DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

I’ve got too many burn scars and pigeon crap welding to show for previous anti gravity welding hence this time there was only one option! All credit to you for doing it top side up.

I now have to stand on a box, but it’s amazing the change in visibility for working stuff out.

I’ve made this repair to one of the many flanges that connect to the floor. I’m not entirely certain what shape it’s supposed to be as there was nothing left of the bottom 20mm, but it’s now this shape



The repeated dry builds are gradually closing in but still a long way to go yet.

That last picture sums up why I left my soundly but ugly repairs I did 30 years ago alone when I did the re paint last winter!
Like Peter, welding under the car would be my only approach and I still remember the smell as parts of me smouldered painfully.

What a difference the spit will make in accuracy and time I can only imagine.

Proper job, and seems like a very good decision to use the rotisserie.
Thanks for posting.
Cheers, Richard.

Bit more flange action today...

Nearly done this quarter, just need to repeat it all again three times!

I’ve replaced the rearmost flange completely and about 200mm around the S shaped corner about 30mm up into the side wall. Then the inner side of the tunnel right at the back which still needs the welds grinding back.

210bhp wrote:
Nice to hear a little bit from Derek too. I hope you are keeping well.

Regards
Mike

Hi Mike

I'm keeping well, thank you Might even work on my car this year.
Regards
Derek

Glad to hear it Derek - and good to hear from you

Fitted and welded in the repair under the torsion tube yesterday. Good to finally cover up that ugly area again!



Now to rotate the other way around and repeat.

Nearly one year into the rebuild it gets to see daylight again. Needed to lift it up a bit as it won’t rotate the other way with the sill and quarter fitted. The engine crane is a great way to do this in a really controlled way.



Also earlier today the dry builds continue:

It’s now back in the garage the other way around ready for the torsion bar and floor repairs to continue.

I’ve now accepted I’m not going to make CLM 2020, maybe it will make an Alps trip 2021 for my 50th. That would be cool

Good to see you are making the most of it, so pleased its helping out and love the upgrades

Derek

Derek wrote:Good to see you are making the most of it, so pleased its helping out and love the upgrades

Derek

It’s great. Absolutely spot on. Makes things so much easier

The other side of the car under the torsion bar is a disaster, so that will have to wait until in safe hands on a jig.



So to cheer myself up I tried something I can do myself and repaired the seat mount on this side which was also really bad. There is a tide mark inside the sill and everything south of it needs to come out.

I took the mount out complete with some of the floor then extracted it by removing a few spot welds.



The whole lower section needed to be replaced so a bit of flat sheet gained some zigzag folds:



I bashed the top over and tickled it with a grinder, then sliced the top of the old one off and welded it together. Final step was to grind it flat and put it in the blast cabinet to tidy it all up.



Took about 4 hours all in including extracting it from the car so I’m happy with that.

Next step is the floor flanges and some of the inner walls which are worse this side.

All good fun!

Gary,

Only catching up on this and it's probably a bit late to say this so hopefully it has all worked out OK.

But thats an awful lot of metal to remove with the shell only supported at the extremities without any cross bracing.

Anyhow, fair play for getting stuck in.

Cheers
Jon

Hi Jon, I agree about the amount of metal

To be honest the fact it’s ending up on Barry’s jig at some point makes me fairly relaxed, maybe too much, but we will see.

I’m leaving the front floor until the back is secured and I’m not fitting either when it’s on its side to avoid any parallelogram effect.

Is it going on the jig for the final fit and welding of outer sills, rear quarters etc?

If so you should be grand.

DustyM wrote:Is it going on the jig for the final fit and welding of outer sills, rear quarters etc?

If so you should be grand.

Absolutely. Nothing but self tappers at this stage. Barry wants it ‘as floppy as possible’


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk