Lottie, a 79 full restoration Part 1/2/3/4/5

Moving on, the door base is sound front and back and the top is next, I sliced off all the scraggy bits with the angle grinder but the top was too rusty to save so after some careful measurement recording I made some brave cuts. The inner and outer panels cut a couple of inches apart to aid a good graft. Note the prepared replacement strip resting on the bottom of the window arperture, this in 2 parts (see sketch in window). This has an inner part (Black) outer (Red) crimped to the upstand and tack welded in a few place (Blue arrow).


The new bit was crafted on my high tech!! bending machine:

This is basically 2 stout steel tubes with the panel to be bent (Grey) and a former (red arrow) sandwiched between and gripped by vice and clamps. The former is a steel bar with the edge ground to give the correct radius. The flange is bent with many passes of a steel bar and lump hammer, crude but effective.

New top fitted with 4 plug welds some seam welds and now ground back and Bonda'ed. The outer flange is deliberately a bit long to add strength in storage and allow more careful trimming to final size when I have the rubbers and glass ready. I have also fitted closing pieces to the window sides which will be covered with the original GRP bits and carpet/vinyl. Time for a holiday from sheet metal work as my next task is rear hubs/bearings/CVs. But I have some nice bits en-route from
Cool Air so will be skinning a cab door later.

 

Ballsy! Nicely done.


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Nice work.. And in informative write up as usual..
@martinvention

 

Back to heavy metal and the rear hubs. The bearings seemed pretty good with hardly any play but its a lot easier to inspect and replace with the hubs on the bench so following some good tips in the "How To" sub forum I removed all the guts, cleaned the bearings and bead blasted the hubs. I noted that contrary to the manuals the outer race of the inside ball bearings was just accessible to a well placed large screwdriver and they could be gently drifted out without bashing the inner race. Removed and cleaned the bearings were in good condition, little play, clean contact areas and no roughness and had obviously been replaced. But whilst the outer roller bearings were FAG the inner's were from a place and name I did not know so I elected to replace them with FAG plus new seals. So here is where we are now that that the hubs have been Bonda primed and finished in satin black:
The advice seems to be that the bearings should be well greased prior to fitting, but also that bearing bond is a good idea. Instructions for use of the latter say bearings must be free of oil and grease, so noting that the spacer fits through the outer rollers, I will fit dry and feed with grease afterwards and before installing the spacer, roller inner and seals. The axle nut will be left loose pending fitment of new back plates when the hubs are finally reunited with the suspension.

 

Brake Caliper Splitting and Reassembly. Both front and back brakes seem to have been fettled shortly before Lottie became dormant 5 or so years ago. Newish fat pads and shoes and all pistons pushed well into bores, however all were reluctant to move until a lot of air Px applied and there was some corrosion on the rear slaves plus 2 caliper pistons had damage to the dust-cover retaining flanges. Having found these excellent brake spares experts www.brakesint.co.uk I obtained 2 new caliper pistons, all seals, brake grease, slave cylinders complete and crucially the small square O rings that sit between the caliper halves, as I wanted to go the whole hog and inspect/clean thoroughly. The latter seals are not stocked by many dealers. So here we are after lots of wire brushing/cleaning (didn't fancy bead blasting with so many hiding places for the glass beads), primer and satin black.

The mating faces, lugs that mate with the vertical link and piston rims had the remains of a silver coloured jointing compound which seems to be for corrosion protection. But I have not been able to identify what it is and plan to reassemble using the advice from several sources which is to use nothing between the caliper halves and let the seals do the work unhindered, but I will make sure there is a good paint coat around the joints. I will also make sure pistons/bores and bare metal under dust covers are lightly covered with brake grease as these items will be boxed and dry stored for some time before there is a whiff of brake fluid.

There are potential 'Murphy's law' gaffes when refitting pistons and calipers. Pistons need to be fitted with cutouts facing inwards and against direction of rotation and thereby engage with the raised tabs on the correctly selected pad back plates, only the Bentley manual seemed to give good instructions here and whoever fitted the pads last knew this not, as all the tabs had been flattened!!. So when you have a pair of long since removed calipers it is essential to know the difference between left and right hand and again only Bentley explains that the lower caliper bolts are locating bolts and hence fit into the caliper lugs with the shoulder: The left lug below has the raised shoulder which is a snug fit with the shorter bolt which has a plain raised shoulder.

 

Back to sheet metal with the cab doors. Drivers side has been repaired with new skin and lower frame but the other side is bad all around the lower edge and the inner frame is no longer available though I have a replacement (Brazil) skin and base panel. Inspired by Womball and his epic Daisy resto I plan to make good the lower frame and vertical struts before removing all the skin. The seal channel will need to be fabricated and replaced from front to back and has lots of angles so will be done in several bites. The photos below show progress so far:

 

looking nice,
@martinvention

its good inspiration ... as im part way through repairing and reskinning the cab doors.. ,
and need to do much the same parts,

your paper templates seem a good way to do it .

btw..
schofields now make the large curved part ..

 

Thanks Art, I think the base panel I got from CoolAir was a Schofields and good quality, I used all the outer part with the seal channel but trimmed other side to marry up with good metal. I removed the skin today and need to make some repairs at the top end of the struts where they join the skin at the window opening. Then a few days prepping the skin before I know if it is a good fit to my repairs. Worth doing this one slowly me thinks.
happy welding Martin

 

Great work, again.

 

My doors aren't too bad either so hoping to go down the same route. Door skins are sat in the workshop taking up space for now!


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Thanks Coco. James my experience of the skins is that they are not that well packed and need to be stored carefully to avoid kinks. I have finally finished the work on the door frame and was surprised how much work a cab door needs compared with some of the other areas. I am prepping the skin and will post some more photos soon. As ever patience is the most important ingredient so store your skins carefully and attack when you are in the right frame of mind. Nice work on your defo panel.

 

It all seems to take me a large amount of time to be honest! Skins were taken out once to check them over and then put back in box.


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shame the price of Aussie rust free doors have sky rocketed

 

In my experience, the door repairs can be very tricky and time-consuming.

 

So confirming Coco's comment here is a bit of a 'death by photo' of the final parts of the process. The last bit of the base seal channel offered up to rusty frame lug before that lug and parts of the front frame below the hinge are replaced with new metal:



Rear base channel from inside with vertical strut repairs:



The top of the front vertical strut with the wing mirror mount connects to 3 other tabs all of which were rotten so I anchored the top of the strut carefully to retain the position ref whilst I cut away the rot and made a new bracket with 2 tabs to join the strut to the frame, the final tab is on the skin and will be drilled for plug welds. The black stuff is Flag rust converter "octopus ink" an apt name I read somewhere on the forum.

Next prep the frame and skin, Bonda, holes for plug welds, offer up and make holes for top of vertical struts, cut back window frame and skin tops to suit seam welds, then weld through primer around mating edges:



Next a good coat of Rustoleum:



Then finally after such a long time the skin and frame united with lots of seam sealer on the struts and by lock plate and plug welds all round, then grind, flappy disk, prime, filler skims where needed and more Bonda especially inside where skin and frame join. This final area reached using long handled 10mm brushes and when dry a fillet of seam sealer applied. OK so the IGP skin is a good fit and great value from Cool Air and will look right on the outside.



But whenever I open this door in the future, this is the bit I will be smiling at:

 

Top work as usual Martin. Now just the other side to do!


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Thanks James, I wont be rushing to do that, in fact I may be reading how you did Iris's door by the time I get there!

 

hi @martinvention

nice work..


im repairing my cab doors,

and i was sure
the door bracing struts ,
were welded to the inside top of my outer door skin..?

this seems to make sense,
as it leaves a gap for the window to pass through,

looking at yours you seem to have welded onto the inner frame at the top,

or am i mistaken somewhere along the line ..

 

Hi Art, only the front strut with the mirror mount is attached to the inner frame via 2 tabs, one from the top flange and one from below on a stiffener bracket. I guess the photo of the primed frame could give the impression the other 2 are attached to the inner frame, but don't worry I also like a working window so the slot is clear. Lottie is still under her covers for the Winter but when the weather perks up, the car will go outside and I can fit the cab doors and judge the fit properly. I think the OS door re-skinned by the PO before he sold to me needs some fettling if not re-re-skinning!! Hope yours go well. Martin

 

Thanx Martin..

I... (in a bit of a frenzy )
removed skins, from both of my doors,
so had no proper reference to the fitting,
Lesson learnt there ..
now I save one side of the bus for reference

I was doubting what I was doing,
not your progress as,your work looks very thought out and methodical..
It's great to look at and learn from your postings..
All the best Art..