Author Topic: Mk1 G40 Turbo  (Read 74848 times)

Offline dub-disaster

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Re: Mk1 G40 Turbo
« Reply #15 on: March 21, 2012, 12:08:18 am »
Realy impressive work here!! Whered you learn how to do all this as im hopeless when it comes to structural body work but id like to get stuck in woth a project like this on a mk2 derby. are you a fabricator by trade?? Or you picked it up doing the mini?

Offline dubstar

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Re: Mk1 G40 Turbo
« Reply #16 on: March 22, 2012, 07:10:31 pm »
Cheers pal. Well I did a three year apprenticeship in fabrication and weld, which helps quite a bit. I'm off the shop floor these days but my job enables me to keep my hand in, throw my playsuit on and get out into the workshop now and again so I've kept my hand in and got run of the fab shop at work too. Put outer sills, front panel & rear valance on the Mini and patched a few other bits neatly, but it was a '94 shell so in much better knick than the Polo. The trick is not to cut so much away that you don't know where the new metal should go to. Put in datums, take measurements & photo's + make patterns. Be methodical. That said, I'm no master at it!

So I got back from work early today after a meeting off site ended quicker than I thought it would, so before I head out later I thought I'd get out there as I'm away this weekend so this maybe the only chance I get (apart from maybe shoehorning a cheeky hour or two in Sunday night.) I finished the new chassis leg at work yesterday, so pinning it up using my datum put in once I'd welded my first profile plate to the original leg (1/8" drill bit next to the mole grips furthest the the right) and making sure the bottom sill flange was straight and it mated up with the axle mount plate, broke out the MIG set for the umpteenth time in it's life, tacked it up all round, double checked and hit it FULL FORCE, BABY.





BOOM! new chassis leg.

I'll dress it a bit where needed, but not going to do much as A) it can't be seen / B) metal off is strength off. Glad I've done the first bit. Now I can put the inner rear quarter panel back, fab a bit to extend it where the tin worm got & tie it into the new inner sill then start patching up the edge of the floor & inner sill and I can put the outer sill on and tackle the first rear arch & rear valance.

Don't worry folks, I'll not put pictures up of every bit of patching as it would become very boring quickly!


Offline G40 AD

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Re: Mk1 G40 Turbo
« Reply #17 on: March 29, 2012, 09:54:34 pm »
YES BAD MAN!! Ross loving what I'm seein here! Need to get over n check out progress soon! 

Offline dubstar

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Re: Mk1 G40 Turbo
« Reply #18 on: March 30, 2012, 06:28:56 pm »
Yeahman - call round! I see you're trying to get into a Mk1 again - you know it makes sense.

Patched the floor during the week...



& today I cut out the lower half of the inner sill,



& made good with new zintec steel. I had to drill out the spot welds for the seat runner and take that out to do the floor, and some of the metal round there was tin-foil thickness, so ended up cutting half of that out too. Not easy to re-fab, that part.



So during the weekend I need to connect & weld the rear inner quarter panel to the inner sill, & patch the front at the base of the 'A' pillar and then I can get on with fitting the outer sill - at last!

Offline dubstar

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Re: Mk1 G40 Turbo
« Reply #19 on: May 02, 2012, 09:52:47 pm »

Hi guys -sorry for the long time since the update, this could be a recurring theme! Still plodding with the bodywork and as i've said before I don't want to just cram the pages of this thread with rust.

So basically, sorted the inner sill and connected inner rear quarter panel to inner sill once more then threw some primer & paint on it...



Then my attentions turned the base of the A pillar - or lack of...



Once again what I thought would be a quick patch on the outer skin turned out to be rot into the floorpan & shiz, so it was back to basics once again...



...then a bit of re-constructive surgery to make a face for the sill to be welded to. If I was an actual surgeon - i'd be paid good money for this sh1t!!!!





Cool cool. So I was at a point where the whole bottom 2" of the passenger side from the rear of the front arch had been replaced.



So then I spent what seemed like ages doing a Karate kid impression - sill on, sill off, (grind a bit) sill on, sill off, (grind a bit) sill on, sill off (grind a bit) - you get the picture, doing that until I had a perfect fit. A colleague at work warned me only to tack it on for a check first until I hung the door to check the gaps. Following his advice (and remembering the same deal with the Mini a few years ago) I tacked her up and hung the door...

Nowhere near. I'm not even posting pictures of that!!!! 10mm gap at the hinge end of the door, touching the door bottom at the other. I shut the door to the garage for a week and gave it a rest, quite disheartened.

One positive came out of it though - the vertical door gaps were still bob-on, so my supporting of the floor had worked and all that replacement of metal and heat with all the welds hadn't changed the WB of the car! Billy Bonus.

In fairness, it was a good thing to leave it that week. I'm one of these chaps who likes to think about things over time before carrying things out, and when I went back into the garage a week later, the answer to sort the situation came to me pretty quickly. Long & short of it - nice 5mm gap right down the door now. It only needed tweaking in the right manner - but these things only EVER need tweaking.





Anyway - enthusiasm is back now, so I'm smoothing about with the rear arch now. It's been done before but that long ago, the 'new' lip is rusting away! Seriously, this repair must be 20 years old.

So I've taken some measurements of the width of the flange from the new arch &, pulled all the bog out of the repair, drawn a cut line and started cutting it back. Turns out the inner rear arch is pretty rotten, as is the edge of the rear valance

Here we go again...!!!!!








Offline grungeisdead

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Re: Mk1 G40 Turbo
« Reply #20 on: May 14, 2012, 05:34:42 pm »
looking good ross, i wouldnt mind a look at the pictures of all your repair pieces and various welding shots and its all good food for thought for how im going to tackle my yellow un!

luckily my mk1s in far better condition than the Mk2!

need to bob over to yours mind and see this beasty in the flesh!

Offline randombadger69

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Re: Mk1 G40 Turbo
« Reply #21 on: May 19, 2012, 06:42:52 am »
Superb fabrication going into this!

Look like you have a decent MIG plant? Must help a lot, the only MIG we have in our unit is a basic jobbie with two switches for heat contro, it's not ideal.

I need to show my mate this thread to make him feel bad about Princess...



Yes thats a mk1 polo under all that shit! :(

To be fair though, I doubt we could get all that shit stored in that space if it wasn't in a polo!

I Like your axle stands! Im thinking of modifying mine with some m30 stud bar to be like pipe stands with finite adjustment. so as to be able to level the car.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2012, 06:45:56 am by randombadger69 »

Offline dubstar

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Re: Mk1 G40 Turbo
« Reply #22 on: May 20, 2012, 09:48:03 pm »

Cheers pal, thanks. Yeah, got a big single phase industrial set. Makes all the difference tbh - small sets tend not to be as smooth or consistent but saying that I did my Mini on a much smaller set and got away with it.

Good idea on the axle stand front - thought about doing that myself but didn't have the bar to hand. Definitely helps level it up on an uneven surface. Actually, you'd only need to do it to one of the four stands working on the principle that it'll always sit on three of them and the adjustable forth one would take out any height difference. Might do that to one of mine!!

Another yellow Mk1! Yes tell him to get on the case!

Offline dubstar

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Re: Mk1 G40 Turbo
« Reply #23 on: July 27, 2012, 02:23:22 pm »
So it’s been a busy few months here. Lots of weddings and a state-side trip taking up weeks & weekends, plus the fact I’d run out of puff on the polo, and as we all know once you stop it needs a kickstart to get going again. So with the wedding season out of the way and all my holidays used up, I started thinking about getting back out into the workshop & ‘getting MIGgy with it’ in an effort to nail some more of the Mk1 back together.
 
Last weekend I loaded up our Doris and the camping gear into the daily shagger and went to BVF, and what do you know? – they were doing special offers on family sized cans of WHOOP-ASS, and buy one get one free on inspiration & motivation!


 
So coming back armed with enthusiasm, I set to on the rear wheel arch again. A night later after the long and boring process of – clamp on, check, mark, unclamp, grind and repeat several times, it was looking good to tack on. So the night after I stopped um’ing & ahh’ing and put my MIG where my mouth is. Centralised it, clamped inner to outer arch and threw a few tacks on. DONE.


 
Not right though. When I’d first put the sill on (pattern sill) I remember thinking to myself – hmm, not a lot of curve in that where the new arch meets sill. Turns out I was right. Where the new outer arch met the sill there was basically a break & point where what really needs to be there is a nice smooth curve. In fairness, it doesn’t help when I have no datum to work to. The other side is just as bad and full of bog, so I can’t even use a  profile gauge to check it’s right.
 
Anyway, after a sulk and downing tools for the evening, I had a think about it, took some advice from the body lads at work and pulled the arch off the next night, did some pedigree chum style ‘choicest cuts’ on the sill to graduate the transition of the panels a bit more and now it’s got a curve as smooth as Kim Kardashian’s 'arris. BOOM! Subtle difference, but the difference between a skim of filler & a sh1tload (and more importantly, lots of added weight.)


 
Meanwhile, I’ve been busy at work too doing a resurrection on the L/H wing. Where as the R/H wing wasn’t too bad, the L/H side had whole corners missing so no datums to use. Again, in the depths of despair and after seriously contemplating GRP wings from Germany instead, some advice & encouragement from some of the lads at work seeing me struggle gave me a boost, and I’m hoping to box that off tomorrow. I’ll also plate up the aerial hole too, as I’m going to treat myself to a DAB head unit for this one, which use a different  aerial all together.











Rust sorted, just that aerial hole to patch now. I love it when a plan comes together.

Offline Andy

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Re: Mk1 G40 Turbo
« Reply #24 on: July 27, 2012, 08:32:39 pm »
Good work!

Offline PeteG40

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Re: Mk1 G40 Turbo
« Reply #25 on: July 27, 2012, 10:10:56 pm »
nice progress mate - and good to meet you at bvf

Offline Andy

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Re: Mk1 G40 Turbo
« Reply #26 on: July 27, 2012, 11:59:17 pm »
If you need any more encouragement, read this - it could be worse!
http://www.met-alchemy.com/sunbeamlotusprototypepge1.htm

Offline dubstar

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Re: Mk1 G40 Turbo
« Reply #27 on: July 29, 2012, 08:14:09 pm »
Cheers Pete - ditto, had a great weekend all round! Might see you at Tatton if you're going....?

Thanks Andy - Yeah, it's one of those isn't it. No matter how bad you think things are, someone has it worse!!!

Offline dubstar

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Re: Mk1 G40 Turbo
« Reply #28 on: July 29, 2012, 08:20:01 pm »




Progress. Just need to spot weld the arch & sill flanges then do a bit of Olympic sequence welding and 1 quarter of the shell (minus removable panels!) is rust free!!!

Offline cheddarcheese

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Re: Mk1 G40 Turbo
« Reply #29 on: July 29, 2012, 10:01:25 pm »
skills  ;D