Ivan's coupe: bodywork is done

[Ivan141]

Where were we:

Small looking hole after cutting out all dubious and unsatisfactory old repairs.


First patch panel made, the bigger the better I am always inclined to think. Gives a prettier endresult, but they rarely fit the way you want to after you start welding.


Welded in:


Then this happened:


What I found underneath didn't shock me, but still there is a nice piece of rust in there that's been welded over, and half the inside lip was littered with holes or cut out bits.


How close does an escort arch get: close enough, the flat side is a bit wider and there are some raised bits that dont match the AE, but we'll find out what it looks like soon enough.


End result of my Saturday in the lock-up: Inner wheel well mostly patched up. Just need to think up a way to create a decent inner lip that will close off the wheel wells and look right.

[robokill]

nice work Ivan :-D

[cannabolic]

good stuff

[Ivan141]

Another day in the shed has passed and I have nearly finished the left inner wheelwell. Pics (or it didnt happen?):

Tack new escort arch in place temporarily to use as a guide:


What needs closing up:


Bent myself an L profile and hammered it into curvy submission:


Tacked in place, then removed outer arch so I could close the gap.



Many hours and curses later:



Painted for temporary protection. There are some minor holes that popped up whilst grinding/cleaning that will need some seing to as I dont want to do this again anytime soon, but nothing too drastic.

[oldskull]

[robokill]

nice work Ivan. Its good to see you keep up pace with restoring your boro Hachi :-D

[Ivan141]

Due to bad weather my weekend trip to Luxembourg fell through, so I went for one final round of welding before I take a small vacation.

Pictures pour vous:



After about an hour with the grinder:



Zinked:




The last picture says the most about the result. Slight dent around the bit where the side trim goes, and a bit of work needed around the 'gutter'. Best I could do, so I'm putting my faith in my lock-up colleague Dennismo's bondo skills for a nice end result. Nothing drastic I think.

[tomtom]

Nice work with the arches. Now have some ideas to do mine thanks

[Ivan141]

Made me some reinforcement bits.




They are made using bits of my old roof, so original lightweight ae86 steel. Doesn't offer much structural strength by it's material, but I'm hoping the shape will be worth something.

Welded some of the big interior holes shut (because I could).


Closed up a nasty hole some previous idiot owner cut in the parcel shelf.
Needed to close a beam that was also cut open, and I hammered some channels into it for looks, so it was a bit of a job. Just needs to be grinded back a bit when I feel like it.



The outer holes are also nasty and in need of repair, but I'll bring some 6x9's some time and come up with a flush-mountable setup so I can haz some in car sound (listening to your diff gets boring).

[Ivan141]

Another step closer to the end of all this welding nonsense:
Finished the top seam of the right rear wheel well, was something I was putting off for a long time because it seemed a difficult repair. Wasn't so bad to fix as I thought luckily.



And then there was some fucking around with the old cluster:

I fit some slightly shortened 10mm LED fittings into the original lighting holes.. works like a charm.

The idea is to fit RGB led's + a microcontroller to create color controllable dash lighting, just hop I can get enough light out of the RGB leds. The green high power led's I have tried in the meantime before the rgb's get here are hopeless, too little light dispersion due to the 25 deg output angle. Even sanding and filing didn't help much.. maybe I'll fit some extra internal led's to fill out the dial areas better. I'll put up a pic as soon as I get the correct LED's in.