Page Twenty-Seven – A Passenger’s Butt Cheek

With the floorboards complete, I rotated Alphie back to horizontal where I could start work on the passenger’s side patch panels, the front quarter panel, the rocker, the B quarter panel and the right rear butt cheek.  First up, the passenger’s butt.

Alphie's rear right cheek isn't too bad, yeah except for the rear lip 

The rear passenger’s side quarter patch panel is oddly larger than the driver’s side and needed some trimming.  I cut the patch below the right rear taillight because Alphie’s original is good.  I needed a cut that gave me solid metal for welding with plenty of room above a below the weld for body work to hide the weld.  I sketched it out on the patch panel first.  Scrutinized it.  Vise Gripped it loosely in place and scrutinized it again.  Took it off, scrutinized it again.  And then cut the patch panel.  More scrooting to come, by the way.

Big gaps, but at the beginning of the "fitting" - lots of "scrooting" to go

Vise Gripped it in place with the new cut, scrooted it.  Cut a slit at the seam under the right taillight so that I could fit the patch panel more closely to its final spot, scrooted again.  I scroot; therefore, I am.  Once I thought I had scrooted every angle, I marked the line between the patch panel and Alphie’s butt and fired up the angle grinder.

Without a butt cheek, Alphie’s trunk and rear frame tip were hanging out for all to see, and as is always the case with rust buckets, there were some minor rust-outs to repair.  I also took the time to sand the inside of the rear wing as it will be difficult to access after the patch panel is in place.

The Inner Fender:  The Sunbeam folks used an inner fender to prevent debris flung from ties from impacting the outer fender, and to expedite rusting out the fender lips.  Using my handy contour gauges, I sketched out the curve of the inner fender and the fender lip, then transferred the shapes to a file folder.  There was some guess work in that the distance between the back of the inner fender and the lip was difficult to measure, so I gave myself some extra metal for adjustment.  (See the pics.)

The arrows show the curve I had to reproduce

I cut a piece of sheet metal to the best measurements I could get and sat down to MIG.  I had to close in the rusted out lower tip of the inner fender to close the trunk are from the fender.  Even though the petrol tanks will hide much of this work, my fix mimics, if not exactly reproduces the factory’s work.  I mean, you can tell if you get a flashlight and a mirror and contort yourself enough to look behind the tanks, but geez!

Back to the butt cheek.  I lost count of how many times I VG’d (Vise Gripped) the patch on, checked the fit, ground the inner fender lip, and re-VG’d it again.  There were too issues: the patch panel was too far forward so that it didn’t line up cleanly at the seam below the rear taillight, and the gap between the patch and Alphie’s butt was too large.  I had hoped to have some overlap that I could trim to precision, but I had a gap, small panic.

This piece separates the fender from the trunk

Using a flap disk on the grinder, I slowly trimmed the inner fender lip (between the rear of the inner fender and the lip – see the pic).  The gap began to close, and the patch panel slowly nudged rearward to line up with the seam between body panels.  Whew…

The arrows show the distance I had to guess.  I adjusted the fit
by trimming down the forward edge.

Fitting the patch took about three hours.

The gaps are still big, but smaller than they were. 
Most important, the fit is solid.

More scrutinizing.  I finally felt I had the fit right even though the gap I had to weld was bigger than I wanted, but some TIG welding rods with the MIG would fix the gap problem.

MIGed with a light grinding.  It will need tweaking and
body work, but no warping.

Do not, I repeat, do not get the body panels too hot.  Take time welding using a wet towel to cool down the metal as you go.  There will be enough body work to do without a bunch of warped sheet metal too.  I did a quick grind with the flap wheel to smooth out some of the angry weld edges.  I can run my hand along the weld to feel the fit without grievous injury, always a plus.

There’s a gap at the fender lip where the patch panel doesn’t meet the rust out, but I will use some metal scavenged from the Organ Donor or Bob’s but to fill the void.

I will need to push the weld out some from inside the trunk to reduce the amount of filler it will take to hide the weld, but that can wait until I fit the other patch panels.

I need the door in place to monitor the gaps as I fit the patch panels. 
Nice to know that I didn't screw up the door opening when
I fixed the rockers. 

I rehabbed the passenger door hinges and quickly worked their attachment surfaces so that I can hang the door for door gap reference as I fit the other patch panels.

Moving on to the quater panel rear of the door and the rocker panel...

Some Updates

Crappy pic, but it shows the patch piece

Trimmed and in place

Welded in and covered with fiberglass reinforced filler.
I sanded it some to see how tight my patch is.

What the pics don't show is that I used my crackin' HF Stud Welder to pull the weld along the back fender closer to level so that I won't need as much plastic filler.

Git yew one of these

Page Twenty-Six - How to Make British Car Parts

 

A wee how-to pictorial:

Step 1 – Draw and cut out a paper template.  My paper of choice is manilla file folders, sturdy and cheap.  How I like my women… (I hope you like that joke cause it's gonna cost me.)

I had to tape together two file folders.

BTW, you'll need a gob of these to get the curves right.

Step 2 – Transfer the template outline to a shiny piece of Lowes sheet metal, 22 gauge in this case.  This is the passenger side, so I won’t bother with reproducing the hand brake mounting holes.  By the way, the little rare earth magnets are great for maneuvering the sheet metal about.

First fit, not so great.

Step 3 – Fitting!  Quite time consuming, fit, mark, file, fit, mark, file, fit mark, file…  I surprised myself by how well I got the piece to fit.

Better, but not there yet.

Step 4 – Apply the MIG.  In a few places I had to add some coat hanger to fill gaps where I screwed up and left some gaps.

Decent job of MIG'in.

Step 5 – Grind, grind baby!  You’ll need a gaggle of gadgets to hone shonky welds.

I took the guard off the grinder, I know,
but I couldn't reach tight spots with it on.

Step 6 – Clean it all up with some self-etching primer.  Done!

Primer makes me a better welder.

Another shot, a little wider angle.

I'll probably use some JB Weld to fill in some of the weld pits and bumps to smooth things a bit.  It'll all be under carpet, just for a proper look. 

MORE STUFF!

Since I posted this page, I quickly re-habbed a e-brake lever (probably not the one I'll use, it has some rust through) to check my captured-nut placement.  ("Captured-Nut," either a solid punk band name, or an ailment...)

Driver's side welded in.  I may dress the welds a bit more - not sure why...

Re-habbed e-brake lever in place.

To clarify, I marked the holes for the e-brake lever on a file folder template from the holes in the Organ Donor's driver's side, interior rocker panel.  After marking and rechecking several times, I drilled the holes in the new sheet metal.  I welded (captured) nuts to the back of the panel for the e-brake lever and the e-brake cable guide that mounts just behind the lever.

Even though the new sheet metal patch is welded all around, I bent some right-angle tabs that I welded to the back of the panel to help prevent the panel from flexing when the e-brake lever is yanked.  I also 

This is the template I used to locate the e-brake lever holes.

Page Twenty-Five - Bits and Baubles

 

Lest you think that Alphie’s management team is a bunch of loaf abouts, here are some shutter nutters to prove we’re all aces here!  (Warning/Apologies - gratuitous Britishisms in the previous sentence.)

Closing holes in the wing (fender) wells:

Before - Gaping hole beneath the radiator support (under the C clamp).  This is passenger side, but there's a similar hole on the driver's side

Patched sized and VG'd (Vise Gripped) - passenger side

Passenger side - view from the undercarriage, welded and ground.  I'll smooth it out a bit more later.

A view from inside the engine bay.  The welds need a tidy.

Driver's side - partially welded in.  I need to weld the inner wing well to the patch and tidy everything up.

Driver's side - view from the undercarriage, welded and ground

Seam Sealing:

Passenger side, front floorboard - seams sealed but needs a little tidy.

Driver's side, front floorboard - seams sealed and welds ground.

Driver's side from inside - I ran out of sealant, but you can see how it works. (Same pic as the mast head of this page.)

Other Bits:

Brake and Clutch Master Cylinders - before but after disassembly.

Brake and Clutch Master Cylinders - after bead blasting, TIDY indeed!

Incidentally, if it fits in my blast cabinet, I'll bloody blast it!  (It has glass beads; in case you were wondering.)  I have a second set of master cylinders from the other car, which may be in better shape than these.  I'll use the best mix of the two sets.  This brake fluid reservoir has some rust pinholes, but not bad for 30 plus years of rotting.

Page Twenty-Four - The Bottom of It

 

I knew the rotisserie would make working on Alphie easier, but when I turned her on her side, wow!  When I first started restoring cars, I always wanted to detail the undercarriage of a car as much as the top.  On her side, I can fix her rusted trunk floor, massage her floorboards, and clean every nook and cranny.

No overhead welding - genius!

The Trunk:

Basic Transplanting:  1) measure out the diseased section of Alphie’s trunk.  2) measure out the donor section of Bob’s butt, allowing plenty of room for error.  3) weld in the new piece, easy-peasy… not quite.

Donor piece fitted - from inside the trunk

Donor piece - undercarriage

Alphie’s trunk is rusty, not just the floor.  Much of the surrounding pieces in the trunk need donor tissue too.  Meaning that, while I’m griding off chunks of rusty trunk floor, I’m also hacking out lots of other cancerous mess.  For example, the balance tube, which connects both fuel tanks, runs along the back of the trunk and is partitioned off by a slab-o-metal that itself is welded to the trunk floor (pics for clarity).  And it’s as rusty as the trunk floor.  It’s never just one task.

Donor piece welded in with some JB Weld body work

Donor Tissue - Partition between trunk and balance tube

The donor trunk section needed serious refurbing - drilling out spot welds, removing the stray metal from the spot welds, sanding rust, melting old undercoating, pounding and straightening, and plenty of scrubbing, looking for some clean bright (weldable) metal.  Next, I sized the donor section to the hole in Alphie’s trunk.  I carefully trimmed both the hole in Alphie’s trunk and the donor section to a tight fit that (hopefully) won’t show after all the welding and grinding.

After filling the welds with JB Weld - Ignore the runs in the primer

And I screwed up…  Even with care, I managed to cut too much from Alphie’s trunk so there’s a big gap between the sections.  (Insert flowery language here.)  How to fix it?  Coat hangers – you can’t weld air, but you can weld coat hangers.  Shove the coat hanger in the gap and burn it.  There will be a lot of extra metal to grind down, but it works.  The coat hanger-as-filler rod trick also works when the metal is too thin or rusty or both.  It’s a solid burn-through fix.

Fabbed a replacement for a rusty piece

And glued it in

Weld, grind, weld, grind, weld, grind then a little JB Weld as body filler, and we have a trunk patch that appears to be original Alpine sheet metal.  Well, from a foot away, but hell, it’s under the car.  You’ll have to scootch under the car with a flashlight (torch fer ya Brits out there) to see the weld lines, gimme a bloody break!

Floor Pans:

I rotisseried Alphie so that I could get to the trunk pan, but now I can get to her whole belly – who woulda thunk?

I had sized and fitted the floor pans but had only welded one in, and it wasn’t easy.  I was welding upside down, chasing burn throughs under the transmission hump in the dark.  Lousy welds and lots of molten bits falling in the loin areas.  Less than ideal and certainly not OSHA approved.

A blurry before pic - after welding in the driver's side front floor pan

Stitched in - Driver's side rear floor pan

Check out the pics.  Now that I can get to the bottom of things, I can make the floor pans fit smoothly detail the undercarriage like a show car. 

I will take undercarriage detailing to an unhealthy level, indeed I will.

All cleaned up with primer - Driver's side front floor pan

Cleaned up - Driver's side rear floor pan

More Pictures!

Straightening dents and welding cracks in the spare tire well

Blurry before pic - people tend to smack the spare tire well

Another angle of the driver's side rear floor pan

Passenger's side rear floorboard, welded in and smoothed out

Passenger's side front floorboard, mostly welded in but not smoothed out