Operation Integrity Options

[amfab]

OK, well I had to have a thread title. I am calling it that because it will restore structural integrity to the car and I want to be able to say that the rust has been correctly repaired if I eventually sell the car, unlike the lack of integrity of the person who hid the rust to sell it.

Pictures below

The floor is a little shiny because there is still some mineral spirits on it from trying to get the tar off.

The open areas that you are seeing are after I wire brushed with knotted wire wheels on a grinder, then a carbide burr on a die grinder. While I will take some more off, what you see is getting close to good weldable metal.

First the longs:

The driver’s side is the worst. The bottom edges inside and out were full of holes, or very thin, so I cut the outside of the driver’s all the way off—except I haven’t got to the front under the door pillar yet.

I have cut out about 30 percent of the passenger’s side. The middle section is solid but I will replace it anyway. I started getting a little scared to take more out until I brace up the body.

The floor pan:

There are lots of sloppy welded patches and holes around the seams. The rear passenger’s and rear drivers quarters of the floor pan have been replaced with some plain steel—blue for some reason. The PO welded a solid bar on each side to mount the seat hinges. Sloppy, unground welds abound. There are some rust-through spots at the front of the pan that will need patching, but overall the pan in front of the cross member is solid.

Some patches in the lower firewall are solid.

Measuring diagonally, window frame to targa bar and straight back window frame to targa bar it is off no more than 1/8 inch. This changes depending upon doors open or closed or movement of the jack stands. The door gaps were never problems—maybe the driver’s side was a little wide. So it seems the car is pretty within spec and adjustable doorframe bars should be able to pull—or push—things to be good

Here is where I need advice. This is my plan, please give feedback:

1) Pull Wiring harness, speedometer cable and gas lines out of the center tunnel (What else is in there?) pull gas tank.


2) Pull doors and build adjustable bars to align doorframes

3) Continue to grind back to clean metal in the inside of the longs. Sandblast, then create internal angled patch pieces to repair the inner longitudinals from 18ga cold rolled. I am using michelko’s example see:
http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?s=&...st&p=219748

4) Cut off the majority of the inner rockers (The upper half or three quarters of the longs are very solid) and replace with inner rockers from Restoration Design.

5) Coat interiors of longs with Ospho then Eastwood frame coating

6) Patch any inner long parts to the area aft of the Restoration Design patch with 18ga cold rolled steel.

7) Install Brad Mayuer reinforcement kit over the longs

8) Cut rear floor quarters and cross member out

9) Weld in new rear floor panel and cross member, grinding out old welds and creating flanges from18ga where necessary—in the spots where there is no flange left in spots along the firewall and inner long

10) Remove and rebuild pedal cluster and create patches for small rust spots in the front of the footwells.

11) Sandblast interior and prime and paint.

12) Cut holes for front sway bar, sand blast and prime and paint bottom of gas tank area.

13) Install gas tank, new stainless gas lines and reinstall wiring harness.

Please give any feedback regarding my plan

[Dion]

Sorry about the other cars getting nailed, that sux. I hope insurance helps you out with those. As for the 914... nice work. Glad to see your progress as I’m in a similar boat with regards to the longitudinal. Keep at it! I’m afraid I can’t shed any light on mig welding as I’m still learning myself.
Practice makes perfect... you already have tig skills, that’s great.
Good luck on the other vehicles.
Cheers, Dion

[amfab]

Thanks Dion,
I ended up having the 993 repainted. The international is in the shop still.

I decided that the easiest way to work on the car was going to be on a dolly—to keep it rigid, or a rotisserie to allow easy access.

I emailed back and forth with Jeff Hail a bit who was a great help—Thanks Jeff!

I couldn't decide which to do so I did both. I came up with an idea to build a dolly frame for the car out of pallet rack shelving and make it so I could mount the dolly/car on the Rotisserie.

Here is the idea I came up with:



Basically, build a dolly and weld trailer hitch tubes on each corner to receive the arms of the rotisserie.

[amfab]

I bought some Used Interlake pallet rack shelf support beams—they are 15 gauge and 4.5 x about 2.5 with an extra bend in them so they are really rigid. Buying them used is way cheaper than buying new steel like 2x4 16ga, or 11 ga.

I built a rectangular box out of them that fit under the car and spent a lot of time getting it level and square.



Then I welded trailer hitch tubing on each corner to mount on the rotisserie



I took a bunch of adjustable jack stands and got the car really level using a laser, then raised the rectangular dolly frame to within a few inches of the bottom of the car making sure it was level with the laser. This took a bunch of adjustable jack stands:



I measured and remeasured and I found the dimensions of the car were surprisingly good. Nothing was much more than 1 mm off.

At this point I felt confident enough to cut and weld in the connecting pieces between the Rectangular dolly base and the suspension mounting points. Here are the rear suspension console pieces tacked in. This is when I gave up on my Lincoln 125v and ordered a Hobart 220v welder.



I made connections at the front of the A-Arms (see above), and also the front suspension cross member. I actually welded the dolly frame to the old suspension crossmember as I am going to use an aluminum one when I put the car back together. I made connections at the rear suspension console and the transmission mounts.

It took me a few days to do this as I went slowly measuring every time I did any welding.

[amfab]

Once on the rotisserie the dolly frame really keeps the chassis rigid. I took the door braces out to test it and there was no change in the door gaps, even when rotating.
I put the door braces back in anyway to help when I get to welding in the firewall etc.

Here is a picture of it when I pulled it out o the garage to do some spot sandblasting.



Another:

[76-914]

Once on the rotisserie the dolly frame really keeps the chassis rigid. I took the door braces out to test it and there was no change in the door gaps, even when rotating.
I put the door braces back in anyway to help when I get to welding in the firewall etc.

Here is a picture of it when I pulled it out o the garage to do some spot sandblasting.

Like that fixture. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif) Did the Merc survive it's intro to that IH? Those old IH'S were built like a Bomb Shelter!