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TR2/3/3A Beginning the TR2 Bodywork

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Hey David,

Thanks...I've replaced 7 circuit boards so far. Each one that gets replaced leads to another fried part. But it's gradually getting repaired.

I used to blast on the driveway, and between every tank I'd sweep the sand, strain it, and reuse it. It was a whole lotta work, and no matter how much I strained, I'd get frequent clogged nozzles that slowed me down. I finally grew tired of sweeping the drive, and moved to the back yard. The sand gets blasted once and then just fills in the lows in the yard. Costs about $30 per day more to blast that way...I decided that was a fair price to save wear and tear on my back.

I've been using "Black Diamond" sand from Norther Tool.

I think my round cornered patching goes back to my engineering classes. Sharp corners in engineering is always a no-no. They cause "stress risers". But, for what we are doing with body work, I don't think it really matters.
 
Hello John

Circuit boards in TV, sprinklers etc? Lightening can do some weird stuff. On my yard light it blew a hole in the conduit and welded all the wires together.

I found that Black Diamond is the most cost affective medium. Was thinking of spreading a Blue tarp under the blasting area.

Need to get a blaster soon. What size works best?

David
 
This is the one I have been using for 5 years...

https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_583_583

It holds one full bag of black diamond and just keeps chugging. I removed the nozzle shut-off, so it starts blowing as soon as I turn on the air. I did that mod because my hands cramped when blasting all day holding down the "deadman" trigger.

I have done the tarp technique. It's better than sweeping if you plan to re-use sand.
 
Still busy...too hot here in Texas to work on the TR2, even if I had the time.

BUT...Moss has a 30% off sale on complete wire harnesses, so I just ordered one. Just thought I'd let everyone know, as I'm sure there are others waiting for the sales.

That leaves me down to just the seats...and still a whole lotta labor.
 
Week 50

OK, kids are back in school, so finally have some time to work. Getting back to business!



The fan tail has been on the work bench all summer, ever taking up the entire bench, and ever a reminder of the amount of body work still remaining. The turn signal pintles have bothered the heck out of me the entire time, like the proverbial rock in the shoe, as they are a reminder that the fan tail is still that of a TR3 until I remove them. So naturally, that is the first order of the week.

I have pondered how best to remove them for almost 3 years now. The two obvious options are to cut the entire raised area out and patch in a new section...OR...simply re-fold the pintle right back into itself, as it was before it was stamped to begin with.

I chose the latter technique...



Here I am heating the pintle beyond red hot, to get the grain structure amorphous. The key will be to keep it hot and tap it gently back in upon itself, so as to minimize folding of the metal.


This is after the first few taps.



At this point, the metal has begun to fold in on itself. Ugly, but not a problem. I will heat it white hot several more times, and using a hammer and dolly, basically hammer weld the folds back into a single sheet once again.



And...here it is all folded and hammer welded right back into the valence. All that remains is to patch the small center hole.





First step of the patch is to make the hole a bit more "even", so it will be easier to match a patch plate to it. I'm doing that with a die grinder with a carbide bur.



And here is the finished product. No more TR3 pintle!



I spared everyone the details, but the patch was simply a matter of scribing the shape of the hole onto a small piece of 20 gage metal. I then hammered the center of the patch on my anvil, to shape it into the slight dome shape required at that location of the valence panel. And, finally, the patch was tacked, finish welded, and the beads ground smooth with the surface of the panel. The final operation was to smooth any waves that resulted from all the heating and welding with a hammer and dolly, so the area was nice and smooth.
 


Moving on, once the several pounds of bondo was removed from the lower rear valence, it was obvious the valence was mangled.



Here is an area that a previous shop drilled screw holes and attempted to pull the bottom panel out. Uhg!





And...another area they did not even bother trying. They just filled all this with a couple pounds of bondo. I have no idea what would have warranted holes this size. Uuuuhg!



Well, I studied...and drank beer. Drank beer...and studied.

I could see no other way. The box section under the rear valence/spare tire shelf has to come apart. Here I have started drilling and chiseling the spot welds. I counted 87 in total...not to mention the 6 bead welds that had to be ground off.



The bottom panel is now off, but the vertical panel between the tire holder and the bottom panel will also have to come out, so I can reach the body tools behind the lower valence panel to work it.





Here's a view of the bottom panel as it came off. Now the damage is very visible.



And here the vertical panel is off...giving full access to the back of the valence panel.



Here is the bottom panel after hammering it "straight". The slight bend along the entire length is the stretch the edge got from the body damage. I will have to shrink the edge to take the bend out and bring the panel back straight.

So, after a 2-1/2 month break, that's as far as I got this week, but at least it is progress. It'll take me a while to get back up to speed again...but I will get there. My tentative timeline is to finish the body damage by Christmas. I will then work on the paint prep and paint next spring, so final assembly of the car can begin next summer. The twins graduate in 1-1/2 years, so that is my drop dead date for the TR2...we will move from the house when they graduate, and I cannot move with the TR2 in 2 thousand parts. Either it will be finished by then, or I will be the one that dropped dead!

Until next week!
 
Looking great John. Good to see you back at it.

Cheers
Tush
 
Looks nice John, I always gain confidence watching how far you can go in bodywork. The metal is like putty in your hands. Plus watching a tr3 revert back to tr2 is just plan interesting. After watching you with your trunk lid, I took an old trunk bracing system apart to blast the back side of the braces and trunk sheet metal. I would not have done that had I not watched it done.
Thanks, Steve
 
Week 51

Thanks to all for the support. I need it, as I look at the fantail work as work I should not have had to do, since the donor fantail was supposed to be "solid". I'll keep pressing through it, though...



So, time to take care of this mess under the spare tire bin.



Out of laziness, I simply plug welded the holes. Before starting the welding, I straightened the area as much as possible with a hammer and dolly, welded, and then ground the beads down flush. This brought the next issue to light. Namely, the lower edge had been greatly stretched between the damage and the straightening. It was too much stretch to deal with with simple heating, so...





Here I am taking needle nosed pliers to put crimps along the edge where it is stretched. I continue to crimp until the area "bows" back into shape.



A straight edge really helps. Here you can see that there is a straight section. The entire rear lip should have a gentle curve...no straights in it. So I just keep crimping until the curve takes the correct shape. Of course "correct" is in the eye of the body man!?!



This is the same area from the other side, making it very obvious that the curvature is going the wrong way!





So, starting in the center of the reverse curve...I keep on crimping.



I'm sure you have detected by now that this is a "shrinking technique". So the final part of the technique is to heat the crimps red hot and gently tap them flat with a hammer and dolly. Work on a small section at a time, and only tap. Tapping will force the metal in on itself. Hammering will flatten the metal, which is a "stretching" technique for another time.
 
Next!...



As I was working on the fantail, I noticed that something was missing on the new boot floor the PO installed. This reinforcement is for the fuel tank strap. There should be 4, but my floor only has 2. Bummer.



Here is one of the holes that is missing the reinforcement.





Fortunately, I have not tossed any part of the original, so I will remove this ugly old part from the TR2 tub.




Another problem cropped up. This is a shot looking edge-wise along the rear valence bottom panel. Notice the panel is curved. On the TR2 it is straight. The TR2 part is mostly rusted away, so I have to fix this...and it is rather time consuming.



Here is a view with the panel against a straight edge. I need to shrink the edge on the right...and not by a little. I will have to do this the hard way...





...by actually cutting small "V" shaped slivers of metal out of the long edge. I arbitrarily chose to make the slices every 6 inches. I have to slice, bend, and then weld the slices back together. I did mention that this is time consuming??



Here I have the slices all made and each one is tacked to make the panel straight.





And, here is the panel after all the welding and grinding. Notice I also filled the center drain hole. The TR2 panel does not have this hole. There are 2 more of these drain/access holes, one on either end. This section of my TR2 panel is totally rusted away, so I could not tell if these holes were included in the TR2 or not. So I left them in...for now.







Here is the outer boot panel. The PO replaced the middle boot floor, but glassed these areas that are well-eaten with rust. Here I have used a combination of cutting small patches and plug welds. In this pic I have finished the grinding, but I still have to hammer/dolly the area flat.



This is a view of the same section of the outer floor from inside the boot.



The PO wallowed out the rear body mount, so here I have re-welded a weak section and filled the oblong hole back to round.

And that is where I stopped for the week. For the coming week I will rotate the fantail 90 degrees, and repair the next section of damages.

Cheers!
 
Week 53

Yes, that's over a year now of nothing but B b b b bodywork. It's getting harder and harder to pick up the tools and get to work. But, I did get some done...





I rolled the fantail flat and got to work on the right light pintle.



Here it is after the initial beating.



And plugged and done.



This is the inside of the boot, where the PO covered the rust through with fiberglass cloth.



Here I have cut out the rot...you can see the tight quarters. Not much room to wield the hammer.



Here's the patch in place. I couldn't fit the normal grinder in, so I had to take the bead down with a carbide burr.



On to the right side...more rot through on my "solid" fantail.









And that's done. Now, just to the right of my patch, you will notice there is a PO patch on the inner wheel well...complete with holes! The patch is done so poorly that there is almost an inch gap between the boot floor and the wheel well metal. I spent several hours heating and hammering this well to stretch the metal out to meet the boot floor.

I despise fixing poor bodywork. In hindsight, I think it would have been faster to cut out the crappy patch and re-install a decent one.
 
The last major work on the fantail is the lower quarters.







The area is composed of 3 separate pieces of metal...those are the outer quarter panel, the inner wheel well, and the lower quarter support. Taking David's lead, I am splitting the quarter into 2 pieces, since that will be easier than hammering multiple compound curves. So, here goes...



I am starting with the easiest of the 4 metal parts, the lower quarter support. To save time, I will fab the right and left at the same time, just in mirror image of each other. So, hopefully, the left side will go quickly...what am I saying...it'll go quicker, but there is nothing on this car done quickly!



And, here is the support, complete with factory drain hole.



Now, on the factory panel, the flange for the rear wing attachment is a part of the quarter panel, and is stamped to roll around under the wing. I will fab the flanges separately, rather than attempting to roll metal around. So, this pic is the lower supports and wing mounting flanges, ready to go.



And, since it is not obvious, here is a shot of the parts as they will eventually fit on the quarter panel. Edit...Nope! I am holding the lower support for the left side, so the lip is pointing up instead of down. But, it still shows the idea of the parts?!?

So, another week down. If I get the quarters finished, it will actually be time to start re-assembling the body on the frame. I have studied the fantail closely, and I am not comfortable welding it back together on the work bench. For my piece of mind...and to prevent having to break open a whole lotta welds...I think it would be prudent to align the fantail on the frame before welding. Some of the quarter panel welds, like the "B" pillar to inner sill, cannot be done with the quarter patches installed. Many welds I see must be done in a specific order...or other welds cannot be reached.

With my memory I need to start a checklist...

Anyway, until next week
 
Hello John

I notice that your support pieces are not parallel. I did not have any original parts even rusted to lace to get dimensions from so I went with parallel.

David
 
It's coming along very nicely, plus the pictures are a great help for mail be restarting up mine now that the fall/winter weather is around the corner!
 
DavidApp said:
Hello John

I notice that your support pieces are not parallel. I did not have any original parts even rusted to lace to get dimensions from so I went with parallel.

David
Click to expand...

I measured the spacing for those supports as closely as was possible, given the severity of the rust out. They may not have the perfect taper. Those are 2 of the parts that I decided I could not weld to the body until after the B pillar is welded to the inner sill, so I can adjust the spacing to perfectly match the door and outer sill. Once the door and B pillar are mounted, I can use the Quarter panel lower lip to fine tune the spacing. At least that'll be the plan.
 
Having something to measure must have been a great help to you. I presume that accurate drawings of these parts are unavailable now and good solid cars are hard to find to use as models.

I took advantage of the open access to the "B" post to weld the inside.

Looking great.

David
 
Week 55!!Already

Well, this week we're moving into an area that affects pretty much every TR2/3 restoration...the lower quarter panel. I say that because the quarters get all the road debris and water kicked up by the rear wheels and trapped by the stone guards. It figures, the guards that are there to protect the quarters are probably the worst things for them. I feel like I'm playing catch up here, because I think all the current restorers have already reached/passed this stage. But, I'm finally to the lower quarters...so here it goes!



Last week I started by marking off the metal that had to be repaired, and then making the relatively straight parts (read that as "easy" parts!) for the quarters. Here, I have cut of a section of 20 gage steel to become the new quarter.



The hardest part of the quarter is the lip that rolls into the rear wing. I found a thick pipe that was the same size as the lip. This is not a thin walled exhaust pipe, but a nice, thick steel pipe that I can really beat on. If you look closely at the metal, I have scribed the approximate location of the lip, both where it starts and where it ends. I will now beat the lip gradually into the sheet.



Here I work on a small section at a time, starting right at my scribe mark and gently working it into a compound curved lip.



About half way there. As it gets closer, I begin to hold it against the old quarter to "fine tune" the shape. You did remember that we NEVER cut off the old part until we have shaped the new?!?



Here, the lip is getting very close. So the next step is to add the slight "bow" that the quarter has in the flattish panel. In other words, there is no absolutely flat section on the quarter if you really look at it. Here I am hammering the middle of the sheet to stretch the center and make it bow outward slightly. Notice with this view that the lip is rounded in 2 directions.



This shot shows the bow added, when compared to the flat anvil top.



From here it is just a matter of going back and forth from the car to the pipe, getting the lip just right.



Now I'm about there with the lip, so it's time to turn the bottom edge under about 85 degrees. I saved this, as the resulting little edge will have to be stretched, so this is better done after the main panel shape is there.



I did the stretching using the corner of the anvil, and as you should have guessed by now...stretching is easiest with heat! I worked on the edge, heat it red hot and worked some more before it cooled. Gradually the edge came into shape.



Here is a shot looking up at the edge we just rolled in, as seen with the panel held against the old quarter.



Now we move to the front vertical edge. This is the one that will meet the outer sill at the bottom, and the door edge at the top. It is a double curve, so here I am bending curve one using the edge of the anvil.



And, I flip it and beat bend 2 in the opposite direction.



All that bending leaves a lot of extra material at the bottom.



But, with a little trimming that all comes into shape too.
 
Really nice work on a tricky area.

Cheers
Tush
 




So, now we can actually see the new quarter coming into shape. The second pic shows how the lower support that we cut last week fits against the bottom of our new panel. I will not attach this until the boat tail is back on the inner and outer sills, as this will provide a very important in/out adjustment later. Now I just have to remember that! It's so easy to forget and weld a part in to soon. "Note to self..."



Here you see I had to pull out the torch again to work the bow back into the front edge. When you bend an edge, the metal tends to go straight. A double bend acts like a reinforcement, so some heat makes it pliable to easily put it back into shape.



Here, I have the new panel lip finished. I have trimmed the rear edge to exactly match the old quarter edge. Remember that since we are holding the panel "against" the old, it is 20gage thickness outward and 20gage thickness forward. Not a big deal, but just don't trim the edge flush! You must leave 20 gage of hangover.



Now, here is the wing mounting flange that we made last week. If I were a true metal worker I could have shaped this into the flat sheet we started with. As David pointed out...much easier done as a separate piece! Thanks for the tip David!





Tacked in place.




Welded in place





Finally! the old metal can come off!



Now that the old quarter is done, there is the matter of the inner wing. If you remember WAY back, the PPO had brazed a patch here. You all know how much I like brazing body work!?!



Normally I use heat to remove braze, by letting it run right off. This panel is rather flat, though, with bracing on the back side, so I didn't want to deal with trying to hammer out the distortion from the torch without having full access to both sides. I resorted to the body grinder.



Here is another little 20 gage section that will be the new inner wing. I scribed the shape of the cut, and then trimmed to that shape.



This is after tacking, welding, and grinding.



Once attached, I start working the new section to shape. It is not hard, so long as both sides are accessible like you see.



Once the gentle curve is in, I held up the "new" quarter panel to scribe the location of the wing mounting flange.



And...time to trim the lower edge. The more trimming you can do, the easier the panel is to work. Just use care not to trim too far, or you'll have to start over..."important mental health tip!"



Now, using the marks scribed in the previous step, and a hammer and dolly, begin working the mounting flange into shape. It takes a while, don't rush and just keep folding it farther each time.



Hmmm. As you see, the flange fold brought the metal back to straight shape again. No sweat...



Here I have used heat and several comparisons with the new quarter to bring the flange right back into the curve it needs. Heat red hot and work it until it cools...then re-heat and repeat until you're happy with the shape.





The inner wheel well has one caged mounting nut. Time to install that.



The quarter gets an oblong hole to match.



At this point the new quarter is all formed and ready to install. The reason I will not do that until later is that if I did so, it would cover this lower section of the "B" pillar. If I did that, there would be no access to weld the pillar to the inner sill. I will have to mount the inner sill to the frame...weld the "B" pillar (and thereby the entire boat tail) to the inner sill...and only then can I install the new quarter parts. I sure hope I remember to wait...!?!



Nasty focus, but here are the parts held up where they will end up.

On to the port side quarter!
 
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