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The start of something big. Frame off restoration

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Re: The start of something big. Frame off restorat

I would take it back to good metal and then frabricate new pieces to fill in that area. You can also add gussets inside the frame if you feel the need for more strength. If you are not an experienced welder I'd leave the welding to a pro but do the rest yourself.
 
Re: The start of something big. Frame off restorat

I figure if the bottom is bad, the under the top tshirt even though it looks fine, may need repair as well, Once i get the bottom fixed, I guess i'll flip the frame over and grind off the top shirt as well. I wonder if there's enough stiffness in the frame to do what ratco does with the bottom T-shirt and when I get the inner members repaired, do it with captured nuts so that I can make the lower t-shirt removable with bolts. I could fabricate the top and bottom T-shirts out of 3/16 plate as well instead of the 16 or 17 gauge metal originally used, allowing the top T-shirt to give a lot more stiffness to the frame as well.

I'm not an experienced welder, although I am hoping to be able to claim that by the time my car is finished =D Right now i gorilla weld (big and ugly welds, instead of the nice little 'overlapping dimes')
 
Re: The start of something big. Frame off restorat

You might want to put a reinforcement plate on the underside of the top while you have the frame open and weld it to the inside. That way the repair won't show when the frame is buttoned up. It will also eliminate any clearance concerns with the body.
 
Re: The start of something big. Frame off restorat

I haven't updated the thread in a while, but I haven't been idle. I've been working on a lot of stripping of undercoating and paint, but havent taken any updated photos yet.

Today Tony Vigliotti from RatCo stopped by my house with his son as he was in the area visiting his son who lives the next town over. The good news is he said my replacement frame is really in excellent shape aside from the T-shirt area, and that the T-shirt area should be quite repairable. We also discussed other places where I can weld in reinforcements and other strengtheners to the frame to make it stiffer. He said it looks like there might be a very slight twist in the frame, that the right front looks a hair lower than the left, but nothing that cant be taken out, even by myself.

Here's Tony going over my frame with a pick hammer.

framecheck.jpg


I've got someone else locally who can do the structural welding on the frame that I need, and I should be able to do all the gusseting, differential mount boxing, etc myself with the mig welder I bought myself for Xmas.

In the mean time I've been accumulating the parts that I need to rebuild my front suspension completely, and cleaning off other parts. I need to look into getting my brake booster rebuilt, and my brake master cylinder rebuilt or replaced.

I've got to go place an order with Tony for the rear shock in coil conversion kit, he said the replacement frame is plenty strong where it needs to be for it. We also discussed springs, and driving styles. He actually recommended against any of the 'high performance' springs that are around 490 lb/in and suggested that an uprated spring in the 425 lb/in range or even just stock at the 360 lb/in range would be much more comfortable ride if I'm not planning on rallying with the car.

I'll get more photos of my progress and update this again sooner than the 3 week gap since my last update.
 
Re: The start of something big. Frame off restorat

Justin,

I don't think your photo of video posted
 
Re: The start of something big. Frame off restorat

Ok not sure what happened but your photo is up now
 
Re: The start of something big. Frame off restorat

Nice, Tony makes house calls when possible.

That's a plus in my humble opinion.
 
Re: The start of something big. Frame off restorat

Brosky said:
Nice, Tony makes house calls when possible.

That's a plus in my humble opinion.
Click to expand...

Tony was fantastic, an outstanding guy with a love for our cars. I'm looking forward to doing business with him and getting my shock in coil kit and other things.
 
Re: The start of something big. Frame off restorat

Thanks for the update - I've been quiet on this thread but have enjoyed your updates and am eager to see how it comes together.
 
Re: The start of something big. Frame off restorat

Completed refurbished and done up head lights, albiet there wasnt much refurbishing. AutoLoc Tribar headlights with built in turn signals, clear plastic rock guards in front of them.

DSCN1271.JPG


I purchased a pair of these headlights on good sale from amazon. When they arrived, the first thing that I wanted to do was to change the color-dots to match my car. Unfortunately this is much easier said than done. The color dot is held in the center of the tri-bar assembly. The dots themselves have a 3/8 inch allen-wrench hole in the back of them, and they twist lock into place with a spring to the center of the tri-bar assembly. This is all fine, except the metal the tri-bar is made from is very thin and bendable. I ended up spending over an hour per light to change the dot, and had to use needle nose pliers, locking forceps, and a various dental picks and hooks to re-bend the bars back into shape after getting first the factory installed color dots removed. The lights look nice, but the construction quality is only fair. The tri-bars really should have been made of stronger material, and the bars should have been held in place firmly, brazed or welded, not just glued in with silicon caulking. I'm not sure if I would recommend these based on the flimsiness of the tri bar assembly.

Also of note, the wiring and molding for the wiring for the built in turn signal sticks out quite a bit from the rear of the bulb, and far off center, you need to grind out a hole for them in the headlight backing for them to fit properly. Right now i've just got the H4 bulb that came with the headlights in them, but it'll be nice to be able to swap them for whatever bulb I want, quickly and easily.
 
Re: The start of something big. Frame off restorat

Interesting.............
 
Re: The start of something big. Frame off restorat

I haven't been doing nothing! My camera is on the fritz so i've only really had my iphone to take photos with. Having no flash, it's been bad for most of the stuff i've been doing.

Tonight I've been gaining a much greater appreciation for good welders. Having bought myself a lincoln mig welder for xmass, I took it upon myself to start the work to box in the differential mounts, and to repair the broken one (right front)

First I fabricated the gussets and tested them for fit, each one needing to be a slightly different size.

In this first photo you can see the cracked through mount
IMG_0730.JPG


and here's the other side
IMG_0731.JPG


Next I had to take a wire wheel on my drill and get off all the paint where I was going to be welding so that I'd have a nice clean surface.

The first thing I wanted to tackle was the cracked mount... Well, here's my first weld bead. Not horrible, not great. As you can tell by the splatter, I'm using the flux core roll that came with the welder at the moment while i'm learning.

IMG_0732.JPG


Then came time to put my first full plate in. Well, I learned that my 'close' fit, wasn't really close enough, I need to do a much much closer fit to get a clean weld. The bead where the edges matched up perfectly is 'ok' if not very pretty. Where there was just a slight gap... not so much, so i tried to build a bit of overlapping weld to close up the gap, and just made it look ugly!

IMG_0733.JPG


Seeing how ugly my first one was, i moved over to the right hand mount and decided to do the outside side, where it's least visible, with the thought being that as I do this more, I'll get better at it, so make my next ugly mess in a less visible spot. This one didn't come out so bad, although you cant really see the bead along the other edges in this photo, since I couldn't really get a photo at that angle.

IMG_0734.JPG


I got too darned cold out in my garage so decided to come in and warm up before tackling the last two. When done, I'll first grind down the welds flat on the face of the mounts where the bushings contact, and then I will be expanding-foam filling the inside of each cavity so that water cant accumulate in them and then re-painting over the whole area.
 
Re: The start of something big. Frame off restorat

Well, I cant really say that I got much better between my first differential mount reinforcement weld, and my last one, but... the differentials mounts are boxed in, and shouldn't crack again in my lifetime.

Unfortunately after I finished the welding, I realized that I'm all out of flap disks to clean up the weld with, and the hardware store is already closed for Sunday. Guess I'll clean them up and paint them tomorrow =D

IMG_0742.JPG

IMG_0743.JPG


It's a good thing these welds will be on the bottom of the chassis where no one will ever see them !
 
Re: The start of something big. Frame off restorat

A little POR15 and no one will be the wiser.
 
Re: The start of something big. Frame off restorat

As long as you got good penetration on your welds they should be just fine. I think you would be much more happy if you got yourself some shielding gas instead of the flux core wire. It's much easier to get a good looking weld. and stronger weld with the gas. Before you know it you will have all kinds of people over for weld repairs.
 
Re: The start of something big. Frame off restorat

mallard said:
I think you would be much more happy if you got yourself some shielding gas instead of the flux core wire. It's much easier to get a good looking weld. and stronger weld with the gas. Before you know it you will have all kinds of people over for weld repairs.
Click to expand...

+1.

Much harder to get good welds with a gas-less MIG. If you have much more to do you'll be happy you spent the $ on a gas set up.

Those welds don't look bad, 5 minutes with a grinder and some sealer and they'll be good to go.

Make sure to spray paint and cavity wax in there while you have access.
 
Re: The start of something big. Frame off restorat

The left hand plate on each one has a quarter inch hole up at the apex of the angle, I just wasn't thinking and welded one on the inside and one on the outside. I'll be using this to first spray in some phosphoric acid, then some chassis black paint, and then finally expanding foam fill for each of the two cavities.

My welder is an actual MIG and iv'e got the regulator etc, I would just need to go out and rent a tank of co2/argon mix. I figured I'd learn using the flux core, since it came with a big spool of the flux core wire.
 
Pop for the $50 for the CO2/Argon mix, you'll like it.

Make sure that water can drain out or you'll be doing this again.

I'd use a rust converter rather than phosphoric acid since the acid needs to be neutralized well with water after use, and besides you used weld through primer on the inside of the plates anyway, right? :laugh:

Keep us posted Justin!
 
Just my opinion but I'd stay away from the expanding foam. It might do well to fill the void but it will also absorb moisture and hold it against the metal creating the whole problem over again though probably not for several years. You'd do better to drill a couple small holes in the lowest part to allow drainage.
 
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