Page Thirty-Eight - Frame Up

 

RUST, Alphie’s middle name.  What rusts the most?  Hard to say, the nominees are numerous, but a top contender is the windshield (uh, make that wind screen) frame.  I have three, one from Alphie and one from the Organ Donor, both of which,  if not unrepairable, are damn close.  Fortunately, my Sunbeam benefactor, Bob, gave me a reasonably rusty one he amputated from a parts car somewhere.

Rusty, but there. The threads are too far gone to hold the frame in place

Bob’s frame, although rusty, at least has all the parts with only a few rust-throughs. So, where do we start?

The “bolts” that secure it to the dash (there are seven) are often rusted beyond repair as they are on the frames from Alphie and the Organ Donor.  They are still there on Bob’s frame, but the threads are so rusted on four of them, they probably wouldn’t secure the wind screen to the body.  At first glance they look to be the same size, but that would be too easy. 

The rearward two are 5/16” 24, fine thread, of course.  Lowes, Home Depot, Ace Hardware and any place not online have never heard of 5/16 fine thread, so I had to scavenge two from my pile of Sunbeam spares.  I found exactly two that were long enough.  At some point, I will discover where these two went and will have to order them from Bolt Depot.com, but that’s a problem for future me.

The forward two bolts are ¼” 32 fine thread, which are plentiful on Alpines so they were easy to find.  Okay, two problems: First, the threads don’t run far enough up the shoulder and will need some more cut.  Second, the hex heads are too big to fit into the hole on Alphie’s body, so they will have to be trimmed down.  And third, (there’s always at least one more problem), if I just weld them into the spots where I ground off the rusted ones, they will inevitably not line up.

Problem One:  Easy, dig out the 5/16” and ¼” fine thread dies and go to town.

Die cut extra threads plus the Sunbeam Specialties gizmos

Problem Two:  Sinch up the bolts in the drill press (pillar drill for those in the Commonwealth) and file down the lobes of the hex head.  Nice, rounded heads.  Next, check to see if they will now fit into the holes in Alphie’s dash (or scuttle, I supposed is more accurate).

Extra threads, Sunbeam Specialties gizmos and rounded heads

Problem Three:  There are always more.  Place the newly threaded and filed bolts into the holes in Alphie’s scuttle and secure the frame using the other three mounting bolts along the frame’s lower leading edge.  This way the frame is in the correct place on Alphie and the frame seats where the new bolts will need to be welded to the frame.  News flash, and you were expecting this right? They don’t line up exactly where the factory bolts were.  Why?  The new bolts are probably slightly thicker than the originals, thus the centerline of the new bolts is slightly off from the centerline of the old ones.  At any rate, I was expecting it, which is why I didn’t just go straight to the welder.

Close up of new bolts with the Sunbeam Specialties gizmo in place

Stacking a couple of washers on bolts, I had raised the new bolts above the scuttle enough so that I could get the welder tip in and spot weld the new bolts in their exact positions on the frame.  With them tacked in place, I removed the frame and finished welding them to the frame.  I gave myself a pat on the back for seeing that coming, imagine my smug little self-satisfied grin.

The rounded heads have to fit into these holes in the scuttle

By the way, don’t drop the frame, the newly welded bolts will jump right off.  How do I know that, you ask…

Problem Four:  Yeah, they just keep coming!  On the top rail of the frame, there are three threaded inserts that hold the soft and hard top roofs in place and one in the middle that anchors the rearview and sun visors.  They have a few millimeters of play providing some adjustment, meaning the threaded inserts are free inside the frame, held in place by a thin piece of sheet metal that prevents them from falling down the innards of the frame.  AND they are made of untreated steel.

Top rail of the frame with the three inserts removed,
rethreaded and ready to go back in

Three guesses and the first two don’t count…  Yep, the #8 screws sheared off inside the threaded inserts, meaning I would have to cut open the frame to remove them, carefully remove the stubs of the sheared screws, rethread them and return them to their places in the frame.  To be fair, three of the six screws came out without incident, but because at least one screw sheared in each insert, I had to remove all three inserts.

Three more guesses – one of the inserts steadfastly refused to give up its sheared stubs.  I had to find a piece of metal to reproduce that insert.  The others came out cleanly, but I rethreaded all of them to #10 so that I had solid threads in each insert.

Next, I returned them to the frame, held them in place with screws and got down to welding up the cuts and rust-through in the frame.  I had to make one new gizmo that holds the insert in place inside the frame, see the pic above (left side).

The rest is sanding to metal and JB Welding a couple of places to cover welds and pin holes.

Back in place, like new!

Problem Five:  Since Bob’s frame came from a different car (a Tiger, I believe), will the slant of the wind screen frame match the quarter window glass of the doors?  I rehabbed the best of the four quarter glass frames from Alphie and the Organ Donor, quickly installed them in the doors.  As it turns out, it all matched the first time.  Yeah, I couldn’t believe it either.

The slant of the frame matches the slant of the
quarter window, without adjustment

I had some cute little frame adjusters that Sunbeam Specialties sells (a gift from Bob – Thanks again Bob!) that allow the rearward bolts to raise the frame to give that bit of adjustment that is often needed.  They are the little gizmos in the pic of the rethreaded, rounded off bolts.  The gizmos are internally threaded so you can raise the 5/16” bolts by turning the gizmos from below the scuttle – see the pic.

The inside of the windscreen frame is body color and visible inside the finished interior, so it gets the detail finishing that the rest of the body gets.