Best post I've seen on here in a long time.great looking work too.
Keep up the updates mate
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Best post I've seen on here in a long time.great looking work too.
Keep up the updates mate
Figured I would answer some of the questions you guys are asking...
I left the seats in because they are already rather tired/stained/ratty so I'm not worried about the odd burn mark (and I don't currently have anywhere else to put them)
I am however protecting the interior from weld splatter as best I can using a mixture of wet old bedsheets and spare steel panels that I wedge between what I'm welding and the interior.
I'm using the side panels from some server racks that we decommissioned at work as the donor steel. It's the right thickness and I have a pile of them.
I'm hand shaping the steel at the moment - lacking a sheet metal bender I'm afraid. The usual process is to clamp the steel to a large chunk of angle iron, then bash it with a hammer until it looks about right.
A donor car would be handy to chop bits out of, however finding one without any rust in the roof would be tricky. All the patrols I have seen at wreckers have visible rust in the roof area, and even if I find one without visible rust, I won't know its condition until I haul it home and yank the roof skin off. At this juncture, I think it's a better/easier option to just fix the rust in what I've got.
At this point it's unfortunately a slow project. I can only really work on it during the day on weekends, when it's not raining, and at reasonable times so I don't drive my neighbours insane with the dulcet tones of air compressors, saws and grinders.
Got some more done:
Cleaned up this bit where the frame had rusted out:
Attachment 80708
Chopped a rusty bit out of the B-Pillar:
Attachment 80709
measured up and chopped off a piece of server panel that had a convenient 100* bend in it and tacked it in to place:
Attachment 80710
Started welding it up. Doing a little bit at a time so that nothing gets too badly warped:
Attachment 80711
Finished welding and started grinding:
Attachment 80712
Gave it a shot of primer:
Attachment 80713
On to that hole in the B-pillar.
One CAD template transferred to steel:
Attachment 80714
Chopped out and ground the paint off the edges:
Attachment 80715
Apply some dodgy bending methodology:
Attachment 80716
Tack it in place:
Attachment 80717
Finesse it with a large hammer, and weld it in:
Attachment 80718
Go nuts with the flap disk:
Attachment 80719
Not bad for a Saturday afternoon. Once piece at a time.
With the country going in to covid19 lockdown on Wednesday, the upside may well be more time to work on this thing!
I'm trying to be nice to the neighbors during lockdown, so I have not been working on the Patrol much.
I have made a bit of progress though;
A couple of patches coated in weld-thru primer drying in the sun:
Attachment 80844
Tacked in:
Attachment 80845
Attachment 80846
Welding up:
Attachment 80847
Welded up:
Attachment 80848
Flatteneing off:
Attachment 80849
Then rinse and repeat with another patch:
Attachment 80850
Attachment 80851
Attachment 80852
Attachment 80853
At this point I was rapidly running out of daylight so I called it a night.
Progress is still slow, but the driver's side of the truck is now more metal than rust and air.
between the covid lockdown and a few weeks of bad weather I have not managed to get too much done, but I have made some progress;
Chopped out a big chunk around the B-pillar:
Attachment 81021
cut out and bent up some patch plates:
Attachment 81022
Spent an afternoon playing metal tetris:
Attachment 81023
Got it all welded in (and most of it ground back & painted):
Attachment 81024
On to the next problem... quite a bit of rust on the A-pillar:
Attachment 81025
A problem easily solved with the air body saw...
Attachment 81026
That did leave quite a bit, oddly shaped hole though :jawdrop:
For my next challenge, I need to make the piece on the left look like the one on the right (minus the rust):
Attachment 81027
While I was tearing some of that apart it did make me wonder - do any of you lot know why the roof skin and gutters are brazed on at the corners?
I'm hoping it was done for ease/speed of assembly but I'm not 100% sure.
Right... time to something about that hole...
Use some paper to make a template, then trace the result on to some steel:
Attachment 81036
Cut it out, stuck it in a bender then bash it with a hammer (or 3):
Attachment 81037
Sand it back and drill some holes in it for plug welds (I did paint the back of it with weld-thru primer):
Attachment 81038
Weld in the plug welds, tack some of it place then align it to final shape by bashing it with a hammer some more:
Attachment 81039
Weld it up, then grind it back:
Attachment 81040
Give it a coat of weld-thru primer:
Attachment 81041
Got this other patch tacked in, then ran out of daylight:
Attachment 81042
I'm getting tantalizingly close to finishing off this frame rail.
Love your work mate keep it com'n. She's looking good can't wait to see how it comes up [emoji106]
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Yep this is a bloody tops thread. Loving it @Nhoward Brilliant work so far mate, keep it going.
You have the patience of a saint. Top work.
I love your work, I am so limited in what I can do in my workshop at the moment due to all the joeys in care...can't even finish putting the engine back together.
Great to see someone repairing rather than just throwing away a lovely old truck.
It's amazing how much time we don't have when in quarantine (not that it changed anything for us, if anything we go out more. sigh)