fbekholden.com

That’s the way. Great progress. If you are using the floor panels right up to the A pillar you may find they are a bit short. I did in my van project.


FB ute fixer upper, EK van on rotisserie

An hour of so more "shaping", and the floor was ready to go. Covered all sufaces in copper weld thru primer. A couple of C - clamps and 4 of the little sheet metal thingos to keep everything lined up, and its plug welded. To try and reduce melting the sheet edges and drip hot metal onto the floor when seam welding, I made up this clamp to hold a piece of copper bar which I use as a heat sink. The magnets are out of two old hard disk drives and are super strong, the springs off pegs that the dog keeps finding and chewing. The bracket is an offcut of the new floor. So corners first. The little sheet clamps are really handy here. Realise pretty quickly that the copper clamp is going to keep me fit. Squat under car, clamp, crab walk out, step up on stool, weld, step down, crab walk in, squat, move clamp. etc.etc.etc So next day, and nearly out of gas, the seam welding is done. Just left with these two big gaps. Not sure why its supplied like this. Ventilation? I decided to use what was left in the bottle and fill it with weld. Here's where I ended up - ran out of gas on the second hole. Save that for later. Not too many burn throughs. Just the one hedgehog that you can see from underneath. All in all pretty happy. There is a fair bit of wire in that. Powerfile, ready for duty. Trick I found seam welding this, especially where the existing metal is a little thin, blob of weld just back from the edge on both sides, and then run a bead from the thicker to the thinner sheet.

Neat work Scott,
I like the copper bar heat sink set up, very clever

Regards
Stephen

The Rare Spares floorpans are pretty marginal aren't they - I bought one for my young blokes 75 Series LandCruiser and the factory pressings were about 18mm deep , the Rares ones about 5mm a LOT of reworking to get them to fit - makes you wonder if there is ANYONE at Rares that actually checks this stuff when they approve it for production, surely if you are going to the trouble of making a die to press them you would set the bloody press to the correct depth ........ especially seeing as the metal they use is basically heavy duty Alfoil ......

Blacky wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 10:50 pm The Rare Spares floorpans are pretty marginal aren't they - I bought one for my young blokes 75 Series LandCruiser and the factory pressings were about 18mm deep , the Rares ones about 5mm a LOT of reworking to get them to fit - makes you wonder if there is ANYONE at Rares that actually checks this stuff when they approve it for production, surely if you are going to the trouble of making a die to press them you would set the bloody press to the correct depth ........ especially seeing as the metal they use is basically heavy duty Alfoil ......

Here's a pic looking towards the front of the car before I worked it into place. As you say Blacky, its about 5mm. Bit of a pain to get right, but the metal sure is easy to work

But on the flip side, when the alternative is making it from scratch, I am pretty happy with what Rares - and others - are making for repair sections. Only wish there were more!

I'm with you Scott. Much less time spent and skill needed adjusting compared to making the things outright. It is a bit frustrating how they have determined sizes as they always seem to be just short of where the common rust boundaries are. Might be a manufacturing or tooling necessity but everyone has the same issues. Having said that, this little camper is very grateful for the range of bits I can buy from Rares

Time to get stuck into the subframe. I’m sure the Karmann is sick of it precariously lording over it.
Starting with the passenger side ‘wing’. First, a quick paper template.
There is a fair bit of metal at the top that doesn’t look like it needs to be there so going to straighten it up a bit.
Quick test fit.

Cut out the previous repair.
Reveals a bit of rust at the top but this is pretty solid.
Here is the back of the ‘wing’. Some nice overlapping repairs to trap the rust.
Cut out the rest of the rusted metal.
Replace with some 1.5mm shiny new stuff.

Now onto the wing. From my paper trials I figured I could do this all in one piece. Cut this out with the jigsaw and drilled one hole in it as a reference/guide. Marked out the rib and the first bend. Had to do the rib first as I couldn’t think of a way to do it with a bend in the sheet.
Got to use my new toy. $130 ebay press. Created the rib with a bit of round rod and a groove gouged out of a block of hardwood.
This bends the whole sheet so flip the block and sheet and press it flat.
Into the bend and with a bit of gentle persuasion start to bend. A bit counter productive as I am forcing a bend in the rib that is designed to give it strength. Steel rod and light hammer required to get it to bend along the ridge
Starting to take shape.
Cut and start to bend the join to side of the engine bay.
So begins 3 hours (yes 3) of trial and error adding slight bends either side of the ridgeline to raise it, and then further bends to make the piece sit flush on the main vertical for welding. In the end I have this.

Time to get my weld on. Manned up and upgraded from my pathetic C sized mig gas bottle to a D sized. Tacked and welded the main piece.
Welded bottom side too and dropped my copper heatsink down the frame as well just to round the day out. Also welded up a cut in the bottom section that was there from the previous repair.

So next day started to plug weld the wing on. Clamped the wing to the subframe upright and the engine bay wall which took a bit of jiggling and force. Was having issues with wirefeed but persevered for a few welds. Removed the first clamp and I hear a bang. Weld has let go. Remove the next clamp, bang. Remove all clamps and give it a good yank and they all let go.
3 lessons.
Sort out the welder. Should have, could have but didn’t. Figured it worked yesterday so should work today. The change of welding position meant that I had 2 bends in the hose, only 1 the day before. Spun the welder 180 degrees and fixed.
Don’t force metal. If it can’t be move into place with a screwdriver then you are stressing the metal and the weld. I tweaks a few bends and got everything to sit in place without need the clamps to force it to stay there.
Check for penetration. The plug welds were discolouring the subframe metal but not much more. Problem with the intermittent wire feed meant that the wire was arcing and melting on top of the subframe.

Here is round 2 after grinding off and re drilling the welds.
Can’t really see it, but the plug welds are penetrating and slightly melting the subframe. Happy with this.
Ground off. Left the front welds sitting proud. Ground inside to keep it neat.
Happy with the result. All up that's 5 layers of metal I have replace that will all be sandwiched together when the subframe is eventually reunited with the car.

If only the drivers side could be as simple........

Great stuff. Not hard to sink hours and days in to this work.


FB ute fixer upper, EK van on rotisserie

Hi Scott;
PM me your address mate I will have my chassis over to you shortly

Great work mate I have to start tackling one of these soon just picked up an FB one for the next project.
Neil

Great work Scott. Thanks for posting.

Always enjoy your posts mate, and I forgot to look for that bloody mirror over the weekend - will set a reminder on my phone

Errol62 wrote: Mon Jul 05, 2021 11:22 am Great stuff. Not hard to sink hours and days in to this work.

True - especially when you find yourself just staring at things, trying to figure it all out.

FireKraka wrote: Mon Jul 05, 2021 12:57 pm PM me your address mate I will have my chassis over to you shortly

Neil, if you send it, you might not get it back! I’m sure if I had a spare, I’d be cutting it up for repairs.

Brett027 wrote: Mon Jul 05, 2021 2:22 pm Great work Scott. Thanks for posting.

No problem Brett. Had another read through of Wilma and there are some very helpful posts I’ll be referencing to when I get to the driver sill/A-Pillar. Reading Wilma makes me re assess my concept of rust. My car is mint showroom compared to what you started with!

Blacky wrote: Mon Jul 05, 2021 5:22 pm Always enjoy your posts mate, and I forgot to look for that bloody mirror over the weekend - will set a reminder on my phone

All good!

So moving over to the drivers side. Marked out my cuts for the subframe upright, which will need both mounting points replaced. and wing, which is almost a mirror of the passenger side.
Wing removed. Started to drill out spot welds with the spot weld drill and gave up when I realised I needed to replace it anyway. Look down the subframe. Not awesome, but I will save what I can. There is a drain half way down the upright which had been closed up, so any water and rust has been trapped in the bottom. The captive nut on the handbrake pulley shaft is loose and shaft has seized. Have to work out a plan for that. The shaft is well worn and needs to be replaced anyway.
Ran the wire brush over everything to reveal a number of holes. Mainly along the seam where the upright joins the wing, and at the bottom. Going to be a patchwork quilt by the time I’m done. On the plus side the metal near the captive nut at the top is only surface rust.

Vacuumed out all the rust inside, which revealed that the top of the sub frame near the engine mount is very heavily pitted. Couldn’t get a good look , shoved a metal rod down and didn’t punch any holes through. But to be safe I’m thinking open heart surgery tomorrow to get a better look.
Worth noting that none of the subframe from the engine mounts back seems to have any rust (that I can see - yet).