project 1980 Austin Princess

[Rocket88]

Today was going moderately well, certainly made healthy progress with the surround repairs.  I went around the surround and cleaned back anything that looked suspect, uncovering two more areas that needed small patches.  Then I made cardboard templates for the patches, which you can see here in white, ready to be recreated in metal.

 

20180916-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Putting the new pieces in was much easier than taking the old rust out since I didn't have to worry about cutting through too much with the cutting disc.  Welder behaved itself and apart from feeling awkward because this all felt like it needed to be done left-handed, it was looking reasonably good.  I hadn't had any errant sparks go into the cabin or on the glass, all was well (I did protect things better than the pictures make it appear, photos were taken out of order).

 

20180916-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Then, just as I got the penultimate piece tacked in...

 

20180916-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

... black smoke EVERYWHERE.  Something was very on fire.  Something in the boot... the boot I'd forgotten to empty out because I forgot that there's a straight route from the bit I'm welding into the boot itself.  Open the boot, or leave it shut?  You know when an engine catches fire you're supposed to not open the bonnet because it can make things worse... Open the boot because otherwise how am I going to put it out, maybe it's just a lot of smoke and nothing else.

 

OMG THAT'S A BOOT FULL OF FIRE.

 

It's something behing the spare wheel, quick hurl that out of the car!  Oh no, more fire, quick grab something to pull out the thing that's on fire!  That's no good, that's a plastic door bin and that's on fire too now you idiot.  Just take your welding gloves off and grab the edge of it.  SHIT IT'S PLASTIC.  Now there's bits of plastic in the boot on fire and bits of plastic on floor on fire.  Grab that leather jacket, it makes a good fire blanket.  Good, boot isn't on fire any more.  Now put out the fire on the floor by stamping on it because... no don't do that!  It's plastic you idiot....

 

... eventually the fire went out.  I burned my hand a bit but not A&E amounts, just a couple of small blisters.  I breathed in some plastic smoke, not very pleasant that.  I'm okay though.  No harm really done.  Most importantly the harm to the Princess was really minimal with just some soot staining in the boot and a couple of blobs of melted plastic on the floor mat.  The culprit was a welding spark going down the inside of the C pillar and setting fire to the front door moisture membrane and tool bag, both plastic, that were stuffed behind the spare wheel well.

 

20180916-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180916-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I'm normally really careful, I have no idea why I didn't think to empty the boot today.  I'm just grateful the damage wasn't worse or lasting to me or the car.  Be careful when you're welding, kids, it's a dangerous hobby.

 

 

 

It's amazing how stuff that wouldn't catch fire if you soaked it in napalm and lobbed it in a blast furnace will combust at the merest hint of a spark from a MIG..............

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

I have a co² bottle by the mig as part of the kit. I also have 2 spray water bottles in the car and by where I'm welding. 

I got burnt (excuse the pun) years ago when I was cutting bits out of a metro. The sills were rammed with newspaper so I found out. I also briefly worked at a welding shop and watched a Merc spontaneously combust inside. 

I always look to see how I can eliminate the risk before welding and put in place measures to reduce it and cover myself in case it was to go wrong. 

 

I was once painting a house by a dead old tree in the summer. There was a wasp nest in the tree preventing me from getting on so I lit a wheelbarrow full of green leaves. The smoke drove off the wasps and things were going fine until the heat from the wheelbarrow ignited the dry grass under it. You would not believe the kaos that followed. The grass fire spread so quickly and one side about 10 yards away I had a can of petrol and the other was this dead dry tree, by the house. The fire overwhelmed me in seconds, the tree caught and went up like a rolled up newspaper made from rocket fuel, all I could do was clear the petrol can with seconds to spare. It took 3 of us to get it under control but the tree was smouldering for hours after. 

 

The fact that it got out of control and overwhelmed me so quickly is the reason why I now carry out risk assessments before doing anything heat related.

[SiC]

They say the best use for a fire extinguisher is using it as a battering ram to get the hell out of there quicker.

[Exiled_Tat_Gatherer]

Glad that didn't escalate too badly fella - a lesson learnt - and not exactly the hardest way either. Take a break, the anxiety levels will be off the charts if you go back at it immediately..... 

I too had a 'BoggyMires' moment when I started on the Sptifire I'd been given in lieu of cash owed - sills stuffed with oiled rags n paper - first cut is the deepest - the most anxious - and in this case the most flammable! I learned that day to always check the state and DATE on the bloody extinguishers! Managed to smother it - but new extinguishers bought that weekend...... I knew they have a shelflife - but the one I tried to use was literally a block of crap inside once I unscrewed the top later. Made a handy fuel tank for a custom moped though! Upside to everything.......

[Ben_O]

Phew! lucky

I had the misfortune to witness a Corsa go up internally whilst up in the air on a 2 post lift. It was well alight before the flames were noticed and I had the scary job of standing beside it holding the down button so that we could get to the fire and put it out.

Very nerve racking 30 seconds!

[fordperv]

Shit mate, glad it wasn't worse, I will always remember welding up a sierra for the scally rally for sutty2006, the usual sill and rear of sill rot, all was going great until we saw smoke from the inside, the bastard thing was on fire, he rushes for an extinguisher whilst im ripping stuff from the inside of the car and chucking it out of the way, he let off the extinguisher and bugger me that powder makes such a mess but it put it out no problem

[SiC]

The mess from powder extinguishers is why they're no longer recommended for use indoors, as they can make too much smoke and impede escape apparently.

[vulgalour]

Today went better, there was much less fire and hardly any swearing.  First job was to empty the boot and get the fire extinguisher in the workzone, because we're learning from yesterday's mistakes today.

20180918-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180918-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The most awkward repair was the simplest looking of them all, which was the long strip that had rotted away.  Before welding this in, I cut a long strip to size then drilled holes so I could puddle weld it in place.  Then I found that he welding tip could have done with being chisel shaped to get into the line where I'd made the cut.  There's probably a better way to do this repair, inexperience meant I approached it in this way.  I don't have a finger-file either so I had to improvise by using a grinding disc, flapwheels have spoiled me because grinding discs seem much louder and aggressive and just hurls tiny bits of metal filings all over the place.

20180918-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The top outer and inner corners went reasonably well.  Getting into the inside corner to clean up the welds smooth is very difficult with my tools but the weld doesn't protrude so much it's going to make the seal sit wrong.  I've cleaned back what I can and then I'll use some seam sealer just to smooth out the uneven surface to prevent this being a water trap and causing the rot again.  I also welded up the extraneous trim holes along the top of the C pillar since I shan't be using those again.

20180918-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

It looks okay.  It's certainly free of holes now, which is good.

20180918-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I was very much taking my time so by the time I was putting rust treater on everything there wasn't time to really do any of the next jobs.  It will give the rust treater time to do its thing and when I go back in I can clean everything down again and get the sealant and filler work done where required, then strip the paint off the C pillars and get the whole lot painted freshly ready for the screen to be reinstalled.  After that, it'll be new lights time, which should be a fairly quick job since I know exactly what I'm doing on that now.

20180918-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

[Timewaster]

I must have turned over two pages..

 

Wasn't there a funky colour block pattern on the boot lid?

[vulgalour]

There was, back in 2013.

[PhilA]

Now I really feel old.

 

 

Phil

[vulgalour]

More progress on this today.  I've decided to do the rear lights ahead of the filler work on the screen surround so that I can do all the filler work in one go when the lights are installed.  First up, disconnect and label the old light units, this should make wiring up for the new light units much easier.

20180920-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Then take the flapwheel and very carefully buzz the seam away where the buckets meet the back panel.  This was slightly easier on the inner buckets because I could wiggle them about since they're going straight in the bin.  The outers required a more measured approach.  I did a good enough job at putting these in that they were annoying to remove.  I'm also glad I made the decision to use just a couple of spot welds and seam sealer on the backing plates because that meant they weren't too difficult to remove and realign for the new lights.  This saves me buying and waiting for a new pair of cake tins to arrive to replace the outer buckets, so I can just crack on with the job.

20180920-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The reason for removing both pairs of buckets is that the outers needed realigning.  The BMW lights have an angled back so the buckets for those weren't installed straight.  The new Ford lights have completely flat backs and are considerably easier to install.  Mocked up with a new bucket.

20180920-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I do lose a bit of depth on the outer buckets, but not so much it's a problem.  The central chrome piece will stick out from the buckets with the red brake light buried behind them, which is the look I want.  The back panel has a curve side to side and leans out at the top so there's no straight edges to work with on the car, everything has to be aligned mostly by eye to begin with and then tweaked afterwards.  Here you can see the new bucket pushed into its new home and the old outer bucket, both will need material trimming off once they're welded in.  I found it easier last time to weld the buckets in place and trim the excess off afterwards rather than trying to trim them exactly to shape.

20180920-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The two holes matched in size does look better than the previous staggered arrangement.  This is no surprise because this is how I originally wanted to do it but had to improvise when I couldn't get a second pair of the Ford lights I wanted to use.

20180920-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Got some tape out and mocked up the new lenses.  That's why it looks wonky in the second picture.  I'm happier with this, it fits the panel shapes better and is much more what I had in mind.

20180920-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

20180920-07 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Next job is to make all the backing plates match and weld those into the buckets before welding them into the car.  That will allow me to screw the lenses in place which will help with alignment.  I'm not sure I'll get this all done over the weekend but I should get a good way with it.

[320touring]

#rocketboostaz

[JeeExEll]

Aw this is gonna look fucking ace.

Nearly a year on from original idea (4th Oct last year) but now is the time to do it.

 

http://autoshite.com/topic/10789-1980-austin-princess-2009-buckets/page-84

[PhilA]

Nice. I saw a pair of those lights go by the other day in my rear view, a little Ford pickup truck.

 

They look nice in the sunshine. I look forward to seeing this all painted up with all the afterburners in place.

 

Is the plan still to remove the fog lights below the bumper and integrate them?

 

 

Phil

[Tadhg Tiogar]

I smiled when I saw the "buckets". They reminded me of cooking pots, a bit like this

[PhilA]

Great buckets of fire?

 

Phil

[JeeExEll]

^ Aye. A couple of days ago there were real flames shooting out of those 4 round holes. How cool was that.

 

Certainly cooler than any manky old Batmobile.

[vulgalour]

I've been given a good bit of advice on lining up the buckets using a baton of wood and some screws to hold them all in a nice straight line, so that's helpful and should save me a lot of time.

 

For the fog lights, I was going to integrate a single one into one of the clear lens portions of the new lights.  I've had a second thought about this and am now considering just moving one of the existing fog lights underneath the number plate and removing the other.  I won't know if that works until I see it in person, but if it does then it saves a bit of work and I'll simple have the two inner clear lenses as reversing lights.

 

I'm also not sure if I'm having all four red lights as running and brake, or having 2 as running and 2 or 4 as brake.  Decisions, decisions.

[PhilA]

I was looking at dual red/white LED's here (popular for fire department and ambulance vehicles) and realized you need to change those to modern GM light sockets.

 

Why? Those are wedge base.

 

Phil

[Noel Tidybeard]

i would think 2 brake and all 4 tail

[Des]

Would it be possible to engineer scrolling brake lights that follow a circle counter rotating?  And hang on some nipple tassles.

[MarvinsMom]

we aprove, this thread is much better without fire.

[vulgalour]

Des:  Bit tricky to do scrolling brake lights with a single incandescent bulb and I'm not sure the tassles would suit me.

[Zelandeth]

I'd say having as many brake lights as possible can only be a good thing these days.

[SiC]

Lightbulbfun probably be able to hook you up with some 1kW stage lighting bulbs so you can outshine even the brightest and most modern Audi brake lights.

[Ghosty]

I'd have two running and four brake, because then it's more obvious you're braking.

[JeeExEll]

All 4 running for maximum speed, and lit during the day too for instant acceleration.

VULGERBiRDS ARE GO GO GO !!!

[vulgalour]

I lost the weekend's progress to a cold, unfortunately.  I started today by cleaning off all the stuff that needed cleaning off the old backing plates and the old buckets and then measuring to find something the right size to cut the backing plates out to.  As luck would have it, the back of the smaller lights I'd fitted is the correct size for the hole I need to cut out and that just so happens to be the same size as the hole already cut out in the old outer buckets I'd cleaned up.

20180925-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Then, using advice offered I scrounged around the unit for a stick of something to put across the back of the buckets to get them in line.  It was a bit of a challenge to find something that wasn't too long to go in the boot or too short to reach the back of both outer buckets, and not having a saw didn't help matters.  Got there in the end.  I also couldn't really screw the wood to the back of the buckets because they had nothing to screw to and I didn't have a suitable sized piece to put in the hole from the outside to sandwich the backing plate to the wood on the inside to keep things secure.  So I improvised with masking tape and a ruler.  It was a lot of tweaking and moving and measuring, and re-measuring, and measuring again.  I got everything as close as the car would let me and the whole process took rather longer than expected.  Oh and I welded the backing plates to the buckets before installing them, which made life a lot easier, I'll go around the seam with seam sealer as I did before which proved both a great way to prevent water ingress and a good way to give a nice smooth finish.

20180925-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Satisfied everything was lined up it was surprising just how far the buckets had to be moved from the original position when they were accomodating the slanted back BMW lights.  I did try one of the new buckets in the hole to make sure I had the maximum depth I could get just in case buying new ones for the outer would make more sense and the difference was only 2-3mm so I've just reused the old ones.  The new lights will have the chrome sticking out a little bit with the red lens frenched back and I'm absolutely fine with that, it looks pretty good in mock up.

20180925-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I had enough time to get the outer buckets tacked in place, and you can see here where the holes for the fixing screws of the old lights  have been welded up since they don't line up with the holes needed for the new lights.  Things welded very nicely, the welder was behaving and I was relaxed enough that this wasn't a stressful job today.  I'm optimistic that the final welding will go fairly well. I'll be trimming a bit of excess off the buckets just to make it easier to weld around the bottom edge, but I won't trim them flush until I've seam welded the whole circumference.

20180925-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I ran out of time to go further than plonking a lens in the hole and I'm quite happy with it.  I may do the same measure, align, and tack weld of the inner buckets just to make sure all the lights line up properly with one another before seam welding things, that way if I do need to make adjustments, it won't be too difficult.

20180925-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

[vulgalour]

This is an important update because it's the first time the idea in my head has been realised in the meatspace.  This is what I wanted to do before I chose to compromise with the BMW lights and this is what I'm happy with.  I had to untack the driver's side outer bucket and reposition it, on checking alignment today I found it had moved, probably when I was tacking it in, and I hadn't noticed.  This was very obvious when lining up the new inner buckets.  The backing plates for the inner buckets were easy to cut the middles out of, weld into the buckets, and get installed into the back panel.  I also found that it wasn't too bad trimming the panel out to accept the larger inner buckets now I've got a feel for the shapes and how they stretch and distort across the panel.  Before too long, I had a nice uniform rear end shaping up.  I've welded the top two-thirds of each bucket here, and trimmed off most of the excess material but ran out of time to finish the bottom third.

20180929-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

For marking up the fixing holes for the lights I found I couldn't use the marker pens because they were too fat to get through the screw holes, and the skinny pencil I had didn't show up against the bare metal of the backing plate.  I could have driven home and got a skinny pen that would fit and work, or I could grab the roll of masking tape next to me and improvise.

20180929-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Centre punched, small pilot hole drilled, and then a larger hole made for all 16 fixing holes and that was that job jobbed, allowing me to finally see if my measurements were good enough and if all this work had been worth it.

20180929-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

It very much is.  I'm really happy with how this looks, it's exceeded my expectations.  The only issue is the passenger side outer light which sits pointed every so slightly up.  I suspect this is because I bent the backing plate a little when drilling the fixing holes, the drill went with a bit of a bang on the top two holes, it will be an easy fix at any rate.  That's also the replacement lens, which is a slightly paler red than the others, combined with the camera lens distortion and, well, you get the idea.  It's just a teensy bit off and I'll sort it.

20180929-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

The chrome centre pieces stick out just enough to be interesting, but not so much they look goofy, sitting almost as far out as the waist line of the boot lid, which is pretty much ideal.

20180929-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

I did think I'd want to remove the fog lights from under the car but seeing it all together I'm not so sure I do.  They don't look out of place on the back.  I will unbolt them to see what things look like without to make up my mind for certain, but I could well be keeping them.  It's one less bit of wiring to work out if I do.

20180929-07 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr

 

Suffice to say, I'm very happy with the result so far and I'm looking forward to splashing some paint on the finished bodywork very soon.