Lol, it's a real struggle to find the time to do them to be honest! God knows how those guys who show every stage of the resto in detail on Youtube do it; it must take an absolute age. I'm currently only doing most Saturdays on it so tend to use as much of that time to crack on with it, I'll hopefully be doing an end of year round up video though.
I managed to get a few days in on the split project this week just before New Year. Lots of trial fitting of the sills and surrounding panels to make sure everything lined up ok. I now have both side support strengthener bars and the O/S inner B pillar tacked in. One final mock up of the side panel and I’m happy with the position of the sill so have started welding it in. I recently bought a second hand spot welder and used it for welding the closing panel on the rear most top hat support. What a fantastic time saver which I’m hoping to use for that factory spot weld look.
Definitely! I can see it saving me a chunk of time not having to drill countless holes for plug welds. I ran a whole bunch of test welds on the same thickness of steel with varying pressure and power, and pulled them apart to make sure I was happy with them. Should make welding in the cross members and outriggers a breeze. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Not to mention the potential mess one makes of the surface grinding them flat (and the time saved and lack of grindings going everywhere). So good to see the virgin steel surface with factory looking dimples and no grinding. A win on so many levels.
Lots of trial fitting of the near side panels today for Stevie! Cargo doors, short panel and outer sill all trial fitted, and door gaps checked to make sure I’m happy with the inner sill position before fully welding it to the floor supports.
When I did my bug floor with spot welder I had copper arms glowing red . Didn’t like weld through primer and kept tripping every house /garage socket bar cooker one . Does a great job but not enough clamping force
Doubt my spot welder would do a bug floor pan as that's quite thick steel along the spine from memory (floor pan is probably 1mm and then the spine is two layers of either 1.5mm or 2mm I believe). Luckily most of the bits on the split are spot welding two sheets of 1-1.2mm together which this seems to do quite happily.
Onto the N/S B and C pillar on Stevie this weekend. The B pillar inner section was a nice and straightforward repair as I now have lots of nice reference points. The C pillar was a little trickier as when I first started restoring Stevie it was clear that whoever did some previous work on her didn’t brace the C pillar as the door that side hit the roof whenever I tried to shut it. Confirmed by clamping in one of the side bar supports and noting that the spot weld holes didn’t line up. So out with the porta power to gently ease the C pillar a few mm back to where it should be, with the side support bar now lining up and the door gaps much closer to where they should be. I then braced the C pillar and got the new bottom section welded in. A quick patch repair made for a hole someone had previously cut in the back of the C pillar to get at the hinge mounts and that’s the C pillar nice and solid again. A little rearrange of the vans at the workshop at the end of the day as I’ll be putting Stevie on the back burner while I get Iris ready for summer with some paintwork to address first up.
