852 replies to this topic

[JonnyAlpha]

Nice bit of fab there mate.

 

Been doing a fair bit of that myself lately. It really saves on spending out on panels.

 

Ben

I nearly bought a rear floor panel but a lot of it would not have been required, M Machine budget ones are £25 so that's a saving I guess.

[alex-95]

Great work mate coming along, Trago mills FTW

[JonnyAlpha]

Great work mate coming along, Trago mills FTW

Trago Mills lots of cr** but you often find a little gem, I have blown my tyres up often with a little 12v compressor that I bought from Trago years ago

[JonnyAlpha]

Right back on with an update, had a full day in the garage yesterday (out all day today doing family stuff).  Didn't seem to get very much done but everything is progress I guess, I managed to finish making the floor repair panel that I started yesterday but didn't get it welded in because there was too much surface rust on the floor where it is to be welded to and the inside of the Cross Member. I am not too happy with rear edge of the cross member either and may end up repairing that also :-(

 

Anyway here is what I managed to get done.

 

First of all I had to make a flute (if that's the proper name) to line up with the flute on the front floor pan.

Made a pretty good job as I am getting the hang of these using a convenient lip on my home made metal bender, I won't mention that during the process of fitting the repair panel the flute had to be moved 5mm either way a couple of times!!!

 

 

Next I drilled the hole in the inner sill to line up with the front seat belt mount.

 

 

Next, using a friends Edge Setter I joddle the inner edges and made some plug weld holes to hold the panel in place using Self Tappers. I also made all the plug weld holes along the edge that meets the door step, Oh and cleaned off all the old paint.

 

 

The front inside edge of the panel is not quite wide enough (my sheet metal is not wide enough), anyway I cut another small piece and after cleaning it up I clamped it in place.

 

First few tack welds, this is the first welding I have done since before Christmas, and managed to get the gas and welding settings correct first time just enough heat.

 

 

Then did some more spaced out welds to avoid heat distortion, you can just see a piece of copper behind the sheet metal, this is to allow heat dispersal and avoid blow throughs.

 

 

Here it is after pulse welding and filling in all the gaps, a little distortion but not too bad.

 

Then I nibbled off the tops of the weld with a grinding disc, I welded from the underside but should have done it from the top to keep the weld under the carpet but never mind. 

 

Here's the finished weld underside ground down.

 

 

No point taking it all off as it will be primed, top coated and stone chipped.

And here is the under side.

 

 

 

And here it is with weld through primer one the weld edges and Acid Etch on the rest (top side not painted as it will welded on. The primer will probably be removed as I will be using Epoxy Primer but knocking this stuff up for small bits at a time is a pain and I needed to stop the panel rusting before I get it all welded in. (The red dot is a fault on my old Android HTC Desire HD Smart Phone that I am using for garage pics, it has developed a dead pixel which I haven't been able to fix yet!!!

 

 

Well and apart from then spending another hour or so cleaning up the areas to be welded and still not finishing as I need to try out some Bilt Hamber Deox Gel, that was that.

 

Anyway to inspire me to keep going I had a look back at what this Mini was like when I started, here is an example of then and now.

 

Last auto saved: 10:07:02 PM

 

 

Back at it tomorrow, hopefully will have the floor panel welded in and maybe start cutting assessing the RH side, but need to think about some bracing first.

 

[JonnyAlpha]

Not a good start to what I hoped was going to be a productive day

 

[Ben_O]

same here mate

[JonnyAlpha]

Well rain didn't stop play but it certainly slowed it up and caused me problems, managed to clear a bit of space but crawling around on my hands and knees banging my head ain't much fun :-(

 

Anyway 2 and a half days and I still haven't got the floor patched up!!!

 

Spent most of the morning de-rusting the Cross Member and areas where I would be welding, it was all but cleaned when I left it but in this damp it had flash rusted pretty bad. After that was cleaned up I still wasn't happy and decided to pull out the Bilt Hamber Deox Gel, this stuff is Sh** Hot  but takes time and patience (not that I had a lot of that today, anyway it was painfully slow but the results where good, sorry no pics of before and after.

 

Once it was cleaned up I sprayed it up with Zinc Primer.

 

Next, as I wasn't happy with the rear edge of the Cross Member I decided to whip it off and patch it up, as I had done with the front. Tin worm had thinned it and it was weak.

 

I mad a repair piece using slightly thicker metal and test fitted the floor whilst I clamped it to get it in position.

 

 

Here it is welded up.

 

 

And cleaned up with the flange patch also added.

 

 

 

After this it was solid!!!

 

All I had time for then was to apply some Rattle Can Top Coat (had some Rustoleum Enamel kicking about) paint the inside of the Cross Member for good measure and after Zinc Priming also did the piece of the floor that will sit under the Cross Member and overlap the front Floor Pan.

 

Its not brilliant but at least once its welded up it will prevent the rust especially once its all sealed and painted again.  

 

 

Now everything is ready tomorrow I WILL get this panel welded in!!!

[JonnyAlpha]

Good weather today and after a little Uni work that I had to complete I managed some good progress today.

 

First of all after a little more Deox Treatment on the underside of the floor edge I fitted the panel and started to weld it in place, first every other plug and spot weld. I did not want to drill holes in the floor and use Self Tappers so I jacked up a bit of wood underneath and held the floor panel in place with my old Cross Pein Hammer.

 

 

The copper bar in the pic above was to back a butt weld to avoid a blow through.

 

Next I completed all the plug and spot welds.

 

 

Then I completed the top lap welds doing about an inch and a half at a time doing when end then the other, alternating to prevent over heating. 

 

 

 

The lap welds were done on a lower heat setting but I took my time to ensure good penetration.

Then I dressed the spot welds down on the inner sill but left the welds on the floor to maintain strength.

 

 

The to prevent it rusting I Etch Primed it.

 

 

Next up I did the butt and lap welding where the new Inner sill met the front floor pan and the old inner and the old and repaired inner sill at the rear. Here's the front dressed down.

 

 

And then I seam welded around the seat belt mount where it sits on the inner sill.

 

 

I didn't complete the welding on all of the underside as I was welding upside down and it is very difficul to get it right, so I decided to stop there, clean it up and apply some primer. I will weld the underside when I can lift the Mini onto its side or thereabouts to get a decent angle to make sure the welding is good.   

 

 

Then I did a test fit of the LH Sill

 

While I was waiting for some paint to dry I decided to tackle the door, I already knew at least two of the bolts had rotted and the rest snapped off.

 

 

 

There is some rot at the bottom that will need repairing.

 

 

I'll need to repair the front section of the door step.

Edited by JonnyAlpha, 20 February 2015 - 08:58 PM.

[Ben_O]

The floor came out well.

 

Well done mate

[JonnyAlpha]

The floor came out well.

 

Well done mate

Thanks Ben, it was a bit of a mile stone and too nearly three days!!! When I look back at my first repairs (which were shocking) this is pretty neat.

The RH side is going to be an even bigger job than the LH side, even though it has had a floor pan fitted at some point in the past it will all need cutting out, the floor pan is sitting on two layers of old floor and the Flitch repair that I had done by another welder has been welded on top of the old flitch (he was only copying what someone had done before)!!! 

 

I don't want to do more than I need to but it will be a couple of weeks work just to do the RH side, I am contemplating buying a front and mid floor section to speed things up but need to save up some cash :-(

 

Here's the front RH floor, the bottom layer is either the original floor or a repaired layer, then above that is another layer and then finally you can see the newish floor pan!!!

 

[Coxie]

Got some spare door hinges if you want them mate

Edit: pretty sure they are non genuine though but you're welcome to try them and see if they are ok.

Edited by Coxie, 20 February 2015 - 10:00 PM.

[JonnyAlpha]

Got some spare door hinges if you want them mate

Edit: pretty sure they are non genuine though but you're welcome to try them and see if they are ok.

Thanks Coxie,
Just sent you a message.

[JonnyAlpha]

Well yesterday was the last day of work in the garage, the plan was to finish the LH floor and then start some evasive surgery on the RH side but as these things go I managed half but was happy with the results.

 

So I spent the time cleaning up getting ready for it sitting for a couple of weeks or so, this meant cleaning up some of the existing areas that weren't done previously.

 

Here's the front LH floor area.

 

I also welded the front part of the inner sill to the door hinge panel?

 

 

I also patched up a few spot weld holes in the door step, cleaned it up and then Etch primed it.

 

 

I also had a rearrange and a clean of the garage

 

 

Now that the weather is getting warmer and the nights are getting longer, if I am going to meet my target of 14 Jun 15, I am going to have to do a little in the evenings as well as Saturdays.

 

 

[JonnyAlpha]

So my new RH half floor arrived (very quickly - thanks M-Machine, TMF discount too), so as the weather was nice Friday and today I thought I'd better get some garage time in.

 

 

I knew cutting the floor out would be hard work but I wasn't counting on how bad it was at the front :-(

 

This is a view looking at the RH side of the front foot well from the outside, that's the original Inner Sill, a Foot Well repair and then the darker area to the front is the latest Foot Well repair (done before we got the Mini).

 

Geeze

 

 

After spending most of the day cutting out the old floor and the assessing the areas that need repairing here's the good and bad bits.

 

The latest foot well repair had been plonked in and welded straight over the top of the existing floor, it had been seam welded all around so I gently made a cut behind the seam weld all around:

 

 

 

After the top repair had been removed I then cut out part of the old floor (2 layers) and ground down the Seam Weld:

 

 

I then cut a bit more out and drilled out the spot welds:

 

 

And then carefully removed the remainder of the floor, leaving some overlap by the tunnel, this will be trimmed when I know exactly where the floor is going:

 

 

 

After knocking off what looked like liquid metal here is a shot of the front RH corner:

 

 

After a little poking around, under a couple of layers of metal I finally found the newest repair to the Flitch Panel, this top repair was the first repair I had done to the Mini, sadly the welder and I knew nothing about how to repair Minis. He cut off the outside of the existing Flitch and welded in a repair piece, unbeknown to us the layer underneath should have also been removed!! Looks like I'll have to do this again or at least somehow 'Make Good'.

 

 

Here's what was left of the original Inner Sill, under two layers of previous repair:

 

 

After carefully trimming away a little more of the old Flitch, the new one showed an inexperienced repair (mine too), no protective paint and you can still see the Mini Spares label

What I may be able to do is cut away the old underside Inner Flitch (made that word up for anyone reading this as there is no such thing) to the point where it is welded and see if I can get away without removing it. Failing that it will all have to come out as it may sit too far forward to meet the floor :-(

 

 

Here it is with most of the lower part cleaned up:

 

 

The Toe Board has been previously repaired and will need doing again.

 

I also cut out the rear floor, this was an area that I had already repaired part of but I had a complete half floor so why leave in weld repairs that will be prone to rust, I did leave in the the rear RH corner as I did not want to disturb the area next to the Rear Subframe Mount.

 

 

I then cleaned up the areas that were finished and sprayed in some Weld Through Primer:

 

 

After removing the Rear part of the Inner Sill (still have a bit to do under the Companion Bin, the door step got the same treatment, managed to avoid drilling through the Door Step like I did on the LH side (must be getting better). The Seta Belt Mount is still fixed to a bit of the old Inner Sill, this may come out?

 

 

 

Still need to remove the end of the Cross Member, it has previously been repaired (badly), I also will be cleaning up and painting the inside of the Cross Member:

 

 

This is a view looking towards the front underside of the Door Step, the front are will need to be replaced

 

Here's some of the bits that were cut out:

 

 

Almost forgot, following advice on this forum (from Sonnik4) along the way I also made up some bracing to prevent the door frame from shifting out of line. I needed to be able to brace the door but still allow removal of the end of the Cross Member. I placed a piece of box section across the door in line with the top of the companion bin, spot welded to the A and B Post, then I added a piece of angle iron bolted to the Cross Member and then another piece of angle iron running vertical from the angle iron on the Cross Member to the box section, this was seam welded in place:

 

 

Day off today (need to get some assignment work done) I do however need to slap some Epoxy Primer onto the new panels as they come bare from M-Machine and will rust pretty quickly.

Edited by JonnyAlpha, 08 March 2015 - 12:44 PM.

[JonnyAlpha]

Manage a little bit today.

 

I removed the end of the Cross Member so I could remove the remainder of the Inner Sill:

 

 

 

Once the Inner Sill as out of the way (apart from a few key areas that I need to leave in place), I tried to test fit the floor, I needed to do this in order to make the final adjustments to the floor.

 

 

I managed to get the floor in at the front by inserting it from underneath however I am going to have to work some magic to get it to fit at the rear.

 

 

I can't get the floor in at the rear and cannot (at the moment) move it any further forward?

 

 

I also need to work some magic on the front RH Door Step, looks like its been welded a few time and the bottom of the A Post is in pretty bad order.

 

 

It should have all been cleaned up when we first did the Flitch, but as I have said earlier, these repairs were done by another person when I first got the car and neither he nor I really knew anything about car restoration, he however was a metalsmith so should have at least cleaned it up and painted it.