Ivan's coupe: bodywork is done

[Ivan141]

You can download different versions of EPC these days.. I have a 'portable' version that works on 7, but it is several gigs worth of download.

Might need it because I couldn't find mirrors on that russian site for the life of me.

[Bean]

I PM'd him that solution to minimize off-topic chat. Still hoping for the current EPC to be available eventually. It's so much easier to work with.

[Ivan141]

Can anyone tell me what thread the rear bumper bolts are for a EU coupe?
I had my rear end out of the rotisserie this weekend in order to trial fit my bumper,
and I ran into a problem that I expect to be encountering a lot in the future: I cant find the bolts
anywhere. I remember them having very fine pitch thread for bolts that size.

Had to make adjustments to both arch corners for them to align with the bumper better, a word of wisdom to anyone welding in new arches: have the bumper in place when positioning them for welding.

While fiddling with the bumper fitment I removed the bottom bumper mounts (hanging from the rear pockets), and found that 1 was hiding more iffy repair jobs done by Bert, so I reskinned half of the pocket bottom.

Left to do:
-Still need to redrill 2 holes in the chassis rails for the rear bumper mount bolts.. got those in the wrong place.
-Weld captive nuts in the rear arch corners for the bumper to mount to.
-Make a small adjustment to the left bumper bracket to adjust for a 3mm offset of the replaced left rear chassis rail :-(

[Ivan141]

This project has not been going fast enough, so I decided to take a different approach.
When all the rewarding jobs are done on a chassis, you're left with a ton of small but time consuming jobs that need doing. I've found it's easy to make excuses to avoid doing these jobs.

To keep my ass in gear I've now switched to a taskplanner, and I just make a per-day work agenda.
The jobs dont get more fun, but at least you stop thinking of other more interesting stuff you could be doing.

Today I managed to cross the following off the list:

Rear bumper fitment finalized.
-Found bolts for bumper to chassis-rail
-Fixed holes in chassis rail, only 1 needed adjustment.
-Adjusted left rear arch corner AGAIN, made it fit a little better.
-Created some new mounting brackets beneath the rear pockets, used rivnuts for mounting.
-Drilled holes in the arches.. need to buy some stainless rivnuts for thes though.. I want to weld
them in place.

Fixed a shorn off captive nut for the driver seat mount.
Cut out the tired old metal, welded in new, rewelded the captive nut.

I will be welding reinforcing rings around all seat mounts because 2 mounts have failed on this car so far.

Have some pics.. nothing interesting though, will post those later.
I'm convinced this is the way forward to getting this chassis to the blasters and ready for the next phase.

[robokill]

PICS :-) BTW i believe the whole car has the annoying fine thread which all jap stuff has.

Let me know once you are done with the roti thingy as my panda needs to get up there

[Ivan141]

I just checked the pics out, they all turned out crap.. Hard to take decent pictures with my phone.
There are about 12 items remaining on my todo list for the chassis.. for half of them the car needs to be removed from the rotisserie (again). Need to make sure everything fits perfectly before I send it off for blasting, don't want to do any welding after it's painted.

This still needs doing:
-Mounting points for sideskirts
-Mounting points on arches for the rear bumper.
-Weld in a captive nut for the steering column gator.
-Drainage holes/channels in the sills and rear pockets (stop them from becoming water traps).
-Finish up the rear shock mount points in the turrets.
-Grille & headlight alignment (was always a bit off.. need to adjust it so it will be perfect).
-Testfit of all body panels.
-Some final linishing of welds.

If I keep up my current approach I hope to have this finished in a few workdays in the lockup.

[robokill]

Don't rush it but enlighten us with pictures

[Ivan141]

I ordered a bunch of rivnuts for the various mounting points that need to be created.. they are nice and easy to use. Got mild & stainless steel ones so I can spotweld them in place for peace of mind.
Next round of work will be in 2 weeks time when I return from Belgrade.

[Ivan141]

And I'm back for another round of the never-ending project. Landed in the Netherlands yesterday and I had the day off, so off to the barn it was.

Today's tasklist consisted of multiple small-fry jobs:
-Grinding back some earlier welding
-Placing a captive nut for the steering column gaiter.
-Install bumper mount points (rivnuts)
-See how far I get with fitting sideskirts.

Here's some crappy pictures to hurt your eyes with:

-M6 rivnut for the bumper to fender mount should do (used stainless here).


-Same as viewed from bottom.. this pic also betrays the car's rear end frankenstein patchwork nature.


-Hard to see, but I spot welded the nuts in 2 places to avoid them ever coming loose.


-A Haslbeck sideskirt was offered up.. Thing of interest: store these plastic parts without weighty items stacked on them... everything was deformed :S


-After looking at everyones pretty pictures of these skirts, I am quite dissapointed with the fit of mine... and the added hole in the side, which frankly is necessary for this to fit right. Needs pressing in here.


-Here's where welding your own non-oem fenders comes to haunt you.
This side is maybe 1,5-2 mm's too wide, so the end tab that sits in the door jamb needs to be bent to accommodate for this.


-They look cool though:


-Had to do some heating and bending to get the bottom lip to line up neatly.



-Made rivnut fittings for one side along the bottom lip. There was not much space for rivnuts (and I refuse to use self-tappers), so I had to add some material first.


-Had to weld them from the back because I broke the cheap chinese tool I had for them . The layers of that bottom lip where too thick for the rivnuts I had.... this will work equally well though:


Sadly my phone battery was dead after that last picture so there will be no more eyesores for now.

[Sum_fing_wong]

Great work, I love your choice to use riv-nuts verses rivets and self tappers. Speaking of which are you using metric riv-nuts by chance ?