Ol' Rusty - FB/EK Sedan

[Brett027]

Not a bit, Blacky. I am a tinkerer now and will remain so for the foreseeable future. I shall live vicariously through Dave's Orange Betty and Belly's utes and give fatuous advice on things I have hardly any skills in. Living the life in the slow lane and loving it.
Have to get Project 2 on plates in the next little while and give him some good solid runs before FotR.

[funkyscooter]

Neat work on that weld Scott. Looking through your work while floating somewhere between London and Singapore. Technology is grand

Ah, living the literal high life Brett! Don't envy you one bit - done Singapore-London a few times, it's a punishment.
Thanks for your continued encouragement - slowly chipping away.

[In the Shed]

Nice work Scott

Appreciate you posting your work / pictures.

Stephen

[EK283]

Hi Scott,

Thats legendary ! Keep up the good work before you know it there will be a spray booth booking !!!

Regards Greg

[funkyscooter]

Thats legendary ! Keep up the good work before you know it there will be a spray booth booking !!!

Regards Greg

Ha ha ha, thank for the support Greg! Two steps forward, one step back - keep finding things that I don't really need to do and doing them anyway (but that is for a future post!).

When a weekend becomes a week.
Did all this in fits and starts but got there in the end.
First up boot lid lip.

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Drilled it out to separate the channel from the brace rather than mess around with the spot weld drill. Going to re use the channel blace.

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Found a bit of hard wood that fits the old channel after a bit of sanding.

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Clamped the new metal between wood and a bit of steel and start hammering.

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Some hammering later - check fit with prepped original brace

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Then some grinding and more hand bending and ready to weld. Note the clamp, it's pushing the boot lip up as this dropped a bit when I removed brace between the underside of the rear shelf and the boot rubber channel. With a bit of pressure from below it twists everything back into alignment (I hope).

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Welded the top from the front and later the rest from the back.

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Then prepped and plug welded the channel brace back in. Welds must be a bit dodgy on this as I didn't take a picture after.

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[funkyscooter]

So things took a turn. Lined up the main brace to the spot weld drill holes in the rear self and not even close at the channel.

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Applied a bit of creative force and then one final push with the clamp and it was lined up. Well I hope. Should have got the boot out of storage for a quick test fit but arse to that.

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Done

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[funkyscooter]

Side note
Been playing with the FC side flash from my box of freebees

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Bit of work but they came up alright - to paint at least. There is a bit of pitting and I kinda butchered the underside of the bottom 'fin' on the left one trying to remove a gouge. Can't really see it in the picture.
Required the full spa treatment - citric acid, sandbast (right), wire wheel (left). Not sure what I will do with them - good to practice on if nothing else.

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[Errol62]

Great work fabricating the channel pieces Scott. I'm curious to see what you have planned for the FC bits.

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[funkyscooter]

Great work fabricating the channel pieces Scott. I'm curious to see what you have planned for the FC bits.

I'm curious too Clay I have a couple ideas but got to remind myself not to use these just because I can. I would not have got a pair if they didn't turn up in that box. If the box had a full FB trim kit then that would be a different story.

[funkyscooter]

So I showed my son what I was doing next and he looked at me confuse - "But isn't that covered?" Well, ah yes it is........but! Okay he's is right but decided to do it anyway.
Rear speaker inserts for parcel shelf.
Can't find a picture that showed them in all their hacked up glory, but the people who installed the rear speakers must have only had a grinder and cold chisel when they did them.

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New holes are going to be recessed to match the parcel self and add some strength back. I only need to make 2 so found some scrap ply to make the form which will last a couple of pressings. Marked and cut the hole, routed a bevel onto the edges of both the inner and outer pieces. Cut another slightly bigger piece to use as a clamp to keep the metal flat. Added 2 locating bolts and screwed some scrap aluminium to the top to keep the 'die' centered.

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Press, press, press. Worked slowly around, tightening the nuts onto the locating bolts to stop the die rocking around.

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Result

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Cut center out and test fit. Mark the beads. Bit of creative license here, but this should look okay.

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Run the saw around the parcel shelf to open the hole up so that the speaker insert fits a little better. Marked a few places on the shelf and panel as a placement guide, then went to work manipulating. 5 Hours later...... after screwing the new piece to the old with tek screws, cutting and fitting

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Tack welded, ground, hammer and dolly to line everything up, and then welded. Used a bit of copper as backing everywhere except the beads. A couple blow throughs, mainly when I couldn't get copper behind, or when I was bridging a larger gap. A day later after much grinding.

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It is solid now, and should withstand the thumping tunes, 6.5" centre mount sub, and exhaust drone.
As an after thought, probably should have considered seat belt positions before I did this. Sure that will bite me on the arse down the track.

[funkyscooter]

The internet has a lot to answer for...
So I am a sucker for a 'cheap' fix. Got this tip from Make it Kustom on youtube.
Bought a cheap set of transfer punches from Amazon. Grind the end of the largest one flat, and drill a hole in a block of steel the same size as the punch, and grind a thin slot in the block. Insert scrap metal into slot, punch in top and press (or hit it with hammer. Perfect circles.

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Now drill out hole in body work to match.... well kinda. Punch is imperial, drills are metric. Close enough.

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Weld in place..... and forget to turn the gas on!

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So that's $28 dollars to fix a hole. Cheap as!

[Wrongway Roger]

I'm enjoying watching your repairs for your creativity to make patch panels and channels that you can not buy.
It also makes me think about what I need to do and to slow down to do it right.
More thought equals less weld and grinding.
Cheers,
Roger

[funkyscooter]

Thanks Roger.
My take away from the speaker repair is that tek screw and cut with grinder is now my last resort for fitting. Last few repairs I spent a lot of time getting the fit right with minimal gaps and they welded with hardly any blow throughs and no copper backing.
That 1.5++mm gap from the cut ends up costing you as you have to constantly move small fiddly bits of copper around before welding (lost 3 pieces just doing this - then got smart and drilled a piece of wire to the copper), and there is so much more weld to grind, as well as the frustration of blowing holes. Problem with the speakers is I couldn't lay the repair piece over the top to mark it accurately because of the beads in both pieces. So the short cut was the only option.
Both methods probably end up taking the same amount of time. Less time on the grinder is going to keep the neighbors a little happier. Then there is the odd satisfaction of manipulating metal to fit.

[Blacky]

I have also stolen the transfer punch idea from Make It Kustom, love that channel I am using the same method to make the brass ends of the new horn contacts I am making.

[funkyscooter]

Blacky I think you shared a link a while ago which is why I’m now hooked!


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