Ivan's coupe: bodywork is done

[Lajoosh]

burn through it and then use the wire brush. comes off alot quicker and easier!
step 1: burn it!
step 2: blow off the flames
step 3: brush while its hot and greasy!
step 4: repeat the above until all is clean!
step 5: ...
step 6: profit!

[T_AE86]

Great job!!

[robokill]

yaya Ivan HO great work mate good to see the hachi is getting attention

[Aram]

Undercoat... brrrrrrr......
Luckily mine is done hehehe.

Keep up the good work Ivan.

[Lauren]

Great work, Ivan, looks like you've got some job on your hands there!

[Ivan141]

Nearly done with the other side now after a long weekends work, needed a lot more patching up than the right side (pictured up here). Only some grinding left to do to make it look a bit less frankenstein-esque.
The outside half of the inner wheel wells is going to be one hell of a job, luckily I am slowly getting better at making repair panels and welding them in. Hope to get up to a decent enough standard so I can weld some new arches in (if I ever receive them from the damn webshop I bought them from).

New pics coming soon.

[Ivan141]

Pics

Left rear floor edge was looking quite rough so I decided to chop it all off and patch it up again. Notice my first try at stretching metal with a hammer on the flange.



Closed up the side, which was a patchwork created by my old welding grandpa. Shame he decided to put rusty bits back in so off it went.
Only need to put a seatbelt nut and backing plate back in there, I have a ready made one lying around somewhere.


The spring perch was totally shot, as was to e expected. Since it is a slightly complicated shape to make new I just patched it up, that way I had a better chance of it squaring up back where it belonged.


Those with sharp eyes might notice I patched up a 5cm big hole in the chassis beam on this side, one of my better looking repairs for sure.
Lots easier to make pretty welds pn thicker metal and small tight fitting repair panels.


Put the perch back in, also put the new shock tower in place. I regret not taking the former reinforcement off first, now the tower is not connected directly to the chassis beam. I seam welded everything later to help make sure it doesnt come loose.


Then came the tiresome task of patching odd shaped holes. The welds look like shit because it is all butt welded, and it is hard to make repairs fit so tight that you never have to bridge a gap or close up holes burnt by the welder.



It is looking frankenstein style for sure, and I'm only getting started on this wheel well. It is riddled with sloppy patches that I want to redo (like the blue one across the seam for instance).

[oldskull]

again, look good Ivan! keep a good work!

[The Doctor]

epic work done in that short amount of time!

[Ivan141]

Did a bit of bodging on a spot which had about 3 dubious looking repair patches at the corner of the rear wheel well and sill. It also had a small hole in the sill, we all know what that means by now.
As always, an evening of cursing and removing many-layers of old and new sheetmetal with rust in between ensued. Apologies for crap pics.. only had my phone on hand.

First up: making holes (my forté).


Patched up the inner most layer of the lower rear sill seam (part of floor).
It was looking a bit rough because this is a spot that is regularly used for jacking and 2-post bridges (those are the devil I tell you!).
A proper repair would have been to replace much more of it, but that was difficult due to the still intact outrigger behind it that I did not want to remove.


Patched up the inner sill strengtheners (there are 2 of 'em in there).
Only made a picture of the outer one though..
That gets us up to 3 layers on the sill seam (floor + 2 inner sills).


Last but not least: the outer skin. I removed it up to the original spotwelded join. This is both easier to make a patch for, but it also gave me more room to work on the inner sills and it had surface rust all over.
Been a bit lazy with grinding because it is a really hard place to get the grinder in. The little step in the sill is easy to hit and mess up. I'll have to finish it off another time.


The inner wheel well still needs to be repaired and the lower edge of the wheelarch needs finishing, but I'm still looking into the option of replacing the arches altogether with escort ones.