Ivan's coupe: bodywork is done

[Ivan141]

Pressing personal circumstances. I cant justify spending my weekends in the garage for the time being. Hopefully I will be able to resume work next spring.

[Ivan141]

Project reboot:

Have resumed work on the 86 again this month.
Things at home have returned back to normal somewhat, so I'm trying to pick things up where I left off.

Short assessment of the situation the car is in:
Chassis:
Almost finished, just some details to take care off before any big work:
-Needs a few captive nuts replaced/fixed/added.
-Need to do adjustments to rear arches for proper bumper fitment.
-Need to redrill some holes for bumper attachment (drilled them in the wrong spots
-Needs some pain in the ass areas on the bottom cleaned up of undercoating.

Other bodywork:
-Doors need to be cleaned up of rust. They where pretty good doors, but
look closely to just about any old ae86 door and the bottom will be in need of complete replacement due to rust seems.
-Bootlids are in need of bottom seem repair, one is already halfway done.
(Why 2 bootlids: 1 with spoiler, 1 without).
-Bonnet in need of some panelbeating to straighten out little bumps and the corners that where damaged by some inconsiderate prick in its previous storage facility.

All other aspects of the car are at the moment considered not important until the chassis is done.


SOooo.. let's commence with my first shitty smartphone pictures of the year:

Done the inside bottom of my passenger side door. Alas, I will need to replace the outer skin bottom too because it has rusted too thin at the bottom.

[robokill]

nice Ivan. Getting back to the AE86. Hows the other door ?

[Ivan141]

The other door is in similar condition I'm afraid, but there's no way to be sure without opening up that lip a little.
I had the metal shop cut 2 150x30 cm panels for me and bend a 1cm lip to 90 degrees to make new bottom door skins.. Cost me enough, so I wouldn't be too dissapointed if the other side proves the investment necessary.

[Aram]

Cool Ivan!!

Good to see you back on track.

[zenki]

Props on the welding. When it's all done it's safe to say you can call yourself a 'welding master'.

[Lauren]

Excellent work, Ivan, what a nightmare with the doors, but brilliant that you can fix them.

[Ivan141]

These are busy times, or at least I like to tell myself that, so progress is slow. Didn't have any pressing things to do yesterday so I went to the shed to get stuck in to the not so fun job of fixing up the doors.

Last time I replaced the inside bottom of the passenger door, this day it was time to do the outer bottom skin. Please note that nothing was really very wrong with it, except for pitted thin metal where it wrapped around the inside lip, and some damaged caused during storage and by the opening of said bottom lip.

First I decided where I would want my weld to be (under the bottom fold of the door), and cut it after carefully drawing a straight line.


Opened up it looked like this, please note I spent hours sandblasting that inner lip earlier before I decided to replace the metal, so it looks clean-ish.


Clean up edge of metal and inside of earlier welds:


Spent a good deal of time making a replacement panel, that meant:
-sawing a wooden block to the shape of the door corners so I had something to hammer the corners out on.
-lot of testfitting before finishing the 2nd corner (no way back once you cut).
-The long lower lip was bent on a bending brake at the metal supply store,
the corners where hammered out personally, the top edge was joggled to fit underneath the door skin (for easier welding).




Yes kids, that's blood in that last picture, a regularly applied liquid when you're an idiot fabricator.

Clamped and spot welded:

Note to self: when clamping nice flat sheet metal, put something between the clamp and the outside skin to prevent denting it next time around.

Fold lip over inner door skin using hammer and dolly in a gradual fashion.



Needed some straightening out after I was done, but luckily I was able to get the edge straight enough using hammer and dolly.


Here's where things went south: welded it without a perfect fit between old and new door skin. Used too much heat welding up the slight gaps.


Added a lick of zinc spray, then some black paint to keep it safe before it goes off for sandblasting.


Looks reasonably good right? Wrong.. I cannot hide my shame, here's what it really looks like:


I can only take this as a lesson in how not to do the welding next time. To be honest, I think I'll just take my chances with the pitted metal on the other door if it's not too bad, just need to make sure I dont bend the skin when opening the lip up.

Lucky for me the heat caused the weld to bend the panel slightly inward, so it should be possible to use a not too exorbitant amount of bondo to get this door straight enough for paint.

[robokill]

a door can always be replaced

[Bean]

How about using lead/tin to fill the pits on the other door? I never done it myself but seen others with good results instead of using bondo.

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