021-11-16_02-35-17 by richard cannings, on Flickr

[rich73]

Couldn't resist a bit of drilling this morning.

2021-11-17_01-23-42 by richard cannings, on Flickr

2021-11-17_01-23-52 by richard cannings, on Flickr

Facebook marketplace £150 pillar drill now fully justified!

Might do a bit of drilling of the bonnet hinges too, although I did read somewhere that they to do with safety in a crash and you would surly die if you even thought about drilling holes in them. Might do it anyway and just use the Volvo if I'm planning on crashing.

[RobFrost]

Seeing your factory paint - I thought I should throw this out there:

[rich73]

I do like that, think I saw a car at Redtek a few years in that colour and it did look stunning. Engine lid cleaned up and holes filled ready for epoxy.

2021-11-18_12-37-44 by richard cannings, on Flickr

Finished our new bird table in Porsche Olive green. Tried out Lechler direct gloss 2K which was excellent, may need a slower hardener though as it went off pretty quickly.

2021-11-18_12-38-05 by richard cannings, on Flickr

Just ordered a new Mig welder too which should arrive tomorrow. Old one still going strong but wanted try a new inverter one.

[911hillclimber]

Good luck keeping the pesky squirrels off that!

Looks great, lot of work in that.

[rich73]

Thankfully we have a pair of squirrel deterrents.
2021-11-18_04-47-34 by richard cannings, on Flickr

[rich73]

Few little fiddly repairs to the wings with the mig today.

2021-11-19_12-09-18 by richard cannings, on Flickr

2021-11-19_12-09-41 by richard cannings, on Flickr

Old welder working better than ever today.

[rich73]

Still haven't decided how I'm going to weld the arches on yet but thought I'd have a practice on an old panel. Tried a butt weld using the TIG on high power (60A) with no up/Down slope with just short manual pulses. Seemed to work well although not very tolerant to a gap in the join and just blows through.
May try with some copper bar behind.

2021-11-19_03-22-09 by richard cannings, on Flickr


Did try run a normal Tig weld at 28A and the distortion was impressive running out 150mm.

Fall-back plan is to built up a series of mig spot welds although I do like the idea of the softer Tig welds to make any panel beating any easier. Any thoughts welcome on this.

[RobFrost]

There's an old Irish american guy on YouTube who advocates forming a temporary lap joint then cutting both panels together at 45 degrees with a fine grinder blade. Done carefully, this gives you a butt joint with no gap. You can progress a section at a time, cutting then pushing the current section flush while you butt weld it, before cutting the next section at 45 degrees and so on.

I think his method would be easier for a straight joint as you'd have to be very careful not to penetrate too far with the disc on say a wheel arch.

This only addresses the problem of gaps blowing out, not hardness of the weld.

On a related note, pure argon is better for not blowing out as CO2 lowers the surface tension of the puddle.

I don't think you'll avoid doing a series of tiny welds to avoid distortion.

Sent from my SM-G988B using Tapatalk

[rich73]

Spent some more time on YouTube and although I haven't come across your Irish American guy I've watched enough to decide that I'm going to go with using TIG to weld the arches on.
Piece of 4 inch tube just arrived so I've got everything I need to do the centre fill conversion. Really pleased with the cost of this so far, managed to get the tube, cap and neck for £54 which is a good saving compared the the price of the kits I've seen offered.
Seen quite a few solutions for the fuel catchment and was going to go for some sort of dog bowl based solution but I do like the one I found recently.

5ccc1890c370bd3a35a3e369_11-for-sale-1971-Porsche-911-ST-bicester-heritage-oxfordshire-uk-sports-purpose-porsche-specialists by richard cannings, on Flickr

[stretch]

Old boiler flue.
Nice work on the car.

[RobFrost]

Here's that technique for getting butt welds flush and tight. But I suspect it will be a lot more tricky for a curved seam like your wheel arches.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u31t13QO6A

[rich73]

Old boiler flue.
Nice work on the car.

That did cross my mind but I only had 4.5" in my scrap pile!
Think the stuff I bought was intended as ;

Cobra_Subaru_Impreza_Turbo_Back_Exhaust_wCatRes_3_b8aab_4787_3707 by richard cannings, on Flickr


Thanks for the link rob, I'm quite liking watching this chap at the monent too.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ5YKZ ... YJnBLySxbg

Been away for a while but just starting to get going on the car again,