1984 Vauxhall Cavalier GL

[steven715]

Hello there, I’m fairly new here although I have read through the making panels thread for sometime picking up tips and tricks on how to shape panels and thought that I would document the work that I have started to do on my 1984 Cavalier.



So I purchased this in December 2017 along side my other MK2 Cavalier as a project it had a full years MOT when I purchased it I knew it needed work as it had been re-sprayed in the past as it had been left under a leaky tarpaulin and stood for many years and yes that is 16k miles on the clock, it’s strange really as in sum aspects the cars interior supports the mileage as does the way the car drives it just the body that lets it down sadly.
Fast forward to the beginning of this year where I started to build up my kit such as a welder and other tools to be able to do bodywork, it was at the end of 2018 that I found a local Classic car restoration class at night classes I enrolled into this and really started to learn how to weld amongst giving us the basic knowledge of working with metal, unfortunately though the classes was only once per week and only for 3 months, so its now when I’m really going to start to learn how to do stuff properly and hopefully with the guidance of others on here 😉

Anyway I’m warfarin on to much now so I will shut up and show what very little progress has been made.

[steven715]

So the first thing I done was removed he front wing mainly to bring to the class for advice on how to repair the front section whilst I know it’s easier to just buy a front wing my thoughts was to use the wing to break myself into the shaping aspect and if I mess it up in the mean time well I can just buy another wing and try again.
So this is what I started off with.


This is what it looks like under the wing mainly surface rust.

I would like to say I done this work but my tutor done most of it as I bought my wing in on the last day of college (silly me) I just cut out the the panel with the repair section and that was it really.

[jimspolicev8sd1]

Wow that’s a great little motor. Love it. I did a few evening classes but I learnt so much more by just getting stuck in and practicing. Good luck!

[steven715]

On the bottom of the wing on the repair section it should have been a bolt hole, this was completely rusted away luckily I have another cavalier that I could copy the design from.

Although very small it was a good place for me to start completely on my own.


Tacked on

Then fully welded.

Then test fitted to the car.

Doh... I should have welded the tag on the falling edge of the wing instead of welding the tag on the back, if you know what I mean, oh well we live and learn.


More to come...

[steven715]

Nov 6, 2019 21:15:37 GMT jimspolicev8sd1 said:

Wow that’s a great little motor. Love it. I did a few evening classes but I learnt so much more by just getting stuck in and practicing. Good luck!

Thank you they say a picture paints 1000 words in this case it’s taken the rust and bad paintwork away 😂
Absolutely right about he classes sadly I enrolled on to the last one and they condensed an original 9 month course into 30 hours so the guy just done his best at teaching us everything we wanted to learn which wasn’t easy.
I’m definitely learning the hard way now but for me this is the best way for me to learn for things to stick in my mind.

[jimspolicev8sd1]

The mig welding forum is also good. There are guides and videos etc

[steven715]

Nov 6, 2019 22:11:04 GMT jimspolicev8sd1 said:

The mig welding forum is also good. There are guides and videos etc

Cheers, I have been learning off there as well due to wanting to give myself the best possible chance.
Garage now built now hopefully this will give me somewhere dry to continue working.

This brings us up to-date here is the latest progress.
Used a twisted knot wire on my angle grinder to expose some rust that was hiding away under the stone chip.

Used masking tape to give me the rough shape,

Then cut out to a rough shape.


I wasn’t fully happy with the final shape so more fettling

At this point the my angle grinder lead broke on a previous repair on the lead so this bought an abrupt end for the time being until I decided what grinder to buy.

[redexstyle]

Same colour as the one I broke last year except mine was so much more rotten lol!

Let me know if you need any parts as I have quite a few.

forum.retro-rides.org/thread/207423/vauxhall-cavalier-saloon-breaking-scrapped

It's also helped save my current mark 2 saloon.

Good luck with the project.

[steven715]

Nov 7, 2019 14:47:55 GMT redexstyle said:

Same colour as the one I broke last year except mine was so much more rotten lol!

Let me know if you need any parts as I have quite a few.

forum.retro-rides.org/thread/207423/vauxhall-cavalier-saloon-breaking-scrapped

It's also helped save my current mark 2 saloon.

Good luck with the project.

I remember seeing that on eBay and reading this thread shame it was so far gone, at least it kept others on the road though.

[redexstyle]

Nov 7, 2019 18:33:48 GMT steven715 said:

I remember seeing that on eBay and reading this thread shame it was so far gone, at least it kept others on the road though.

Yeh. When I won it, I was thinking ah yeh, it had an MOT the year before so I could use it as a daily beater.

Once I examined it all, it was bodged together so bad just to get it through an MOT.

[steven715]

Nov 8, 2019 9:15:41 GMT redexstyle said:

Nov 7, 2019 18:33:48 GMT steven715 said:

I remember seeing that on eBay and reading this thread shame it was so far gone, at least it kept others on the road though.

Yeh. When I won it, I was thinking ah yeh, it had an MOT the year before so I could use it as a daily beater.

Once I examined it all, it was bodged together so bad just to get it through an MOT.

That’s annoying, at least it will keep other cars on the road 🙂

[steven715]

Not much of an update again sadly mainly due to me being so slow to get anywhere.
So first I cut out the rotted area

This revealed what I expected but not as bad as I thought so a new section was made up, although this will be mainly hidden I still want everything to be as close as possible but due to my inexperience it takes me so long to think about how to make the repair section in this case I wanted to make the whole section but I ended up with this.

I know tonybmw would do this with his eyes shut 😁
The old pice still needs to be cut out and this one stuck in.
A small bit still to make up then this lot can be stuck in.

I also cleaned up the inner arch where the damper goes through to the boot as there was a little rust developing on the inside to my amazement all was ok.


I must say it’s quite daunting doing this kind of work where you even start to think am I going to be able to do this but you start making up little bits and it kind of starts to come together.

[steven715]

A bit more work has been done on my Cavalier, although I sadly forgot to upload the picture or update the thread 🤦‍♂️

Here is a couple of pictures from where I left of



I made a school boy error on this bit of welding! I opened up my regular on the gas bottle and set my gas flow but I forgot to open the valve on the bottle I was wondering why my welds seemed so poor. A valuable lesson learned I think.

[steven715]

Some more work was done yesterday, I made up a new pice to go into the inner wheel arch as I wast happy with my last 2 attempts this seems to look better.
There is a lot going on in this pice I maybe should have started with a straight bit rather than this for my first few repair patches.


Welded in

Started to clean up the welds.

I was then left with this, I have been making noise all day and with everyone home due to this Cronovirus I didn’t want to annoy my neighbours so I called it a day.
Still lots of work todo.

Hope everyone is keeping well out there! All the best steve.

[shielsy68]

Where your earthing is t clean enough. Grind some where clean and clamp there youl find it will weld better, turn wire speed down a bit

[RetroScott]

Making good progress there mate! Good luck!

[steven715]

Mar 28, 2020 13:22:39 GMT shielsy68 said:

Where your earthing is t clean enough. Grind some where clean and clamp there youl find it will weld better, turn wire speed down a bit

This is exactly the tips I need thank you very much!
Do you think that my welds are a bit cold?

If anyone else has comments tips and tricks on my work please put them down I’m just starting out with this stuff so comments like this is great and very helpful thank you in advance.

Steve.

[steven715]

Mar 28, 2020 13:31:41 GMT RetroScott said:

Making good progress there mate! Good luck!

Thank you, hopefully this provides a bit of entertainment during this difficult time.

Steve.

[steven715]

I wanted to investigate some rust bubbling behind the arch and I found this


I ordered a new rear arch as I’m sure that my lack of skills would slow me down and to a high standard that I’m trying to achieve, when this arrives I will cut out the rest of the panel as I need the new section to see where I can safely cut to.

[steven715]

So a little bit more done on the car I cut out around the arch to see how bad the inner arch is and maybe I can start making up repair sections I thought that I would start off down the rear of the drivers side arch.

Fabrication of the new section going in I’m doing these in small sections to begin with as there is a lot going on with the metal even in this small section... well for me anyway 😁




First the basic shape of the lip


Then I tried to put a curve into the metal but this wasn’t really happening without a shrinker stretcher so I cheated and cut some slots and bent the metal back.



Welded in and roughly dressed back, I had started on the next section up from this but unfortunately it didn’t turn out well, I’m going to need to cut more of the arch out and do some repairs on that due to the existing metal being so thin so for now I’m going to sort that out instead of just making it work.

I do have more to add to this post but I don’t want to spam it with lots of separate posts in one go so there is some more to come,
Hope you are all keeping well.

Oh and if you want to criticise my work please do! but I just ask that you suggest a better way so I and others can learn thanks 🙂