1988 Mk2 Cavalier 1.8GLi

[sleag40]

Chassis leg repair piece now in, and then zinc primed.



Spring plate drilled for plug welding, bare metalled, then zinc primed.



Boshed on with the positioning jig.



Started to cut out the poxy bits on the driver's side - it's a bit worse than the passenger side was - I'll need to cut this back a bit further!

[darrenh]

Proper job

[tofufi]

Good work!

[rickygolf83]

Looks better than factory

[sleag40]

Jun 10, 2019 14:01:05 GMT rickygolf83 said:

Looks better than factory

Cheers! Don't know about that though!

Not had a lot of time for this recently, but have managed to get a bit done this week. The chassis leg pox was cut out, and a piece was knocked up and stuck in to replace the inner section.



A template was made for the outer section, then copied into 2mm sheet and trimmed to fit nicely into the gap that requires filling.



The outer piece is ready to weld in now, and should be going in on Saturday (closely followed by the spring plate!) 

[sleag40]

Finished early today, so got stuck in! Outer chassis leg became complete again.



Spring plate added using the piece of scrap fashioned into a makeshift jig.



Measuring from the centre of the spring plate to the inboard hole of the rear beam mounting points on both sides revealed that one side is within a millimetre of the other. Similar results were measured when the outboard holes were used - I'm chalking that up as a win!

Next up, attention was turned to removing the tailgate. Locking stuff was removed, as was the wiper mech + washer jet. The washer hose was withdrawn from the tailgate, followed by the wiring on the other side.



Just need to remove the struts and hinge pin clips and it can come off. (a second pair of hands will then be required)

[sleag40]

I managed to find someone to help me lift off the tail gate - theres usually plenty of people around, but not when you need there to be.!



I can't keep putting off cleaning back the underside to the metal - I let myself in gently by finishing off the cleaning of the nearside rear tub.



Grim times ahead.

[sleag40]

Yep, pretty grim! 



So far the wire wheel has only discovered one area needing fresh metal - little square top centre of the above pic.

[darrenh]

how many bristles ended up in your chest

[sleag40]

Jun 17, 2019 20:40:42 GMT darrenh said:

how many bristles ended up in your chest

None to the chest yet, mainly the legs, although I did cop for one in the clock weights yesterday.

[sleag40]

Sadly theres been next to no time available for this heap recently. My wire wheel is pretty much spent, so while I wait for some more to arrive, today I've been welding the bottom of the outer sills to the inners. The plug welds seem to have worked fine, but I didn't like the gap that was left between the bottom edge of the inner sill and the bottom edge of the outer when viewed from underneath. Most likely totally unnecessary, as seam sealer could have been used to  bridge the small gap, but I felt welding it would not only look better, but also stop the possibility of distorting the bottoms of the sills when using a two post ramp.

Driver's side is all done bar finishing cleaning back the weld - I'll have to use the finger sander as access for the flap disc is restricted by my huge grinder. 

[sleag40]

Still struggling to get time in on this at present. I managed to finish welding the bottom of the passenger side sill to the inner sill today.



Bizzarely this side took a fraction of the time the driver's side did - perhaps I'm getting better at it?

With that done, I decided to reset the spit onto the highest of its three pivot points. Its been on the lowest one, and with the adjustment wound all the way up, it wasn't high enough to roll right over.



As you can see, on the highest pivot point with the adjusters wound halfway up, there is now plenty of clearance to roll it right over If I want.



Back to cleaning the underside for paint next.

[skodacious]

Really enjoying this thread - amazing fabrication and attention to detail. Can't wait to see further progress 👍

[sleag40]

Jul 1, 2019 17:51:24 GMT skodacious said:

Really enjoying this thread - amazing fabrication and attention to detail. Can't wait to see further progress 👍

Many thanks - glad you're enjoying the thread!

Had a decent pop at this today - it was as grim a job as ever, but a pleasing amount of progress was made.






I intend to do the underside in three sections - back end to rear foot wells, then the floors, then the whole front end/engine bay. Plenty of dirty noisy tedium to look forward to!

[sleag40]

Another couple of hours on the wheel this evening - I reckon if I can get a whole day on it over the weekend, the rear section should be close to getting a bit of paint on it.

[shielsy68]

Will all be worth the effort time

[sleag40]

Getting there with the rear section after a few more hours of noisy fun.



And then a couple more



Just a few fiddly bits left over for another day, then a good cleaning session will see it ready for Hydrate 80 + zinc rich primer.

[skodacious]

That is looking really clean. If it wasn't for the fact that it is upsidedown - you could eat your dinner off it 😁

[sleag40]

All back end fiddly bits now bare metalled and cleaned, and Hydrate 80 treatment started.



Hopefully I'll get the whole back end treated and then primed over the weekend. (Spare time permitting!)  

[sleag40]

Thanks to FedEx being a bit poor, I have no primer still after a week. I did get the back end of the underside treated with tdhe Hydrate 80 though - half way through 



In the absence of my primer, I'll get stuck in to removing all the sealant off the floor section tomorrow now the back end is ready for primer.