DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Conscious that not only have I not been posting much, but when I do I'm not saying a lot . Maybe I should save all the mini-posts up for the occasional mega-post. Anyway, that would mean thinking, so onto the final part of the NS sills, etc – making the torsion bar hole.

I had a play, first making a 50mm / 2” hole, then using my joggler to indent the panel. This seems to have worked better than expected. The more joggling, then the better / relatively smooth curve you get, rather than a 50p piece effect.


My schoolboy error (one of many ), was to joggle a piece of flat sheet steel – I joggled the circular hole and didn’t pre-shape it. I did a second one , knowing that although the OS ‘hole’ is in place, it is quite rusty, so much / all of it will need replacing. I now have my patch made and waiting.

So, onto the NS body. I checked that my pilot hole was lining up with the centre of the torsion tube - it wasn’t, so new pilot drilled 10mm higher. I mounted the cover plate (having previously checked what size my pilot hole would need to be) and traced around it. Then I used a hole saw to cut out the 50mm hole and used a nibbler to cut out the lower part of the hole (never realised that they were not round, but more egg shaped).


Then round and round with the joggler, fit the cover plate and not a bad job jobbed methinks . [url=https://flic.kr/p/26XhVUE]
You can see where I wasn't happy with the lower curve of the wheel arch to the under-side of the sill, so cut it out and patched.

With the convenient torsion bar hole now made, I used a long round bar and tapped the remaining torsion bar out. Well, when I say out – it is not fully out, as I can’t yet get the cover plate off so it won’t come past the wing. Once the car is spun around and set up for the sill work, I can cut the wing away and out it will come.

Made up some more of my bracketry to convert my mobile axle stands into a dolly, but need to acquire a few nuts and bolts before I can bolt it to the car (I could go and look in the multitudionous bags in the loft and find the bolts off the car, but it’s easier to just pop onto eBay).
Once they arrive and I bolt the dolly on, I can spin the bodyshell in the garage and access the other side. Getting tantilisingly close to phoning Envirstrip .

Good stuff

Keep the posts coming Peter

So, got back in to the garage again today – life just keeps getting in the way and now that the warmer months are here, I keep getting offered money to go sailing. It surely is a hard life, but someone has to do it.

I’ve been struggling to get the OSR torsion bar out. By using a long bar from the NS, I could knock the torsion bar out on the OS. However, I couldn’t remove the plate and bush from the outer end, so it wouldn’t come through the hole in the rear wing. I tried removing the core plug / welch plug from the end, spraying liberally with penetrating oil and beating the be-jesus out of it, repeatedly - but it was just laughing at me. I'll try beating it in the vice, maybe with more heat.

So, I had got myself into a bit of a catch 22 situation - until I could get the body fully onto the new super doper cradle, I couldn’t cut the OSR wing off. Until I cut the OSR wing off, I couldn’t remove the torsion bar. Until I removed the rear torsion bar, I couldn’t fit the rear support. Until I fitted the rear support, I couldn’t get the body onto the cradle. And endlessly repeat.

So, I decided to cut the rear wing, removed the torsion bar, mounted the body onto the cradle, span the car round (15 minutes or so) and cleaned up the garage (about 90 minutes !).

All ready to start work now.




The OSR Targa bar support is significantly better than the almost totally missing NS, but I will replace it all anyway.


The B-post and sill top looked pretty good, but that was due to the structural filler . The kidney bowl has almost disappeared this side too, but first impressions of the metal behind are positive.




In other news, I’ve been stripping the front suspension / cross-member – or at least, trying to. Removing the nut from the lower ball joints if fun (NOT). As I didn’t have the right sized castle socket, I tried drifting the nut round with hammer and chisel. No movement. I tried the same with my air chisel – still no movement. I bought a castle socket, then I tried using humongous extension bars, beating it, using my impact gun – all with a wonderful absence of movement. So I had to introduce them to Mr Dremel – success (eventually).

Then onto removing the ball joint from the strut. First remove the nut from the cotter pin – simples. Then remove the cotter pins - well one responded to brute force, but the other just peened itself over. Some grinding required here. With one collet pin out, simply remove the strut –oh yeah. I’ve beat it and bashed it, and given up and bought a new set of ball joint splitter bars (Harvey Smith bars in my youf). Round 2 to follow.


My cradle is now complete.
Rear attachment



Front to rear tie-bars


Front end




To support the car ‘Barry style’ when addressing the sills, I’ve robbed the tops from my caravan stands.


And made up some alternative legs for my cradle.



These will allow me to jack the middle of the front of the car, get the body balanced, then wind up the tops to just touch the body, thus ensuring that I am not introducing any twist into the body. I may cap the open ends just to ensure they don't collapse, but for now, the body isn't that heavy.

Impressive......keep it coming...

Nice

Are you making these stands to the body or to true dimensions?
Have you made sure the shell is true and then bring the stands to the shell at strategic points, and then check again?

I rebuilt my coupe shell DIY just like you so this is NOT any form of criticism, just you can't do enough checking now or in the middle of the sill replacement.
I used a number of spirit levels and plumb bobs and it all came out well.
Great thread, and I applaud the hands on approach.

So far, the stands are replicating just using axle stands, although I do intend to do the plumb bob and string checks.
Thanks for all the support & suggestions
Peter

So, another quickie in the garage last night

Support the front on a single point with the jack, remove cradle from front suspension, fit ‘caravan stand’ supports, raise to just touch the body, and lower jack.

Find convenient place to store other front supports


Door off


Remove residual kidney bowl and most of B-post, wire brush and generally clean up, then coat with rust converter


Some rust holes evident just below the Targa support plate, so more patching required than initially anticipated yesterday.


…. and also behind the leading edge of the kidney bowl


There were also a couple of what looked like man-made holes rather than rust holes. Most bizarre. Also, you can just see quite a big hole right under the rear of the sill (but cut out here). There was a right collection of small plates just stuck over the hole, together with some ‘filling’ of holes with MIG wire.

Quite shocking to see the amount of reliance on ‘structural filler’ used on the B-Post, and even where plate had been welded in, they were just placed over the top of rust and the welds were often so weak they offered no resistance to removal.

Wow, no updates since 1st June !. I realised that it had been a while, but not that long – so sorry. I had my holiday, some sailing (I class that as work), CLM, a bit of freelancing fun, too many chores for SWMBO, and maybe a few more sailing events, Cowes Week, etc.

Most recently my daughter’s boyfriend ‘offered’ me the chance to repaint the side of his company van, then the garage was filled by storing all of his ‘stuff’ in the garage while we moved them in to a new house, then more sailing (twice), moving in a new (to me) lathe & finally getting around to tidying up the garage, today was finally back to the SC.

Firstly, as I uploaded my photos this evening, I realised that I had stolen a quick couple of garage visits but not updated this thread, so you get double or even treble now.


I decided to tackle just behind the B-post first.


Originally I had though a single patch was needed, but on closer cleaning, another hole was found just aft of the main holes. Looked rather like someone or thing had hit it.


I tried valiantly to make a single piece patch


But too much (over) working left the patch looking somewhat secondhand


So onto versions 2, where I conceded defeat / lack of ability, so made the patch out of 2 parts


Which were beaten mercilessly and then made into a single patch


I had to do a quick welding repair to the inner panel, where over-zealous (and some would say careless) use of a cutting disc had wreaked havoc.


then tacked in the patch


welded up and ground something approaching flush


and primed


Then up a bit and time to address where the targa support panel mounts at the top. As per the other side, it was pretty poor


But after cutting out the flaky bits and boxing it in to make it water tight, we ended up in a similar state



Back down below then, and time for the end of the OS sill area, starting with under the kidney bowl area, where the rot had taken hold, but quite locally.


The rot was cut out


Patched


Ground


And primed





Next I gazed in awe at the mouse hole under the end of the OS sill. As I mentioned in the previous post, there was a motley collection of small square & flat plates all welded together. Together here means they were in the same general area – don’t want anyone to think that they had actually welded things together, merely a random selection of toothpaste tacks, or more accurately toothpaste blobs.


Having cut out the rot to a good edge


I then had to recreate the flange


And grind & prime



Then confuse myself with a few compound curves to make a patch for the edge


and prime as usual





That’s now brought me up to today, and time to tackle the part of the panel immediately below where the bottom of the targa support panel ends.


I decided to get flash (pride before fall, etc….) and made a buck from 2 pieces of 5mm plywood. Having a lathe once more, I could have spun up a pair of moulds and used a mate’s press, but although I have a lathe, I don’t have any metal to put in it yet


Then I proceeded to beat the living $$$$ out of a nice flat sheet of steel


What did I say about pride – it ended up not very beautiful and not exactly accurate, but maybe good enough for a part that won’t be seen.

This is where the camera’s memory card got full (all my fault of course - I was messing about getting video as well), so no shots of the intermediate stages, but it ended up looking like this.



During the next visit(s) to the garage, it will be time to add the targa support panel, B-post, kidney bowl and sill end. Then the wing section can go back, although it does need some attention first, including the torsion bar hole piece I made at the same time as I did one for the other side.

Good to get back to it, life has an annoying way of slowing car projects down!

Today we’ll start with a blatant attempt at the sympathy vote. I rearranged the garage slightly, to make my workflow better. Unfortunately, while moving one of my tool boxes (I have two of these towers) – the trolley / drawer sort with three separate sections on top of each other, the top two sections decided they had vertigo and made a dash for the floor. My quick job turned in to a longer job, as firstly I had to straighten various drawers, then collect spanners from all over the place, and of course the myriad little electrical pieces, etc that made a break for freedom. While collecting the various tools, I then decided to rearrange what was stored where, and took the opportunity to shuffle tools between the two towers.

First issue was that when picking up various pliers, etc, I grabbed the working end of the medieval torture tool that is nowadays used for fitting RJ45 plugs to the end of Cat 6 cable. This tool has a pair of extremely sharp blades just before the end, so this bigger tool ended up with a loss of blood . The cut was quite deep, so I reached for my first aid kit (more commonly called masking tape), but there are still some nice red smudges around at the moment. The cut is on the very top of my middle left finger, which makes typing somewhat awkward. Cue sympathy. I can wait. Of well, never mind.

Naturally, as tools are in different drawers, and the two towers are in different places in the garage to before, when I next tried to do something, I couldn’t find anything



Anyway, getting onto more serious matter, I’ve managed a couple of sneaky visits to the garage recently, while SWMBO was distracted .

First up was cutting out a major part of the inside sill to remove the heater silencer (otherwise it would be destroyed by the planned heat treatment / paint removal). Having learned a lesson or two about the size of hole to cut out on the near side, I set to with the cutting disc. Having poorly cut my hole, the next challenge to is to actually remove the section cut out. The silencer is attached by clips to the inside sill, so the section cut out doesn’t want to leave the silencer, and until the silencer is out it is hard to release the clips. The silencer is attached to the heater tubes at both ends, and doesn’t want to leave its hole. Here, until the section is removed, you can’t get access to slide the ends of the silencer off the heater tubes. All a bit of a catch 22, so the only option (that I saw), was to pull like a beast until it popped out at one end, then slide the other end off and out. Anyway, after much huffing, puffing and a few stern words to the whole shenanigans, it was finally free and away.


Another benefit of having the inside opened up and the heater silencer removed, is that I could check the state of the inner sill. The outer sill (apart from the rearmost 6 inches) looked sound, so I was hopeful. The good news is that the inner sill is sound (breathes sigh of relief)





It doesn’t really show up in the photo, but there is a patch of rusty bent metal right at the front and to the inside of the heater tube. A patch has previously been applied on the outside (under the floor) in the same dubious quality way of other repairs – just welded over the top of the rust. I’ll see what I can do later. Hopefully I can get a grinder in there and just grind away the rusty bit back to the welded patch. If not, then I’ll cut out the patch from underneath, remove the rust and butt weld a new patch in.


Back then to the targa support panel. This was prepped, clamped in place


… welded. I may be going a little over the top here, as the original appears to have had just a few spot welds, but mine is not going to fall off in a hurry, that’s for sure.


… and finally ground and primed





Next visit and it’s time for the sill. First off I worked out where the sill should lie, using the three holes along the top and checking for the appropriate alignment at the front end.


Next a few registration marks


…. Work out where to cut and put the brave pants on again


I think that I mentioned this before, but the eagle eyed will notice that although the existing sill is just cut square at the moment, the replacement sill has been cut at an angle. My logic here is that it gives me a longer, and therefore hopefully stronger, welded join. Once everything is aligned, I will mark and cut off more from the existing sill.

So then came ‘chucking it all (sill, kidney and B-post) on’.




It’s all looking good so far, but I need to fit the wing piece back to be sure, so (what’s left of) the original B-post needs to come off. I hacked off the majority of it and wire brushed off the copious underseal to present the spot welds.



There’s less repair needed to the base of this wing than the other side, but I knew that the torsion bar hole would need replacing, so I’m glad I made two of the patches when working on the near side.

So, all in all, a happy time to leave the garage. Still a fair bit to do, but I can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel for this rear quarter.

So, a couple of trips into the garage this weekend and (for me) a great step forward.

I drilled out the spot welds and removed the residual B-post from the wing section. Sounds nice and quick while writing it, but believe me, it wasn’t !. So, the purpose of this was to let me check the fit of all the panels to the wing and the door.
I didn’t bother (or forgot ) to take any pictures of my labours with the spot weld drill or man-handling the door back on, but a quick trial fit ….






Not too shabby, so on we are clear to go on.

Next was marking up the required cut on the original sill to fit my new section


Cut and weld


Nice and tight, so much that the kidney bowl had to be tapped into place and held nicely while I took the photo.


My welding is improving (from a low starting level of course ). Pretty even heat both sides of the weld, I know from when I had to unpick a couple of tack welds that penetration is good, so overall, now that the welding is reaching an end, I’m average enough to start


So, speeding up – kidney bowl on


B-post on


The wing section went on and off a few times to check alignment of the B-post (difficult with the clamps in the way), then a few tacks, then checking, then welding. Then the wing section went back again




The door gap is pretty good. There’s a small bulge in the wing section just at the bottom rear corner of the door that needs some dolly work and, just like the other side, it may need a little attention on the panel to increase clearance. Just below the door handle the gap opens up a bit, so maybe some building up will be needed here a well.

Now need to remove the wing section and remake the lower part, then we’re good to finally button up this area. I need to start making a list of the little things that are outstanding, or I’m likely to forget them. Would be a right royal pain to get the car paint stripped, primed and then find that I have to get back in with the welder.

All looking good. Getting some external panels back on and lined up is satisfying.

Why did you cut the inner sill out? You mentioned heat treatment, based on Andrews experience with the Manhattan project where he did the same I’d be really careful, and his car had a roof!

Considerable progress!
Us diy restorers are doing well!