1960 Frogeye Sprite - Econofrog

[homersimpson]

I've had another hour out in the garage today, first I made a plate to repair the front footwell and welded it in.

Next I spot welded the front footwell to the front floor:



I've then ground up some of the welding on the crossmember (a bit more to do) and finished the spotwelding of this to the floor where the rear spring hanger reinforcement mounts (I cut this bit out to get the welder in).



Finally I spotwelded the repair panel on the rear spring hanger to the floor.



Next jobs will be to finish the grind on the floor/footwell and then look at the inner sill and footwell side and then the door skin and outer sill.

I'm on holiday in late May and the plan is to have all the welding on the driver side centre section completed by then.

[homersimpson]

I managed to grab a few more hours in the garage, first was the door which I removed the skin from:



It actually wasn't that bad but had a bit of rust in the corner and a few dents and as the skins are so easy to make with the wooden jig I made it would be a shame not to replace it.

On first inspection the frame looked reasonably good but after a bit of cleaning it up pinholes started to appear so I made and welded in a new bottom.







Then my attention turned to the inner sill, I fitted this in place and then spotwelded it also adding a bit of weld by the seatbelt mount again for extra strength:









I've had a couple of the spotwelds blow out which I think is down to the weld through primer i've been using.

[homersimpson]

Over the last couple of days my little helper has been very poorly and so i've been juggling time between working, spending time with him when is awake and working on the Frogeye.

First job was to make another door skin, i've not taken many photos of this as it was a repeat of the other side but here it is fitted and i'm testing it on the car and as expected the fit is awful but then it was with the door before.

The next task was to repair the rear inner wing/panel where it meets the sill, it needs grinding down now but its solid:

Then I cut out the rot from the front inner wheelarch in front of the drivers feet and welding in a new piece (again I need to grind this up).

Final job for tonight was to fit the footwell side, more grinding required:

Tommorrow if I get time I plan to grind all of this up and then remove the bar across the door and start moving the door apature around to get the door to fit. I've ordered a new outer panel for the driver side A post as the original one was really past saving and so I bit the bullet on it for £27.50 delivered, just waiting for it to arrive.

Any comments suggestions always welcome :-)

[jjeffries]

Nice work, lots of creative problem solving and avoidance of spendy repro repair panels, just like with your Mk II Jag.

John

[flyingphil]

Great work and steady progress.
I know a lot of Frogeye "repairs" in the 1970/80's were very crude (well I know mine were!) but the cars were not valuable then and it was either a cheap and cheerful repair to get it through the MoT and running for another year ...or scrap it. Also hobby MiG welders were not readily available, let alone spot welders.

[homersimpson]

Apr 27, 2024 15:49:52 GMT flyingphil said:

Great work and steady progress.
I know a lot of Frogeye "repairs" in the 1970/80's were very crude (well I know mine were!) but the cars were not valuable then and it was either a cheap and cheerful repair to get it through the MoT and running for another year ...or scrap it. Also hobby MiG welders were not readily available, let alone spot welders.

Absolutley and I always think that if these repairs hadn't been done then the car wouldn't have survived for me to restore it now.

I currently run an old banger to go to work and back (2007 Fiesta) and when i'm welding that the repairs are not to the same standard as I would do on a classic as I'm just keeping it on the road.

[homersimpson]

A little bit more of an update this evening, I have a very understanding wife (either that or she is glad to be rid of me!).

This was me lining the door up with the new sill to try and get things into the right position and then welding the sill on.



This was the footwell side ground up and the new A posted fitted.



This was the front end of the sill closed off.



I have to confess I don't think this side has gone quite as well as the other side but it still gone fairly well and i'm pleased with it.

I've also ordered the new boot floor which should hopefully be here next week.

[homersimpson]

I've made a bit more progress over the last few days, first I removed the old spring hanger box:

Then I fitted the outer spring hanger box end repair panel and the inner spring hanger box and made a new base for it (the bit that goes under the spring):

Then I spent a couple of hours checking the alignment of it all with the help of my daughter and it all looked as good as the other side did so I starte welding it together.

Before I finished I ran out of wire and so i've had to order more.  Rather than let lack of wire stop play I decided to make the inner spring hanger box end repair panel.

Next jobs are to finish welding the outer repair, then refit the shock absorber mounting temporaily and line up the radius arm mounting box.  I can then drill the holes and weld the spacers and nuts in for this.  I need to remember to do this before I fit the inner panel otherwise it will be disaster! 

The new welding wire will arrive Wednesday and so if I get any time tommorrow I will either do the spring hanger box holes or make the inner stiffner that goes forwards from the spring hanger to the crossmember depending on how I feel.

Any comments or suggestions welcome :-)

[flyingphil]

Thanks for keeping us updated...You are doing a great job!

[homersimpson]

Not done too much today but new welding wire arrived and had a bad day at work so decided to do a bit of welding to take my mind off it.

This was the end of the outer spring hanger box welded up, holes drilled for the radius arm box and nuts welded in:



Tommorrow I will look at welding on the spacers to the outer spring hanger box for the bolts and start on the inner spring hanger box repair, I took a picture of this in place but as it looks the same as the one I took above when I first made it I havent uploaded the picture.

[homersimpson]

A little bit more progress, first I cleaned up the floor pan ready for the stiffner and then made and fitted that:

Next I made the piece that links the inner spring hanger box to the stiffner and welded this in, this was again made in two pieces to make it easier/possible to fabricate by hand.

I've also welded the spacers for the radius arm box the outer spring hanger but I didn't get a picture of that.

I haven't ground it back yet as with the weather being nice and people being in the garden I didn't want to make too much noise, even with the garage being insulated to reduce sound.  If its bad tommorrow as forcast I can go out and grind it all up and then its onto the rear including the boot floor which arrived earlier this week in a massive box with a huge amount of packing inside.  I bought it from Rimmer Bros and the postage was only £10 which I suspect for the size of the box that came and the time it must have taken to package is probably a mistake with their website.

[glenanderson]

Great progress. 👍

Most companies that do any amount of mail-order business will have a deal with a courier company that gives a fixed price per delivery, regardless of parcel size, weight or number of boxes in the consignment. That’s why they can “only” charge you a tenner, and why the postage on small items is often so expensive. It’s also how big outfits can offer “free” postage on bigger orders, as there’s enough margin for them to absorb it.

[homersimpson]

May 11, 2024 21:14:37 GMT glenanderson said:

Great progress. 👍

Most companies that do any amount of mail-order business will have a deal with a courier company that gives a fixed price per delivery, regardless of parcel size, weight or number of boxes in the consignment. That’s why they can “only” charge you a tenner, and why the postage on small items is often so expensive. It’s also how big outfits can offer “free” postage on bigger orders, as there’s enough margin for them to absorb it.

The thing is though everyone else I tried to buy one off said that it needed a special courier quote due to it size and they generally wanted around £30.

There must be £5 worth of cardboard in it let alone the time it took someone to make the box for it which was made of much smaller boxes all stapled together with other boxes inside stratgically placed to stop it being squashed.

Good times for me though and shows the benefits of shoping around as I saved well over £20 on anyone else I could get one from.

[homersimpson]

I've turned the car over again and put the back on a tressle with a bar across the top of the rear wings and then taking a deep breath I cut this out:



Cut out is a strong description, most if it just crumbled and the rest I gave a mean look to and lifted it out

This is what I was left with:













I need to repair the rear chassis rails and strengtheners and weld up the holes in the new boot floor that I don't need (as its from a later car) and then I can look at putting it back together.

[eurogranada]

This is quite the weldathon! I applaud you keeping sight of what needs to happen when...and how.

[bjornagn]

I vaguely recall doing that same rear clip replacement. It turned out to not be such a big deal once you get over the audacity of cutting the entire underside out of the shell,


In my case the piece going in was a Midget rear clip because that is what I could get my hands on from Moss.

[homersimpson]

May 16, 2024 10:45:15 GMT bjornagn said:

I vaguely recall doing that same rear clip replacement. It turned out to not be such a big deal once you get over the audacity of cutting the entire underside out of the shell,


In my case the piece going in was a Midget rear clip because that is what I could get my hands on from Moss.

Yes mine is exactly the same its from a the later Midget/Sprite and has a lot of holes I don't need that I will need to weld up. 

Compared to doing the Jag this one is dead easy because everything is so light and where I need to buy panels they are so cheap, the entire boot floor was about £190 delivered (I didn't have the one with the chassis rails as in your picture as my rails aren't too bad needing only a few local repairs).

Compare that to a Jag MK2 inner front wing baffle panel at around £275 and you can see why restoring a MK2 Jag, especially a 2.4 makes very little if any financial sense when the finished product is probably only worth what a Frogeye is worth.

[flyingphil]

Impressive! Have you any time scale for this project?

[grumpybadger]

Christ I thought I was in a weldathon.
I've somehow missed several updates on this.
Progress looks thick and fast, keep it up.

[homersimpson]

May 16, 2024 14:44:01 GMT flyingphil said:

Impressive! Have you any time scale for this project?

Not really, i'm just taking it as it comes.  At the current rate of progress and with the spending constraints I reckon probably 2026 to get it one the road but time will tell :-)