Steady Eddie 72 Body Restoration

Discussion in 'Restorations' started by SteadyEddie, Oct 10, 2017.

  1. I'm pleased with the amount of progress since my last update, I think I can just about claim the passenger door is finished (in terms of welding, still needs stripping and respraying etc).

    I found a few dents and rust holes in the outer skin but didn't think they were bad enough to justify a whole new door skin so had a go at patching up the rust myself.

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    It wouldn't feel right if the hole hadn't been stuffed with filler
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    Another go with the lead loading
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    The finished product (the sun set while I was leading so couldn't get a good photo)
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    paradox likes this.
  2. Also did some more work on the sliding door.

    Cut out and cleaned up the window sill
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    A big rust hole finally replaced with genuine metal
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    Another go with the lead, it's rather tricky in the dark!
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    Again, pics of the finished door will have to wait as it's too dark again!
     
    paradox likes this.
  3. This weekend I passed a major milestone getting the sliding door inner sill welded in. With this I can now allign the outer sill, wheel arch, rear corner and boot lid hinge, all have been waiting on this! I just hope it doesn't get much colder otherwise I'll be retreating to the shed again!

    Started out by repairing a section of the door track (welding upside down is bloomin difficult, and I managed to set fire to my head several times, good job there's nothing valuable in there ;))
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    Sill holes drilled after several fights with drill bits and drill batteries
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    Welded in and cleaned up
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    I'm satisfied with the amount of penetration, I don't want the sill falling off at 6mph
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    JamesLey likes this.
  4. Final bit of progress today after the sill was on I had time to look at the B pillar and front arch. The arch had a rusty patch so Amanda fabricated a new corner, the rust on the old bodged B pillar went up further than the repair I'd bought so Amanda had to make an extension to that as well. While the wheel arch section was out I could get a better weld on the B Pillar without too much work cleaning up afterwards.

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    And this was Eddie at the end of the day I'm chuffed with that, if only every day was this productive.
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    Valveandy, MorkC68 and paradox like this.
  5. stirlingmoz

    stirlingmoz Supporter

    Good skills

    Stirlingmoz
     
  6. This weekend hasn’t seen much in the way of exciting progress. Rain stopped play on Saturday so we retreated to the shed to work on the drivers door

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    What a mess
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    It wouldn't be right without a bit of filler
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    Urrgh!
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    What's left scrubs up ok
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    Last edited: Feb 4, 2018
    paradox likes this.
  7. Meanwhile Amanda got on with the dashboard top
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    That was one of the most expensive parts but it fits perfectly and looks really good!

    I'm now dreading what I'll find on the door under the wing mirror
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  8. Today had planned to be the day we finally start getting some big panels in, so set everything up outside, began welding in the passenger side inner sill and... turns out the welding gas has run out!

    Managed to get the sill in (with some mucky welds) but left it at that
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    Instead we returned to the shed again to strip and prep all the body panels, we're just itching to get them fitted!
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    I'm looking forward to having a conservatory back again :thumbsup:
     
  9. Now that I have inner sills on both sides, this weekend started out with the I beam end pieces finally going in. I plug welded through from the top of the floor, then tacked the edges to the floor from underneith before welding beads to join them to the old I beams and the inner sill. Hopefully they won't be going anywhere soon

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    then to finish off the sliding door section I managed to get the outer sill fitted below the door track, It went in very easily with only minimal faffing!

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    Then turned my attention to the rear wheelarch. Got the old one cut out fully, coated all the inaccessible bits in hammerite (no reason for the colour, it was just the cheepest)

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    Wheel arch now in place. It took a bit of tinkering and adapting. Annoyingly the original panel included a U shaped section against the sliding door to fit the rubber seal into. This repair just had a simple L shaped lip, I may have to tinker with it to make a new slot for the rubber seal.

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    Jonathan Place and V.R.M. like this.
  10. Then, weekend still not over we turned to the other side, cut out and cleaned up sections of the B pillar and wheel arch which were rusted out before tacking in some home made repair sections

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    Still going strong, we had just enough time to get an outer sill/body panel repair in on the offside. The panel we got was a bit of a cheat panel which included both the outer body panel and the sill, complete with artificial seams. It needed a bit of adapting as it also included imitation sections of the B pillar and wheel arch. As I now have a new B pillar in place I needed to cut this panel in sections and hammer them round to form a lip against the pillar.

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    As if that wasn't enough, I also managed to make a start on the windowsill lower repairs. These did not fit, at all. It was a complete mess so I had to fill lots of gaps with welds which I hope will grind down and leave a relatively smooth finish. I have no idea if that plan will work but we'll give it a go!

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    All the welds still need cleaning up and there is plenty of faffing to do to tidy all these parts up but that'll do for now. We had given Eddie the nickname 'the buggered bus' but now I'm starting to consider changing that to 'the bodged bus'.
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2018
    paradox likes this.
  11. Get yourself an electric finger file
    There just the ticket for cleaning up welds neatly in awkward places
     
  12. Already got one I love that thing. I’ve also found its good with a soft paper it can strip surface rust without damaging the metal beneath.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
    paradox likes this.
  13. Great work.:thumbsup:
     
    SteadyEddie likes this.
  14. JamesLey

    JamesLey Sponsor

    Ditto that. Best tool I bought for cleaning up welds. The screwfix one is great.


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    paradox likes this.
  15. We managed to get the other rear wheel arch fitted and even had enough time to fit the rear corner pieces. Haven't fully ground down the welds yet but it's more good progress.

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    Without the sliding door on the O/S I couldn't form a perfect seam so had to cut off the lip from the repair panel and weld it in beside it, leaving the original seam in place. It's not how I wanted to do it but I saw no other easy option.

    I also need to do a bit of fettering with the battery trays, they had been cut to fit the previous bodged corner panels so weren't a close fit which meant a fairly bulky bit of welding. It will need some tidying up but it ain't going anywhere!

    The panel seals need a bit of work too, the O/S is perfect, both panels have alligned exactly right, annoyingly there is about a 7mm gap on the N/S seam. It's small enough to have been able to plug weld them together but I fear I'll need a little filler jst to smooth over the gap. No matter what i did I just couldn't get the panels to stretch. Either they were made too small or the van has stretched, probably the second one!

    While I did that, Amanda cleaned up all three windowsills which we'd patched together from some parts we'd fabricated (not very well). She had a job to tidy it up but the results are far better than we'd expected. It's amazing what you can do with a finger file ;)

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    Is it just me or is it starting to resemble the rear end of a van again o_O
     
    Twe-d, NickJ, Valveandy and 2 others like this.
  16. Checking in again!

    The rear end is coming together. The panel that started it all, the boot lid hinge panel has finally gone in. I wanted to put this in as the first ever panel, however it needed the rear corners in, which needed the wheel arches, which needed the sills etc. So finally, nearly 6 months in I'm finally getting what I thought would be the first panel in!

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    After getting some inspiration from @JamesLey on his thread, I thought I'd take a look at my fuel tank support and... oh what a mess!

    The offside one had been repaired but someone simply slapped an oversized piece of 1mm steel onto the underside and welded through from the top
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    The nearside was original but full of small holes, once I started picking at it, the whole thing disintegrated

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    So far I've done my best at repairing the small holes and have replaced the mounting points with 2mm steel. I'm contemplating how I could attempt to make the reinforcing bit on the underside but whatever I put in will be stronger than the rubbish that came out!

    This is part way though grinding back, It's not tidy by any standards but I'll hopefully never have to see it again.

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    after spending a day in the engine bay I'm not enjoying welding as much as I thought I did and it may take several weeks for my knees to forgive me
     
    Rez, paradox and JamesLey like this.
  17. To finish off the weekend I also took a look at the front end and spotted a bunch of holes on the A pillars which patched up nicely.

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    Next week, probably more finishing off of the body panels from the last few weeks before having a go at the wheel arch.

    I'm going to have a go at hacking into the deformation panel soon. I've tried aligning the front panel to mark some reference points on the A pillars before cutting any more off. It mostly fits but needs some more fettling to stratch around the A pillars. Any suggestions of how to stretch it welcome!

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    Spacecowboyuk and paradox like this.
  18. JamesLey

    JamesLey Sponsor

    Those fuel tank strap strengthening plates are great water traps! I’ll be seam sealing the crap outta ours. I did my best fabricating a plate that matches the original.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  19. Good idea. I have plenty of tubes of tigerseal so I’ll have at it once I’ve finished. We were very impressed with your repair. We’re still trying to work out if and how we could do the same. Your photos are good because ours disintegrated into dust so no hope of salvaging any templates from that ha ha


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    JamesLey likes this.
  20. Use a ratchet strap to stretch the front panel out over the a pillars
     

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