108 replies to this topic

[jayare]

More progress - I've decided to give up on the top arms which came with the subframe and use the ones off the A-series frame as they were rebuilt during the first restoration and are kept greased up so they are in good nick still. I'll have to get some half-nuts so I can trim the pins back to clear the gearbox - any idea if I have to do this both sides? Having stripped down and removed the A-series frame I took a deep breath and did this to my inner wings:





and lifted the Allspeed frame into place. It wouldn't quite go high enough though so a bit of investigation revealed the outer edges of the towers on the Allspeed frame are a bit wider than the A-series frame and were catching on the inner wings just under the top damper mounts so the edge had to be persuaded out of the way like so:



No prizes for guessing the original colour! Anyway it's now in place and I just need to drill the new front panel mounting holes. I managed to cut too much off the N/S inner wing, but I'm planning on filling the original radiator slats with flat sheet so I can make that up to fit snug to the subframe.

End of today's work:


Probably going to go down to Minispares later in the week to pick up a few bits for the front suspension so I can get it rolling again.

JR

[jayare]

Been back out in the (bloody freezing) garage today. I decided not to build up the front suspension despite having gone down to Minispares on New Year's Eve to get the bits so instead I started to remove the turbo bulkhead box which won't be required with the Vauxhall engine and which I wanted to put back to standard. I started the day with it looking like this:



Now I don't have a bulkhead box any more - just a great big hole!



I also got rid of the A-series engine stabiliser bracket while I was at it. I had previously bought a section of bulkhead which I drilled out all the spot-welds out of to separate the bulkhead panel from the cross-member. Unfortunately the bulkhead part has suffered from spilled brake fluid and has rusted through so I may need to get another or re-make the bulkhead out of sheet. The cross-member being thicker had survived in pretty good condition - it has some pitting and I may get it blasted to make sure all the rust is gone before it gets welded in. I spent a lot of time carefully cutting the cross-member to fit in the gap left to make sure it fits well. I have a tiny bit more trimming to do and some backing pieces to cut to reinforce the joints.

This is how it's looking now from the outside:



and from the inside:



Oh and at some point I may have been on fire judging by my jumper - I only noticed this after I had come back in!



Going to get some steel sheet tomorrow to fill in some of the holes!

Sorry about the rubbish photos - they are from my new phone which allegedly has a better camera than my last one - hmmmm!

JR

[jayare]

Not much to update but I've been to the steel stockholders and got a decent sized sheet to make patches from and a smaller, thicker piece for cross-member reinforcement and brakets, etc.. I've also been down to the local Vauxhall dealers a couple of days ago and got prices for bits to convert an F17 gearbox to cable shift - the selector housing (£126+VAT), gasket (£2 and a few pence +VAT) and the cable bracket (£23+VAT) so the bits come out at £180 plus I still need the lever and cables. It may work out cheaper to go for two gearboxes - one for the change mechanism and one for the right ratios.

I've dropped off the cross-member section for sand blasting but couldn't get back to pick it up today due to the snow. I only spent a couple of hours in the garage today - it's just soooo cold! I've started to fabricate a panel for the bulkhead which is going OK at the moment - I need to trim it down to fit the hole and joggle the edges so it can be plug and seam welded in.



I also made up some reinforcing strips to go inside the cross-member where the joins will be - you can see the N/S one in the photo. These will be plug welded to the existing panel before the replacement section is fitted. The replacement section will then be plug welded to the reinforcement and finally a seam weld will join it all up. Hopefully this will all be welded in by the weekend weather permitting.

JR

[jayare]

Looks like I've missed an update on this! I got the cross-member back from sandblasting and finished off the bulkhead repair panel. After a lot of fettling and grinding off tiny bits to get the fit right, I ended up with this:



My mate Dave came over a week or so ago to weld it all in and today I've ground down the welds on the bulkhead repair:



And given it a light coat of etch primer and a couple of coats of standard aerosol primer. I'm going to put a couple of coats of aerosol top coat on to prevent any surface rust starting while I'm doing the rest of the bodywork. When it gets prepped for paint, the bulkhead will get a skim of filler to smooth it out so the repair will be almost invisible:



I have also started on the RH A-pillar - when I stripped the car I noticed there was quite a bit of rust on the pillar so it was off with the A-panel (which only had a small scab at the bottom and could have easily been treated) to get to the flitch panel and pillar. When attacked with the hammer, the door pillar just fell to bits! I need to replace the front part of the door aperture to do this repair properly and the panel is available as either just the front of the aperture or with the door step so I've bare metalled the step to inspect it. It all seems good - there is a small repair from its last restoration which is still sound but other than that it's all original and still in good condition.

pictures of the pillar - from the rear of the car:



and from under the wheelarch:



That's all for the moment - I have to decide where to cut and get hold of the door aperture panel - I already have the flitch repair, pillar stiffener and the A-panel. Should get it cut out next weekend - I have to work tomorrow unfortunately.

JR

Edit - replaced some of the dodgy camera phone pictures with better ones.

Edited by jayare, 22 January 2010 - 12:05 PM.

[jayare]

Yesterday I put a couple of coats of aerosol topcoat onto the bulkhead repair to prevent it rusting while the rest of the bodywork is done. I also put the subframe back in mainly so it's out of the way!



Today I started to cut out the grotty hinge panel. Started by cutting the flitch panel out to where the crease is - I may cut a bit more out depending on how it looks when all cleaned up.



Then drilled out all the spot welds holding the hinge panel stiffener in (well I drilled a load out then fought with it for a while before realising there were still a couple left!) and removed it:



The door jamb panel is solid - just has a little surface rust on the inside which I now have to figure out how to get to to clean up before putting some jenolite on it to kill any remaining rust and the bottom couple of inches will need to be cut out and replaced.

I got a pattern hinge panel stiffener for it but I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get a genuine/heritage one as when the one I took out is placed next to the pattern one you'd be hard pushed to tell they're supposed to be the same part - I know there's a bit missing from the old one but still!



JR

[Paul Wiginton]

Looking good Shirley

[jayare]

Well I did get the genuine door post stiffener from Moss during the week and have spent today trying to get it to fit and making up some repair patches for the door jamb panel and the A-pillar closing panel. Whilst trying to trim up the flitch panel the wing was making it almost impossible to get the grinder in - I was going to leave the wing on for the time being to line the A-panel up with but decided to remove it to make access possible:



I have trimmed off all the little bits I left on when I cut the wing off and cleaned up all the mounting flanges on the wing joints since this picture was taken.

Once that was out of the way, I could trim up the flitch and put the stiffener in. I had to trim the stiffener slightly along part of one edge but it more or less fitted straight in. I then cut the crispy bit at the bottom of the door jamb out and made up a patch to weld in:



With the flitch out of the way, I could see that the bottom bit of the A-post closing panel was quite rusty on the inside of the pillar so I also cut that bit out and made a patch up:



I've also made a start on trimming the flitch repair panel down to size and put the door back on to make sure the pillar is in the right place. The flitch repair panel needs a fair bit of work as the lip that the A-panel folds round is totally the wrong shape and it also looks like the holes for the hinges are a few mm out as the A-panel would sit about 4-5mm further out from the door as it stands at the moment.



I need to spend some more time getting it all to fit right and then prepare the panels with weld-through primer on all the joints which will be welded and I'm going to hammerite the bits which will end up enclosed and which don't need to be welded to help fend off the rust. I'll also get a good dose of waxoyl in there after it's painted.

I had been hoping I'd get away with replacing just the lower valence part of the front panel as the slam panel seemed good but when the wing was removed, the end of the slam panel is rusted through. The headlamp backing panel also has rust holes where the wing mounts to and half of it was replaced during the last restoration so it looks like I'm going to need the full built up front panel (when Heritage decide they are going to make some Clubman front end parts!). I won't be doing that until I've got hold of an engine and decided where the radiator is going to go though - once the A-pillar is welded up I think I'm going to move onto the RH floor and the bottom edge of the toe-board - hopefully I'll get onto that in a couple of weeks.

Work again tomorrow so next update will most likely be next weekend.

JR

[Mini-Mad-Craig]

Looking good matey

[benb12]

This is going to be a great CE when it's finished. I really liked this car before you took a grinder to it, and with the Vauxhall engine it can only be more awesome.

[jayare]

Thanks for the comments guys!

JR

[baggy33minis]

Well I did get the genuine door post stiffener from Moss during the week and have spent today trying to get it to fit and making up some repair patches for the door jamb panel and the A-pillar closing panel. Whilst trying to trim up the flitch panel the wing was making it almost impossible to get the grinder in - I was going to leave the wing on for the time being to line the A-panel up with but decided to remove it to make access possible:



I have trimmed off all the little bits I left on when I cut the wing off and cleaned up all the mounting flanges on the wing joints since this picture was taken.

Once that was out of the way, I could trim up the flitch and put the stiffener in. I had to trim the stiffener slightly along part of one edge but it more or less fitted straight in. I then cut the crispy bit at the bottom of the door jamb out and made up a patch to weld in:



With the flitch out of the way, I could see that the bottom bit of the A-post closing panel was quite rusty on the inside of the pillar so I also cut that bit out and made a patch up:



I've also made a start on trimming the flitch repair panel down to size and put the door back on to make sure the pillar is in the right place. The flitch repair panel needs a fair bit of work as the lip that the A-panel folds round is totally the wrong shape and it also looks like the holes for the hinges are a few mm out as the A-panel would sit about 4-5mm further out from the door as it stands at the moment.



I need to spend some more time getting it all to fit right and then prepare the panels with weld-through primer on all the joints which will be welded and I'm going to hammerite the bits which will end up enclosed and which don't need to be welded to help fend off the rust. I'll also get a good dose of waxoyl in there after it's painted.

I had been hoping I'd get away with replacing just the lower valence part of the front panel as the slam panel seemed good but when the wing was removed, the end of the slam panel is rusted through. The headlamp backing panel also has rust holes where the wing mounts to and half of it was replaced during the last restoration so it looks like I'm going to need the full built up front panel (when Heritage decide they are going to make some Clubman front end parts!). I won't be doing that until I've got hold of an engine and decided where the radiator is going to go though - once the A-pillar is welded up I think I'm going to move onto the RH floor and the bottom edge of the toe-board - hopefully I'll get onto that in a couple of weeks.

Work again tomorrow so next update will most likely be next weekend.

JR

just thought that i would add some info on the flitch panel.After fitting loads of these i have to say the drivers side is a pain because it is made completely wrong.Strangely the passenger side flitch repairs always fit very well.


If you use the bolt holes in the drivers flitch repair to hold it to the door hinge panel it will require a lot of bending and reshaping .Then trimming down to get the a panel on without it sticking out.In an ideal world they would remake them properly,but they won't.I did ask hadrian to sort it .LOL.
The last one i fitted i decided to ignore the bolt holes and move the flitch further in then re drill the holes.This seems to work quite well but obviously not as easy to line it up.

[jayare]

That's my plan for Friday - bizarrely the relative positions of the holes is damn near perfect - they're just in the wrong place on the panel! I think the round file may be getting some use! I would have done a bit more on it yesterday but it was about -3 and I was getting hungry!

JR

[jayare]

Was going to add this yesterday but the forum was broken so the days won't make much sense, but here it is:

Got more done this weekend (my weekend this week was Friday & today - working again tomorrow). I spent quite a few hours getting the O/S flitch repair panel to fit correctly so the A-panel wouldn't sit out from the door by a mile. I also trimmed the repair panel down rather than putting the whole thing in. With door and A-panel trial fitted:



Once that was done, I stripped the dodgy e-coat/primer off the flitch repair panel, masked off the areas which will be welded and gave it a coat of etch primer, 2 coats of normal primer and 2 coats of hammerite. Hopefully this will help fend off the rust - even if a little paint burns off when it's welded in, most will remain. I'll also get some waxoyl in there. I also gave the A-post stiffener the same treatment as well as the inside of the pillar. The surfaces which will be welded will get a coat of zinc rich weld-through primer.

I also cleaned up the area where the top damper mount fits to - the rust that can be seen in the photo above was actually the remains of the damper mount - the inner wing is completely solid.

I also removed the bulk of the LH wing and A-panel, mainly so I could get a proper look at the flitch panel and A-pillar on that side. It looks a lot better than the RH! There's a little rust at the very bottom of the lip which the A-panel mounts round and a hole in the step which will both need sorting but otherwise it's good:





The inner wing behind the damper mount this side is also clean & solid. Next bit to do will be getting the repair sections for the LH flitch/step made up and clean up the wing mounting flanges. Then I'll ask Dave to come over and weld the fresh bits in.

I'm also going to be looking for an engine and gearbox (anyone with a very cheap facelift Vectra B or Astra G 1.8???) to drop in to work out the inner wings, radiator mounts, etc. and any mods which will need to be done on the front panel - I want to practice on the old one first!

JR

[jayare]

I think I spoke too soon! Those two little holes in the end of the scuttle panel turned into a right mess when I went near it with the angle grinder mounted wire brush! The outer end of the closing panel (which looked pretty solid in the photo above) turned to dust and the inner wing above it also crumbled



The bottom didn't get too much worse than it looked - a few holes in the bottom of the flitch but I need to put a patch in to repair the bottom of the A-panel lip anyway.



I'm now debating whether to rip the drivers scuttle closing panel out to check it's not hiding the same mess as the other side and also if I should bite the bullet and replace the scuttle itself - It's got holes in both ends, the RH end has filler about 1/4" thick and had 4 or 5 scabs on the bottom of the screen, two of which have gone through when cleaned up. The front end panels are going to cost me the best part of £500 so I suppose it would make sense to do it now

[HARBER07]

Looking real good . Personally I'd replace the full scuttle - seems to make sense doing it now with the car in the state it is