A Spot Of Welding

Weekend came and I was ready to go on Friday night, the bag was packed with a change of clothes and my new angle grinder ready to rock. Saturday morning and with Mustang Maniac just over the hour away, the aircon was on, the shades were on and I was on my way. The trip was peaceful for a change and I seemed to go all the way there without stopping. I got out the car and the heat was getting hotter. Adam was being escorted by a couple of his dogs as usual, no sooner had he opened up the steady stream of customers arrived. I saw myself to my car and got straight to work. Yogi (Al) had been busy again welding up the last parts of the underside and the front right shock tower. He had again done some nice welding with the spot welds that I decided to keep them. The top of the shock tower needs to be flat ready for the export brace to be fitted so they were ground down, a little filler applied and painted.

welds ground down

cleaned up and red oxide

New spots

cleaned up and painted

The underside had been exposed since the day I removed everything I could of the under seal. There was a little surface rust still and the odd bit of under seal. I started rubbing down with the angle grinder and wire wheel to nice a bare metal ready for the red oxide primer.

Before final Clean up

cleaned up

This last little section was taking a lot longer due to the complex shapes for the rear shocks and suspension mounts. The tufts of wire wool ( if that is the technical term for it) was difficult to work with, trying to get in all the corners that the grinder wouldn’t fit. The manual work had made my fingers and wrists ache. But it was worth it. This time I took a part way picture.

With all the red oxide primer done for now the difference is amazing. I finished at the point where some of the thin metal will be removed and replaced at a later date. You will notice a couple of little spots haven’t been painted as they need a couple of spot welds. With a little luck and man power available, the car should be taken off the spit and clamped on the jig getting ready for some upper body work. Then I suspect there will be more under body painting before she goes to the proper paint shop.

Sunday was a day tidying up in the man cave, the localised tornado that hit my shed on Saturday while I was out just happened to have the same name as my wife! I also cleaned a little more on the steering rack, and the photos looked no different to the previous pictures unfortunately. So I didn’t post those ones for wanting to look like duplicates.

I am planning on doing a review of my new Makita GA4530KD if anybody is interested.

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Flaming Nice Surprise(s)

In the UK we moan about bad weather then we moan about hot weather. Me I love the hot weather and it makes a change to have a few days of nice weather. The only bit I’m not to keen on is when the multitude of bugs decide that my flesh is A la Carte on the menu, prime nose bag material. Everything that can bite has tried to take lumps out of me all weekend. Still at least it’s warm and not chucking it down with rain. Friday I had my bags packed and ready for the start to Mustang Maniac. Earlier in the week I had a cryptic message sent to me by Adam to say they had a surprise for me. Saturday and I was out the door in record time and everything was goin’ great guns until I was about six miles from Mustang Maniac. A country lane had a tree that had come down from the storm early in the mornings and partially blocked the road, note the word partially. The point is I pulled up to get by and the police car that was there had parked across the road so nobody could get past. Now, anybody with a little sense would have moved some of the branches out the way with a borrowed saw from one of the houses opposite, cut a few away, then traffic moves again, nope, not this clown. He just stood at the back of his car swirling his finger in the air like he was stirring a cup upside down with his finger. I think this was his Neanderthal attempt to signal me to turn around, I wouldn’t want him to walk or verbally communicate or anything. I sat there for a while and so this lunatic just stood there, the neighbours were now out in force and all looking at said tree and fine figure of authority who had all the gear, but no idea! When I say tree, I have seen bigger indoor Christmas trees if you get me? The plus point is was sitting comfortably in my airconditioned car and this herbert was standing in the heat with his hat on and high vis jacket. So, it was inevitable that I had to do a seventeen point turn in the road which included collecting some hedgerow in the rear bumper while I was at it. I had to go all the way back where I had just come from and go the long way round, it took me what seemed like an age to get to my final destination. I parked up at Mustang Maniac and was greeted by Adam who took me straight to my car, the surprise was obviously to do with my car. Adam showed me the work Al or Yogi as he is known, had done to my car. A lot of the holes had been welded up, the old rotten floor support brackets were taken off and the new ones put back on. The rear chassis leg was repaired and the hand brake bracket put back in place and the holes around it repaired. Yogi had done some brilliant spot welds that I liked so much I left them on there as a feature to be seen. The attention to detail is amazing, as I knew it would be. Yogi had taken some pics for me so thanks to him and Mustang Maniac for letting me use them.

old floor supports and pan

support removed

different angle

treated inside

welded up and re-ground

The bodywork on the inside of the supports was in good condition and needed no additional work. The area was carefully marked up and a single support was changed at a time. The guys were happy nothing moved and continued to fix the supports in place. Check out Yogi’s spot welds that were just to good to grind down or cover up, they were different and I wanted them to stay.

left side

right side

inside welds

Spot detail at the front of support

more inside

hand brake bracket

With the parts welded in place Yogi gave the floor and welds a generous helping of filler. which was soon to be rubbed down by me.

By the time the filler had been rubbed down I looked a little white should we say. The Dewalt sander had gone through my supply of 80grit discs and made light work of getting it down to almost smooth. I didn’t worry about the very fine grade as the slightly roughed up surface gave the red oxide a good key point. I used my angle grinder to then go over the pans one last time to remove any hint of surface rust. Here was where my second surprise got me, after about ten minutes the angle grinder suddenly got warm, ground to a halt and flames were licking out he front of it like a dragon with a bad cough. I was wearing welding gloves and goggles so I put it on the floor rather quickly and unplugged it, it was left to fizzle, crackle and smoke having its own little melt down, literally. What do you expect from a cheap angle grinder? I am surprised it lasted this long. Adam did say to me it wouldn’t last long, he was right.

hand brake bracket in correct position

note the build up of powder

right side rear chassi leg repaired

With everything wiped down, dusted and cleaned up with thinners I then started work with the red oxide to the point where I had got to with the angle grinder. I think you will agree it has made a huge difference. Once it has come back from paint the underside will be coated with some stone chip in black to protect it even more.

After the angle grinder had cooled down I tried to move it, all moving parts had welded themselves together by the feel of it. Guess what is going in Adams scrap pile?

Sunday was a day I usually do a bit in the man cave. Today I was asked to hang a garden gate, fix a fence panel and couple of other little jobs. So I didn’t manage to get stuff done that I wanted. The only thing I managed to do was clean up my sander and put it away. Oh, I did order a new angle grinder so hopefully it will be here by the time I go back next weekend.

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Retake

The weekend arrived and I was tired, dead to the world. There is no alarm set at the weekends just for the sake of it, we enjoy our time to wake up slow talk and work out the weekend plan of action. I normally leave the house by half eight to get to Mustang Maniac, but this time we didn’t wake until almost nine. All I can say is we both must have needed the sleep. I got up showed, dressed and left without breakfast. I got in the car and looked for to my trip down to see the guys. Unfortunately as I arrived near Duxford air museum the world and his mate was going the same direction as me. The roads were coned into a single lane in order to filter us down to the entrance. I must say well done to the brain surgeon that decided to send all traffic the same way even though I didn’t want to go there. Hardly the loudest bang in the firework box should we say! Unfortunately I have to go past the main entrance to get on the country roads to Mustang Maniac. The main problem I had was that there were people standing in front of my car trying to direct me into the airfield car park. When I asked them to get out of my way so I could get past, they got the hump with me for not wanting to go in there – get over it! Not everybody wants to see planes, just as not everybody wants to restore a car. I eventually turned up at almost eleven, this delay was cutting into some serious resto time. I was not a happy bunny. But as promised, the first thing I done was to take some more pictures of the car from last week and the work I have done this weekend. I painted the front of the car now except for the small parts that need a little mig welder work to fill the holes and the battery section of the inner wing. We will take the plate out and work out if we need to replace the whole inner fender or not. The other part that has not been painted on the front is the radiator cooling grill to the upper right side. The grill was patched up with filler previously and was very brittle, so we will now have to replace that little section too. So, rather than show a few similar looking pics, I have added the completed front end over the last couple of weeks and the end results. I think you can see more of change that has taken place this way. I even tried my hand at a little impromptu panel beating. The radiator opening at the front had a few wavy edges so I got a flat faced hammer and a sturdy flat block behind the metal and give it some therapy. Boy did that feel good, my mind wandered to other things that were bugging me over the last few days as I was doing that little bit.

Sunday was a day for cleaning of the steering mechanism. This was the usual remove grime, remove paint and remove rust. I have a link to all the pictures here or go to the Photo Menu – Steering – Steering Linkages Recondition for the full step by step pictures so far. This was a probably the most grimy job I have done to date. Now that the parts are cleaned up I will go over them with the wire wool and make sure they are ready for paint nearer the time. A little detail on them in black and some silver highlights sounds good to me. The cleaned up parts look a little shiny or wet as I have just coated them with Gibbs Brand in order to stop them rusting.

Just a couple of how it was:

finger tight fittings

ball bearing in place

How it is now:

idler joint before

idler joint cleaned up

ram pipes

removing paint

after paint stripper

coated with gibbs

polished pipes

cleaned fittings

In order to keep an eye on the parts and where they all go I have used some diagrams and my manuals of course. What I have done is I have compiled a selection of the most helpful Steering and Suspension Diagrams onto a single article that can be found here, just like my brake diagrams I compiled. I hope they are some help to you; As the parts are so integral to each other I decided to keep them together rather than split them up.

Quick Links:

Photo Menu – Steering – Steering Linkages Recondition or click here

Articles – Steering and Suspension Diagrams or click here

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Deleted!

You know the scenario by now, I go to Mustang Maniac for the day and work my arms off. (Yes, I did say arms, for those that think I may have said something different). It was raining and chucking it down and not the best of days to travel. Yet as I was getting close and closer to my own little paradise the sun was getting brighter. When I pulled up – full sun, what more can a man ask for? I was greeted by Adam who was just coming out of the refurbished workshop. I was given the tour of the new interior and it looks so much better and dare I say it – organised. The new racks, shelving, and inner panels made it look so much bigger. I was shown a few of the cars they had been working on as we walked to my car. I was shown what was needed to be done this weekend, the other side of engine bay and the inner fender all in red oxide. We rolled the car over and I got to work. I am getting quicker at this angle grinder clean up now and the amount of work to be done today was more than last week. Clean till it gleams, rub down and paint. Adam had removed the original welded shock tower bracket for me along with the botch job of a hand brake cable bracket in the tunnel, the bracket was only held in place by pop rivets. So I have pinched a few pics from Adam where he had done the work.

pilot holes

weakening the spot welds

the neat holes

bracket being drilled

original hole

The normal process is that I take the photo’s of the before, during and after of what ever I get up too. I get home and upload the pics to the PC and crop them and upload ready for the blog. In a moment of madness I clicked on “Delete” option instead of copy from the SD card. As the SD card has no recycle bin they were gone simple as that. Yes I have some special recover tools but it’s not worth the time and effort to retrieve them. However, the were a few choice words uttered under the breath, over the breath and out load. I was not a happy bunny at this point. The only good thing is that the batch of pics I deleted were the after pics of the red oxide and a couple during. I will be able to get some more when I am down there next week, so it’s not a problem just more annoying than anything as I can’t show you the results of hard days labour. I will load the new pics next week with the next post. Am I the only plum to do the delete thing?

Sunday I have started on project which one of the bigger ones, the steering section. I have started to clean it up and remove the tie rods and idler arm. I have started to clean up the valve end as that was really greased up bad. The pipe fittings were only finger tight which might explain the state it’s in. I will create a Steering Rack page this week with any luck and the step by step process.

finger tight fittings

tie rod

The idler arm has been completed today but it was seized up big time. A little Gibbs brand sorted that out though and was able to get it out, with the help of a brass hammer of course. The colour of the rust was so bright it almost looked like it had been heated up and was glowing orange.