Ivan's coupe: bodywork is done

[Ivan141]

Been busy with the car today, emptying out my welding gas bottle (god knows how many I've used up so far).
Did some extra spot welding around the door and side window (why is this starting to look like a catch-up race with some-fing-wong ). Only managed to do the left side of the car so far, drilling cleaning and welding so many holes is quite a chore. Sadly you can see f*ck all on the pictures because I ground the welds back:



Then I took another page out of Tsuchiya's book of reinforcements and built some bracing inside the fender area (because I dont want to use ridiculously thick and heavy gachirri supports or whatever they are called).




It's still a bit floppier than I like, so I'm going to have a look and see if I can box it up in one or two places. It's a bit of a challenge because the wiring loom still has to fit behind it.

Next time I'm finishing the spotwelds on the other side and around the rear window, as well as the support for the other side. Usually goes a bit faster with experience and a template for the metal parts at hand.

[robokill]

looking good Ivan. If you keep this up you can get it painted before the summer :-)

[Aram]

You're on a roll there Ivan!

[cannabolic]

Yeah, almost done! Get it painted

Good progress

[Sum_fing_wong]

keep at it ! you've had to do a lot more work to get to where i am
at this rate i think you'll have yours painted before mine

[Bean]

nice work keep it up.

[Ivan141]

Keeping at it:

Thought I would get a lot more done today than I did last time, but I was mistaken. Oh well.

Spent the better part of 2 hours cleaning up the wheelwell before I could start welding. Damn brown undercoating is very hard to get rid off.
Found a severly surface-rusted bit of steel lurking beneath a crunchy bit of undercoating, so I cut it out and patched that up first.
After that, I made a start with the front reinforcement, this time added an inner one to start with:


After that, I built the outer using the template I made for the other side.
Off course I forgot I added a lip to the other one, so I ended up having to weld one to it afterward.


I also took the time to make 2 internal gussets to really stiffen things up.
As you can see they are U-shaped, this is a must because the wiring loom still has to fit through there.



By this time I was ready to go home, after a failed attempt at making a stiffening piece for the roof to B-pillar section, but I pushed myself to at least do the spotwelding to the door seams.


Next time I'll be trying to retrofit the new gussets to the front reinforcement I built last week, doing some spotwelding around the rear window, left rear side window, and probably a whole lot of cleaning up again, in preparation for it's eventual sandblasting.

[Ivan141]

Another boring update (for those rare types who dig this kind of work).

Retrofitted the left front reinforcement with an inner plate and 2 bulkheads to make the reinforcement actually stiff (why not..).



Close-up of the doubled-over lip of the bulkheads where the wiring loom
fits through. Wouldn't want my precious wires getting damaged now would I.


Got to work on a blue-painted patch on the bottom door hinge area.
Blue paint is what I used to mark problem areas with 1,5 years ago when I started this crazy build.
It's a well known rust area to many of us 86 owners, lucky for me the rust was only superficial pitting, 3 pits went all the way through, no rust on the inside yet.
The first one I didnt get the shape quite right, but I cant be bothered:



T'other side was a lot better shape wise, only forgot to take a picture after grinding and painting.



Managed to plate over the top of the B pillar to roof area in search for more rigidity. Overkill? Maybe, but I figured what the hell, in for a penny, in for a pound.

[Ivan141]

Okay, short update.

Was at the lockup yesterday, slapping together a turbo engine for my volvo for a change, when I decided a day in the garage is not complete without some welding and grinding.

As always, the 86 delivers.

If you look carefully at the top door hinge location in this old picture, you'll see a pinhole where the metal is rusted through:


That was enough to annoy me, so I decided to grind that little bit out, and I did. As so many times before, the state of the metal on the inside shocked me, the whole back side was thoroughly pitted by rust, and the little bit I'd taken off wasnt the end of it. So I cut out some more untill I got the worst of it:



Going further than this was near impossible without removing other bits, but the rust wasn't bad enough beyond this point to warrant such a setback.

Cleaned up and zinc sprayed:



All patched up. The ugly holes are an eyesore, but It really is difficult to drill neat holes this big in thin sheet metal (here's me remembering I have a step drill (christmas tree) for just that purpose... doh..).
There's going to be a door hinge over those holes anyway, so I don't care to much.

[vladx_kc]

Ivan, why has this project stopped?