Laguna Blue 75 build thread, making patch panels Options

[Tim17]

The previous owner told us the hell hole and longs had been done and he seemed like an honest car guy. So that was dumb and naive of me. It was clear that a bunch of work had been done around the hell hole, which looked good from the engine bay. When we got it home and on the lift we were faced with a rusted out lower firewall.
Ordered a firewall repair panel.
We pulled the engine today and cut out the lower firewall and it’s pretty ugly.

[Tim17]

I would take out the rear portion of the floor before cutting the long load path to adjust door gap. This is assuming that you are going to have to replace a portion of the floor to fix the bulkhead rust damage.

The more material you take out, you’ll be amazed at how it softens up the chassis and lets the turnbuckle door braces move things.

The other thing is the chassis will be stronger if you don’t have two structural panels just being joined by a butt weld. The other thing is the need to account for metal shrink as weld cools. I.e., if you set the door gap perfect, then do the butt weld to rejoin what you’ve cut, you’ll find the gap tightens as the weld cools.

The other thing is that when you start welding in rear bulkhead pieces, you’ll find that weld shrink pulls the long toward the center. That pull may help your door gap situation. The whole chassis will have moved around as the structure rusted and lost stiffness over the years.

The other thing is that on my car, I found part of the lower rear door gap was controlled by the door jamb sill. I had a bit of a fiasco that needs to be repaired in the future because I was holding that gap with silicon bronze and then it moved when I overheated things allowing the silicon bronze to reflow and my gap moved. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif)

Some of this would vary depending on order to remove or install. In unibody construction the parts are all inner related. It’s sort of trial and error, learn as you go - at least it was in my case.

My advice is don’t try to set door gap too early. Keep an eye on it as you do other work. Keep it close to what you want but don’t sweat it too early before you get an idea of how other work moves it around

Ok, good input. Thanks!

Tim

[Superhawk996]

The other thing, gotta start proof reading . . . And stop starting every sentence with the phrase “the other thing”.

English was never my favorite class - much rather be in industrial ed class welding! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/lol-2.gif)

Keep posting your progress. Love seeing these rusted out cars getting fixed properly instead of cobbled with rivets and epoxy like the old days!

[Tim17]

We had the car supported at each wheel with jack stands and two support turnbuckles in the RH door frame but that didn't look good enough to start hacking away any more rotten structure on the right side. Added a jack stand under the rear suspension console. Went thru the scrap steel bin and found a section of steel beam, some square tubing from my old Factory Five Cobra rear suspension and a few other bits, to tie the rear transmission mount to the lift bed.
Now we have 3 points of support on the back end or the RH side, which is pretty secure.



Up front, I moved my bridge jack under the aft lip of the front wheel well and shimmed some blocks into place, making a total of 5 points on support on the RH side. and 3 on the left.




With the chassis stabilized, it was on with the rust surgery. Cut into the front end of outer rocker and lower A post sheet metal. There were more botched repairs up there.



Received the new inner rocker cover from AA. Planning to use the whole thing except up front where it makes more sense to only replace the rotten bottom section. We have a pretty good idea now what we need to fab up for the inner long welded patch to mate with the inner rocker.

I keep on muttering "Fxcking Bob" as I get deeper into this work of art he sold us. But it's our work of art now and the only way out is to save it.

Tim

[technicalninja]

Might check out this thread. He's doing it in the dirt!

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=368359

[Tim17]

Might check out this thread. He's doing it in the dirt!

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=368359

Thanks for the tip, he is doing great work and taking great pictures along the way.

Tim

[hcdmueller]

Another great thread in the Classic section. Digging into Hell. Worth a look.

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=16748

[Tim17]

Another great thread in the Classic section. Digging into Hell. Worth a look.

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=16748

Thanks, there’s a lot of commonality in rust locations, yet some different creative solutions and approaches to fixing it in these different threads. It’s all good in helping me figure out the best thing for my car, skills and equipment.

Tim

[Tim17]

Made some headway on figuring out what needs to be replaced on the right inner long, and how to make the patch panels. The patch panels get bent on the brake to form the lower inboard bend radius. We made a tool to make the joggle for the floor joint and hold the part while we bend the outer flange down at a consistent 70 mm from the inner wall. By adding addition sheet metal strips we could make the deeper joggle for the front section of the long. Used the shrinker to make the curved flange for the forward end.

Once we get the whole straight length of inner long fabricated, will cut it in and butt weld it in place.

One this that's fortunate is the the floor flange is in good shape except right in the hell hole area. Rather than drilling out the spot welds, I ground the inner long down until all I had was the floor flange. I'll be able to spot weld that joint without having to do a bunch of repair and grinding, or welding upside down.

My air grinder is way too slow, so I looked for more ways to use my Dewalt angle grinder. I found grinder shaft extensions on Amazon that allow me to get in with flap disks and cutoff wheels in places I couldn't get to before. I also found an adapter on Ebay that will attach a 1/4"-20 Roloc arbor to the 5/8"-11 grinder. I don't think I be using my air grinder very much going forward. I'm using a full face shield, gloves and using the side handle on the grinder and it's pretty tame to control.

Also cut out an entire section of rotted floor, rotted and previously patched lower forward firewall and jack mount plate. Planning to keep these together while we make up the individual repair pieces.

Tim

[worn]

Another great thread in the Classic section. Digging into Hell. Worth a look.

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=16748

This place has a wealth of information. A picture plus a thousand words can work wonders.
Me? I am the world’s worst car buyer. My TR6 required replacement of about half of the sheet metal. Then came the ‘72, with trouble from floor to firewall. Finishing the same old story with the ‘76.

The thing is that I bought the cars thinking that each of them was OK. And then they weren’t OK. I couldn’t sell them because I didn’t want to pass the trouble on to someone else. Also, I didn’t want the cars to go to the crusher, before or after being parted out. So, years of welding ensued. I like welding, so maybe that is fine. This week I have been sewing seats to replace the old upholstery. Such fun!

[Tim17]

Another great thread in the Classic section. Digging into Hell. Worth a look.

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=16748

This place has a wealth of information. A picture plus a thousand words can work wonders.
Me? I am the world’s worst car buyer. My TR6 required replacement of about half of the sheet metal. Then came the ‘72, with trouble from floor to firewall. Finishing the same old story with the ‘76.

The thing is that I bought the cars thinking that each of them was OK. And then they weren’t OK. I couldn’t sell them because I didn’t want to pass the trouble on to someone else. Also, I didn’t want the cars to go to the crusher, before or after being parted out. So, years of welding ensued. I like welding, so maybe that is fine. This week I have been sewing seats to replace the old upholstery. Such fun!

I seem to have a learning disability when I comes to buying cars from the 70’s. I bought a “rust free” 1970 Triumph GT6+ on BAT and ended up replacing a bunch of rusty and bondo repaired panels. I’m hoping this one will move forward faster than that did.
Tim

[Tim17]

Took a shot at using MDF dies in my 12 ton press to form the corner of the floor rotted out under the hell hole. I wasn't sure if the MDF would be strong enough to stretch the metal in the corner, but it worked.

traced the shape onto paper from the section I'd cut out and made MDF and plywood male and female dies. The female die was bolted into threaded holed in a piece of steel. These screws also went though the sheet metal blank and a clamping piece of plywood to try and keep the flange flat.

Following pics show the setup and the formed blank. I need to trim off the excess material but the flanges didn't distort.







Tim

[Montreal914]

Beautiful work! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[TRS63]

You're doing a great job, keep at it and soon enough you will have fun in your 914!

Bests

Antoine

[Tim17]

You're doing a great job, keep at it and soon enough you will have fun in your 914!

Bests

Antoine

Thanks, looking forward to driving this machine.

Tim

[Tim17]

Beautiful work! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Thanks!
Tim

[Tim17]

Made a milestone today. We’ve been doing part and rust removal from this car since we got it. Today I got to actually weld a new piece on. It was a small but therapeutic milestone.

Welded in the floor patch I had fabricated.




Tim

[Tim17]

Chris made up a tool for the flanged oblong hole in the inner long. He also made up the aft section and we cut the hole and formed the edge. Scribed and cut the long to get the patch pieces matched up for butt welding.
I was happy with how well his part matched up with the original oblong hole.

[Tim17]

Starting to make some headway putting some structure back into the car. Chris and I have been cutting out bad metal and fabricating the pieces to replace them. Now we’re starting to get them welded back in. The fabrication work is a fun challenge, but it’s really satisfying to get the parts welded in and to feel the ridigity of the structure improving.
Found more rust in near the right front jack point, so needed to form a patch panel with the press.



Welded in the interior firewall




Got the front end of the right side inner long welded in today

[Tim17]

So it’s been 2 months since we started working on repairing the firewall. When we opened it up, we got a 914 awakening that so many people on this forum have been through.
Thank goodness for all you folks on 914 World laying out a roadmap for fixing this.
Well, two months later we fixed enough other stuff that I could weld in the firewall patch panel. Definitely advanced my metal fabrication and forming skills on this car. I’m a better welder that I was, but still need to get better.

It feels like an accomplishment, but there’s still a long road ahead.

[friethmiller]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/drunk.gif) Looking good! Keep up the great work!