As suggested in my recent post, the job I originally planned at this point was to repair the battery tray which is in a bit of a state. However, even after an extensive staring, prodding and rumination, I still haven't come up with a strategy. The curves and swaging in this pressing are really quite complex, I am simply not ready to tackle this.
"Does it really matter what it looks like?" I hear you cry, "Won't it be hidden?" Well, actually I think it does, not least of all as I am planning to relocate the battery to the boot (trunk) and utilise the tray in some other way (the current thinking is to locate an oil catcher here, which is required for competition). If so, the repairs will indeed be visible. I've decided to ignore it for the time being and come back to it later.
Instead I have turned my attention to the rear arches, starting with the offside. I knew that there are some repairs required to the chassis and the area above the spring locator. I wanted to sort these first as I think that this will add strength. I have turned to car round and lifted it with my scissor/tilt lift which gives great access.
I decided to attack the hole in the chassis rail first. I am finding one of the biggest problems with a repairs in such confined areas can be accurately removing the corrosion. I used my air cut-off tool here as it is more compact, with a smaller diameter disc and can fit into tighter areas. Even so I found that the only way to get the rotten metal out was to use a series if lateral cuts.
I then used a combination of hand operated nibblers, Gilbows, hacksaws and a variety files to complete the corrosion removal. Then from inside the car I drilled out a number spot welds to the floor and then cut away some rot that had spread to the inner wheel tub.
The repair section itself was reasonable straight forward. I made it from two pieces of 16 gauge steel, one for the wall of the chassis with a second strip to form the lip. I then welded the two pieces on the bench before fitting and welding on the car.
Finally, I made a piece to repair the wheel tub from 19 gauge (1mm) and welded it in place.
On then to the boot floor/spring location. The corroded area of the inner wheel tube proved to be quite large but nice and flat.
I started by recreating the lip of the boot floor pressing using a card template which I spray mounted onto some 19 gauge.
I carefully cut it out and ground the edges to get the shape to be as exact as I possibly could. I then welded it to the boot floor edge and cleaned up with a flap wheel on the grinder.
I repeated this process to make a piece for the wall of the wheel tub itself, again spending a good amount of time refining the edge and fit to give me a nice buttweld joint.
When I first found these holes, my heart sank and I thought that it was going to be really tricky to sort out. In the end it was not that difficult, although getting the car up in the air with the scissor lift made a big difference. My confidence with both fabrication and welding is definitely improving.
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