Front wing - I'm going in

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jacko
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Post by jacko »

I believe all 635s destined for your isles were pretreated with rust seeds.
Jack
Arlington, Texas. USA

1989 635csi
Automatic
Horsetan

Post by Horsetan »

jacko wrote:I believe all 635s destined for your isles were pretreated with rust seeds.
No. They were all built by Karmann. Karmann is the German word for rust.
spencerd72
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Post by spencerd72 »

More progress from Sunday. I got the inner sill repair piece welded in:

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I used plug welds on the flanges at the bottom between the outer sill and the inner sill. I drilled 7 mm hloes in the outer sill flange. I think I'll make them a bit smaller next time - these took quite a bit of filling with 1mm filler rod! I welded along the edges of the flanges as well, not using much filler, almost just melting the edges together homogeneously.

Here's the view from the inside:

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The picture is a bit dark I'm afraid..

It's the floor piec next. Will have to think about how I'm going to do it.

Olympia - did you get my email / PM. Those pictures of how you did yours would be really useful!

Cheers,
Dominic.
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olympia57
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Post by olympia57 »

I did Dominic ,my apologies for not forwarding them ( I got distracted by an electrical problem in my house ).
I'll get on with it this evening .
Don
spencerd72
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Post by spencerd72 »

Cheers Don,

I hope you get the domestic leccy problem sorted out OK.

Dominic.
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olympia57
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Post by olympia57 »

Photos sent Dominic .
Don
spencerd72
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Post by spencerd72 »

Time for an update I think - I have today finished the sill / floor repair and am very glad that I have. It was as, Brucey predicted, quite challenging. Many thanks to Don for the advice and pics of his job, although I ended up doing a slightly simplified version which doesn't replicate the original but does the job fine.

Here's the edge of the first floor repair piece - I shaped the edge to mate up with the ridges in the floor. I decided I wasn't going to replicate the pattern of ridges in the floor, but just make it flat. This edge still has to have the ridges in though. In retrospect, it would have been easier to make this piece much shorter, as a 'converter' between ridged and flat. It was quite difficult to get everything to line up on together with this being quite a big piece:

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Here it is welded in:
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And from below:
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And another from the inside:
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That took a long time to fit up and weld in. It was quite tricky in the confined space - especially when you cock up and blow a hole - doh! But I got it done in the end..

So next was the curved piece to finish off. I didn't fancy my chances of successfully shrinking a curved flange. I'm now well aquainted with my hammer and dolly set but not that skilled! So, I decided to make a flat piece with the right curve and then cut a curved flange from flat sheet and weld it on.
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Turning into quite a neat job after some grinding:
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The finished product:
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This is after a lot of time spent on the fit up:
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Time for 'Tack and bash' to get rid of that daylight:

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Eventually, I got it all welded in and made a square bit to go on the bottom for the flitch panel to screw into:

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The view from inside:

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I didn't make this piece with the slightly larger radius curve on the sill side as Don had done, but I think it will be ok. I made the square piece on the bottom with open sides and a slot in the bottom so the it can be painted and sealed and doesn't trap water.

Phew! The rest should be relatively straight forward after that, I hope!
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olympia57
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Post by olympia57 »

Super Job that you're doing Dominic it's coming together really well.
I laughed at the first photo with all the cardboard , I'm sure my wife was worried that I was developing a cardboard fetish as for months I spirited away every cereal packet and box that was in the house for templates....

I'm sure you feel very happy with your work , and quite rightly so.
Keep the updates coming.
Don
spencerd72
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Post by spencerd72 »

I've started to tackle the gusset bit of the inner wing. Just to recap, this is what it looked like:
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I was worried about how far the rust was into the trumpet section. Well, they're always rustier than you think and now most of the trumpet is gone.
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The flange that you can see in that pic that's almost rusted away is the structural chassis around the front shock. Luckily, its just the edge flange where the inner wing has been seam welded to it that has gone. The trumpet also went along the bottom seam weld almost to the front, although this is not a very good pic taken from below, the dark bit behind the trumpet sean is rust:
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This caused a hole through to the engine compartment in one spot. Here's the first few tacks on the repair patch which took most of Sunday to make and fit up (still imperfectly):
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A hammer and dolly set comes in really handy for sorting out imperfect fit up. Tack where the fit is good then bash the bit that don't till they do! The gap on the lower bit of this butt join did go all the way up, but after some dollying, I closed the gap up on the top bit:
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Don't ask me how I ended up with this gap after spending a lot of time on Sunday fitting this piece up!

I got this piece all tacked up and got a couple of weld runs done in a good breeze, gusting a force 4. Then the skies went dark and it started to rain. That's it for tonight. There was just time to spray some paint on and get my gear in.

I'm now thinking about what I can do in the bits that I'm going to have to plug weld together, but won't be able to effectively paint. I.e,. when I replace the edge flange on the chassis around the shock I then have to weld the gusset repair on to it. Anyone any ideas? A good dose of Dinitrol?
Paul Humpage
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Post by Paul Humpage »

All looking good. One question if i may. What gauge of steel do you use for these repairs? I've got some rust repairs that i need to do to mine and was going to pay somebody even though i can weld and have a professional 3 phase Mig welder in a decent sized shed that i weld thick mild steel for construction and fencing in. I'm inspired by posts like yours and see no reason why i couldn't do my own especially with some practice on a bit of scrap first.

The only thing is i have no idea of what type and gauge of sheet metal to get so any help is appreciated.

Regards
Paul
spencerd72
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Post by spencerd72 »

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your comments.

These sections are usually made from steel 0.9mm thick, i.e. 20 guage and that is what I have been using.

http://www.mesteel.com/cgi-bin/w3-msql/ ... ckness.htm

Have a go on some scrap and see how you get on. It does get harder the thinner the steel is. It's important to get a good fit - any gaps will just cause the steel to curl up when you try to weld it and you'll end up with a hole to fill.

This is quite a good video on butt welding sheet steel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4q1TExpmfY

Cheers.
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Brucey
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Post by Brucey »

Paul Humpage wrote:All looking good. One question if i may. What gauge of steel do you use for these repairs? I've got some rust repairs that i need to do to mine and was going to pay somebody even though i can weld and have a professional 3 phase Mig welder in a decent sized shed that i weld thick mild steel for construction and fencing in. I'm inspired by posts like yours and see no reason why i couldn't do my own especially with some practice on a bit of scrap first.

The only thing is i have no idea of what type and gauge of sheet metal to get so any help is appreciated.

Regards
Paul
MIG is different to TIG. It is a lot easier for one thing, and you can weld one-handed, which means you don't need to be able to get both hands in there. It is a lot easier to fill holes and having a gap in the joint is OK with MIG where it isn't so much with TIG. I'm really impressed with how Spencer is getting on, what he is doing isn't at all easy.

However if you have a 3-phase MIG it may or may not be suitable for doing car bodywork. The main reason for this is that many 3-phase MIG systems are primarily designed to work in spray transfer mode at high ( >200A) currents. The current and the gas flow are controlled remotely via relays. Although most machines will work at lower current (dip transfer modes) the minimum current setting on the machine may not be low enough to allow easy welding of thin gauge material.

Welding car bodywork thicknesses requires a very low current (30-50A or so) and plenty of stop-starts. Some 3-phase MIG sets will do a decent job but need much different settings than usual. You should use 0.8mm wire (or thinner).

If you want to get started on it just practice on some scrap material (I've used an old washing machine before now....). You will find that continuous seam welds are neither practical nor desirable; you will get a load more distortion this way.

cheers
~~~~~~~~~~~~Brucey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Paul Humpage
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Post by Paul Humpage »

Thanks Spencer and Brucey, that's some very helpful info. I would have been tempted to run a nice thick seam all the way along the joint, now i know better.

I think the machine will be fine as it has a mass of settings including an auto spot weld function and seems to be aimed at the smash repair/metalwork trade. Depending on the gauge of steel used and wire diameter it will go from ridiculously thin Colourbond fencing type material up to 15 mm plate steel as long as you pick the correct setting.

This is what i usually weld as part of my job, a 6er will be a bit more complex methinks.

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Regards
Paul
deacs

Post by deacs »

good effort on the repairs, im about to start the exact same repairs on my car. Quite terrifying to be honest as ive only just learnt to weld and am still fairly amateur at it!!


The worrying thing with all this is ive now seen countless threads with people having to do identical repairs. I feel for anyone who has bought a £4000 E24 only to discover they need to do such welding missions! luckily i paid less than 1/4 that for my whole car so haven't got too much to lose!
spencerd72
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Post by spencerd72 »

Time for an update I think.

I had a bit of a setback when I found that water was getting in to my new floor / sill repair when it rained - not good! There were several suspects for the leak, the chief being the rubber grommet for the cable that go through the firewall. That and all the seams in the gulley area got a liberal dose of Tigerseal and then epoxy mastic. However, I also found a bloody great hole under this gulley that drains out from the under wiper motor area to the inner sill. Here's the repair (sorry about the lack of foties for this job:
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The drainage duct has a seam at the bottom! I stongly suspected that this was leaking (hence the rot beneath it), so I cleaned out the area thoroughly, including a good toothbrushing with thinners and then pushed loads of Tigerseal into the seam and painted over this with epoxy mastic primer:
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I'm very relieved to report that after today's downpour, the car is still dry inside.

So back to the rest of the job. I got the repair to the inner wing by the coil finished eventually:

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And filled a little hole nearby:
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Backside view:
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Then repaired the flange of the structural bit around the top of the shock. It was a rare delight to knock of a nice straightforward bit of welding on 2mm plate!
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Then started on the first gusset repair section:
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There's a lack of foties now I'm afraid, but here's the second gusset repair piece and also a piece to tie this in to the inner wing. The welding on the third part is pretty messy - I was welding in between gusts of wind, although at least the rain had stopped!

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So, I've just got one small job to do and then the inner wing work is done and it's time to start the outer wing... At least I can get on with that on the balcony if it's raining. THe MOT is looming in October....
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olympia57
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Post by olympia57 »

I applaud you for doing all that work outside in the elements Dominic .
The restoration is coming on well ,you can see your progress now . There's a great satisfaction of knowing that you did it all yourself and looking back on the mess it was in to start with , boosts the Mojo too.
Keep up the great work and keep the updates coming.
Don
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