19?? chrysler sunbeam no 2 (+½ )

[hairymel]

last day of freedom before i actually have to go on real holiday so i thought my best bet was to get really messy


engine bay looked like this






lots of black paint and rust

the more observant of you will have noticed the angry grinder in the first pic is fitted with a wire brush ;D










only a start as the difficult 30% will need a smaller wizzy thing, and the entrenched rust will need a bit more effort.

a lot of bashing of bent bits is needed also


big visual change for a psychological mojo boost though


happily for welding fans i found a few more holes


offside chassis leg



drivers side inner wing/bulkhead join



d/s wing rail has deteriorated , or the angry grinder was more aggressive this time



thats all folks, need to sit in a field for a couple of days now


total time spent failing to fix meganes 321 hours (not including trying to build an r2d2 costume for my daughter. also not including 4 hours running around when my keys were locked in work when everyone else went on holiday .
also not including the rest of my life picking bits of wire out of my clothing/skin )


total spend £1712 . this is still wildly out of date/innacurate and I need to spend an evening or two drinking wine in a field to stop worrying about it ;D

[hairymel]

Apr 5, 2012 14:57:16 GMT gurnersimps1963 said:

I have the chammy all painted in the garage awaiting completion

best get a shift on then.

another year or so and i will have caught up with your build schedule ;D

[Granadamk2]

Just read this thread from start to finish over the course of a week. Awesome and bookmarked. You Sir are inspired, visionary and just possibly a bit mental. Brilliant work though, keep up the mojo. Cant wait to see more of your extremely entertaining updates. Will be a sad day when the car is complete in one sense as there will be no ,more updates to look forward to

(but obviously excellent that it is done so we can see it on the road )

Nice work.

*edited to wish you a great holiday and a good rest!*

[Deleted]

That doesn't look bad at all after having given it all a through wire whizz. Hopefully the weather is suitable for your holiday.

[bstardchild]

Hairymel - it's the little details in your thread/posts that make me chuckle - thanks for making me laugh a lot

[ozzy]

thats was a good way to spend my day. just read the lot.

I can not wait to see you put it back on its wheels

[hairymel]

thankfully i have calmed down a bit from my last slightly hyper update.



wine in field was good , although beer in pubs was better:-)


1001 excuses for not doing anything to the sunbeam:-


1.
not busy at work but busy elsewhere (including many hours failing to repair the megane )

2.
the unit all went a bit pete tong for a bit with paul and myself doing repairs outside due to massive disorganization inside.

3.
an hour of playing shift the heavy thing left pauls side looking neat and tidy, but my side looking worse than ever

4. -1001
we also have another subtenant moved in which has made my life a bit more tricky.

not long after my holiday i got attacked when i entered the unit

it looks like i will not be welding for a while




i kept away from the unit as much as possible cos i iz lazy so the robin? could hatch its chicks in peace.



reasons for getting off my backside:-

1.
2 months is enough though and i guess the parent birds will be less likely to abandon their nest now. also i am gagging to do a bit

i think the chicks have hatched but am still keeping a bit of distance from the nest




2.
i have dug out from very deep storage my old racal airfed welding mask which i abandoned 6 or 7 years ago!




really huge and unwieldy even with the grinding shield and most of the air apparatus removed.

3.
r2d2 is finished ;D





although chewbacca looks more like an ewok ;D


4.
the engine is finally indoors!






sorry for the ebay pics of the day, i forgot to edit them before i uploaded them

just pretend you have a crick in your neck



the beam was left face in to the 'spray booth' after the krypton factor shuffle puzzle.



today i knocked off at 3pm cos it was too nice to be at work on a friday

first order of the day was to have a tidyup.

after a lot of sweeping and shifting there was enough space to turn the sunbeam round




full of enthusiasm i shoved all my loose tools and other crud over into pauls side(sorry paul!) and took a look at where i left off. (once again please tilt your head leftwards ;D)




little blemish on the top of the d/s inner wing/bulkhead join.


out with my new cut off tool




after 10 minutes of refilling my tiny compressor and only cutting 1cm i got out the good old angry grinder


a poke of the bulkhead underneath went straight through



more exploration





luckily the rot seems very localised

so chopy chop and a pickup tool to help



view from below after welding











inner wing repaired - still losing photos but imagine a bit of zintec the shape of the previous hole


















curse word i pressed post instead of preview!

oh well that will have to do for now

[drdick]

Thats the problem isn't it? You get a unit and then every Tom, Dick & Harry is trying to move a car into it..

Love the kid's costumes!

[thetattoostudio]

I'm super glad your ground out welds look as obvious as mine mel ......looking good guy

[hairymel]

hey rich,

funny you should have shown up, I was going to mention you in the post until i did bad.

remember this?

12 bottles of beer sitting on the wall..



12 bottles of beer sitting on the wall..



And if one beer bottle should accidentally fall



There'll be eleven beer bottles sitting on the wall




thanks for the beer, came in very handy while i was waiting for paint to dry

[thetattoostudio]

You painted the beam!

[hairymel]

May 26, 2012 9:20:37 GMT thetattoostudio said:

ground out welds look...obvious

i am really a bit lazy tbh and i would rather leave the weld a bit proud than cut into good metal. its not ever going to be pretty but i should make more of an effort

i was really pleased with this bit as well, for some reason it all went swimmingly ,

might have been the new/old mask or the mig not playing up or even just the warm weather

i will go and have a nose at your build later - last time i looked you had spun it onto its other side

[hairymel]

May 26, 2012 10:09:44 GMT thetattoostudio said:

You painted the beam!

only a couple of square inches

[thetattoostudio]

Nothing really to report on mine, just welding fabrication welding and more welding........once I habe it in primer I think I'm going to stop updating the thread altogether

[xbo11ox]

Some awesome work going on here, i'm loving it. Theres a robins nest round the back of the buses outside my unit too, great work on letting them rent your welding mask for a bit.

I bet you had a proper 'vibration white finger' after wire brushing that whole enigne bay!!!!!! Those angry brushes are hellish, specially the cheaper (machine mart) less balanced ones.

[hairymel]

May 26, 2012 11:07:49 GMT xbo11ox said:

'vibration white finger'

+111 on that but the stray bits of wire were the worst, I had to cut my foot open to remove one bit a few days later

[drdick]

Beer also comes handily wrapped in template making material, it's the main reason to buy it...

[hairymel]

May 27, 2012 7:21:30 GMT drdick said:

... it's the main reason to buy it...

i must be doing it wrong ;D

[bstardchild]

May 26, 2012 1:01:31 GMT hairymel said:

out with my new cut off tool




after 10 minutes of refilling my tiny compressor and only cutting 1cm I got out the good old angry grinder

I've got the same one - I got the engineers at work to make me up an adaptor collar so i could use up my worn down (too much to be effective in a 4.5 inch angle grinder) 1mm slitting discs - far more effective than the disc that was supplied with it - still uses a bit too much air than my small compresser can cope with but much neater cutting

Oh and loving the update

[thetattoostudio]

I buy 1mm disks for the 5" grinder, air cut off disks should be around 0.6mm......you'd be mad to use a 0.6. in a grinder though