project 1974 Dolomite Sprint

[GingerNuttz]

That bit up the the wheel well was a nightmare, I got the passenger end and had to weld left handed while trying to fit up in that gap 😂. 

 

 

[SiC]

It's when one of those bendable torch neck torches would be very handy. YouTubers in the state's seem to have them but I've not found them here.

SiC working on his Dolomite

I wish! I'm terribly slow. Just chipping away at it one section at a time.

A pro would have this done in a month.

[SiC]

Some Friday night metal bashing





Other bit left is going to be a bit more awkward. After this I might go back to the front wing and get the bottom piece done.

I've got a replacement piece but I hate welding preformed panels in. If you cock it up, it costs more money! I'm dreading getting the rear arches done. They're hideously expensive panels and hens teeth.

[GingerNuttz]

The rear arches are piss easy. Lay the new arch over the old one and clamp it tight, cut through the new and old arch at the same time removing 5mm or so from the new one and you'll be left with a perfect match that you can slowly weld to avoid distortion.

If you make yourself believe its harder than it is you'll end up putting it off and putting it off. As long as you go slow and cut through both at the same time you'll be fine 

[Tickman]

You are plodding along nicely with this and not letting it be too daunting.

Nice tidy repair on that b pillar.

[SiC]

Time for a long overdue update.

Finished that B pillar off shortly after last posting.



Then started on the back of the cill.



Cut this bit off.



Which revealed this mess.


Even worse, whoever did the cill last didn't fix up and weld the inner membrane. So frustrating.


I did make this repair piece to repair the end of the cill. Idea being that I could reuse most of the existing.


Ultimately though I knew the whole sill needed to come off.


Good news is that a lot of it is not in terrible shape. Also the original membrane too.


So I started making up replacement bits to weld in.


As I was making sparks everywhere, I decided to drain the tank.



This lovely fuel is currently going through my lawnmowers. Once the water was drained out, they seem quite happy on it.




At this point my mojo had dropped to nearly zero. I knew I'd need buy a whole lot of panels too if I was going to make a decent job on this.

Sold my 1100 and got this instead.


Did a Cambelt change amongst other things and an MOT. Realised I did not like it and wasn't for me. Too comfy, refined and big for my tastes as a toy. Good car otherwise but I don't have a sophisticated enough taste for such a machine.


Then went hunting for a classic Mini. Idea was to get one that was road ready and wasn't yet another project. Realised that they were all rusty, no matter the budget and all projects of some degree - some immediate, some in a year or two. Varied from either really rusty, haven't looked hard enough or hidden under paint and filler. Also damn expensive for what you got. Frustrated I abandoned that idea for now!

Instead I decided to splunk some of my new found wealth from selling two cars on some panels. So took the day off and collected a bunch of panels from the club last week.


Last night I got on with welding the piece in I clamped up 3 month ago. Also took the time to line up the outer cill with the arch repair panel to see how well everything went together.


Then realised I must have had the wrong side cill on. Glad I lined this all up to check!


That end should be this end. I need to cut off the bottom piece in here and weld this all up at the back end. It's currently a right mess.


With the panels in hand now, I just need to crack on getting these cills and arches done. Another project is going to be the boot floor. It's still there but very patchy. Thankfully Purplebarken gave me this boot floor piece a while back. The fuel tank side (left) is going to be especially useful.


In other news, a previous owner of this car from about 15years ago found my YouTube video! Told me a few useful nuggets about it. It had been owned by a local college for a bit and used as something for the students to restore. Hence why it went through quite a few owners for a bit.

Also the seats are actually rare heated seats from a Swiss model car. That'll explain the wires coming out the bottom of the seat! Never wired up though. Maybe I might. Seats do need a lot of attention though as the foam is kaput and vinyl sections ripped.

Most interesting is that it had a "new" engine, gearbox and diff around 100k. Explains why it ran so well when I did drive it that one time to bring it home. Admittedly not sure if new new, or existing and rebuilt. But better than 125k which it would have been on if original.

[SiC]

Busy weekend hacking away slowly at this sill.

First job was to weld in the piece that was clamped up a few months ago. Also welded a bit more up on the inner membrane. I have a new panel that I could replace all this, however I'm keen to keep most of what I can as some of it is in good shape and original too.

Before

After


Next was to tackle the rear of the sill. This had been repaired before but looked like externally without having as much access as I do now.


A lot of chopping of old repair work out left quite a bit missing.


Now a case of piecing it all back together again.








That took a good 6 hours of work over the weekend. Slow progress but chipping away at it a piece at a time.

The inner wheel arch is going to need serious reconstruction. The inside panel is completely missing at the bottom corner. It is quite a complex curved shape that needs to be replicated.


Then there is holes along the top and then quite a bit missing at the bottom rear. Outer arch I have a repair piece. But there isn't too much for it to join back onto yet.


Probably going to obtain a panel to repair this. Not cheap and I will only need a smallish section to do this. But would save a whole lot of time while being a neater job.

[SiC]

Longest Dolomite project ever?

Got on with the front inner membrane this weekend. Took way longer than I hoped.

Cut out the old front bit.


Used the cut piece as a template to go on the new piece.


After I cut this piece down, I realised that this was the wrong side. (I hadn't written nearside on it at that point!)


Cut and welded that all in. There is a squared off bottom to the inner membrane. From the online guides it appears it should go inside and the top on the bottom of the inner sill. However I decided to cut off the bottom of the inner sill as that was past its best. So instead I drilled holes and plug welded to the bottom of the inner sill. I'll have to make a new piece all the way along the bottom for welding the outer sill to


I then deliberated if I wanted to cut out that remaining middle piece. I'd already welded up the bottom but I wasn't completely happy.


So I decided to cut this out. I'm glad I did as the backside was rusty and pitted. You can also see the messy backside of my welding! I'll blame it on the thin pitted steel

Again the cut piece made a handy template. The rear most piece I have lost the bit I cut out when I last tidyed up. So I had to use a paper template to figure out where to cut.


Clamped in


Then an awful lot of welding and grinding.



Also to mention from last time is that I finished the top piece by the door.


Looks alright with the sills and arch panel temporarily in place.


Also removed the rear pillar plastic finishing piece. Took a lot of careful prying to not damage anything doing this. Another rot prone area that I'm thankful isn't too bad. I'll clean up with a wire brush and then maybe weld the hole with copper behind to close it up.


I had hoped to get those piece on this weekend too. Instead I spent a solid two days sorting the above. But I'm slow and it's time consuming to do this.

Currently my shoulders ache pretty bad from laying on my side all weekend. It's going to punish me this week.


Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[SiC]

Today I did some more welding on the Dolomite. Current plan is to do much less thinking and more welding. Even if it doesn't turn out precisely correct, I want to get stuff progressing properly again on it.

Put a lip across the bottom of the inner membrane for the outer sill to attach to. A tad shorter than the outer sill section as I'll seam weld the outer sill on the inside for neatness.


Started fixing the inner arch.



Unfortunately my plan of doing less thinking led me to get the positioning slightly out when I put the outer arch panel on. Ended up putting slits on the inner arch that I'll use to try repositioning it to fit.



Put a small section in the front of the inner arch. Needs the bottom bit next but the repro inner arch panel is an awful fit and will need a lot of fettling.
Outer sill only clamped in place for now.

[trigger]

Jezz, and to think i stressed about mine needing a sill! You've really had your work cut out there haven't you, they are such ungrateful cars, mine's running like a piece of shit again, i don't think it's ran right since I've owned it!

Hopefully once you've battled through your weldfest things will improve for you.

[SiC]

25 minutes ago, trigger said:

Jezz, and to think i stressed about mine needing a sill! You've really had your work cut out there haven't you, they are such ungrateful cars, mine's running like a piece of shit again, i don't think it's ran right since I've owned it!

Hopefully once you've battled through your weldfest things will improve for you.

I've still got shite loads of welding to do too. 😕

On this drivers side apart from the arch and sills, there still is the c-pillar pinholes, boot floor, front lower wing, eyebrow area, top of wing and then the dreaded headlight mounts. I am hoping to do it without removing the wing but I know it'll be a right pia.

Then do pretty much all the same on the nearside! Apart from loosing my mojo with it, I'm a really slow worker. Someone like @GingerNuttz would have probably got this welded up and read for paint in a months worth of weekends. Things are a bit easier and quicker now that I have all the repair panels I need. 

Once that's done it'll be the mechanicals. The engine hasn't been run for nearly 3 years now. Dreading having to do that. No doubt something will crop up when it's first run, even if it did run really well when I drove it back the 48 mile motorway run after buying it. As you know, they're pretty fragile engines and nowadays parts are much harder to get. Second hand unknown engines are in the 2k+ territory. Heads can fuse to blocks, making them basically scrap. Plus that disasterous pump...

The only reason I'm still going is because I know I won't get another and too many people have told me that I'll sell it before I finish! I'm too stubborn to let that happen now.

My original plan was going for pristine but right now that's lower priority. So for example, instead of removing all the filler and going to bare metal, I'll just build it up again around the repaired areas. The worst filler thickness is in the wings, but at least they're original metal and not structural. Other big area of filler on this car when I bought it was bodge repairs on the sills, but they're of course going to be done.

My plan is still to get this offside all finished and then put it back up in storage. Hopefully before my mojo runs out on it again!

Would like to get the BGT into the garage this summer, as it'll allow me to use it more. I don't like leaving my classics out in the rain, even in the summer. So I tend to put them back into storage.

Also need to get the Midget into the garage and a quick tidy up on the nearside too.

[SiC]

Fixed the first picture in the update. Stupid Tapatalk has a habit of mixing the images up when hitting the submit button. Don't think anyone noticed the mismatch between photos and text though 😆

[SiC]

Tonight I had a spare two hours and the Inner arch is (almost) one piece now. Just a tiny square to finish off at the bottom. Paint running as it's 11c in my garage with the heater running on full. 6c when I started.


This is the slice I made the other day to allow me to shape the inner arch once I've got it in place and lined up nicely on the outside.

[PhilA]

On 1/29/2021 at 10:16 AM, SiC said:

It's when one of those bendable torch neck torches would be very handy. YouTubers in the state's seem to have them but I've not found them here.

Late to the party but that's why we differentiate between flashlight and torch.

 

Is it fixed yet?

[SiC]

12 hours ago, PhilA said:

Late to the party but that's why we differentiate between flashlight and torch.

 

Is it fixed yet?

I was thinking more this type of torch:

https://www.weldingdirect.co.uk/Holch-flexi-neck-MIG-220-3m

Would be super handy but really rather pricey!

[SiC]

This is a bit more affordable alternative.

https://tbws.co.uk/shop/parweld-pro-grip-max-mb15-flex-mig-torch/

 I wonder if the neck could be retrofitted onto my Binzel torch.

[GingerNuttz]

Be rough using a flexi with 0.6 wire I'd imagine 😂

[SiC]

22 minutes ago, GingerNuttz said:

Be rough using a flexi with 0.6 wire I'd imagine 😂

When my current .6mm reel finishes up, I'm going to try .8mm and see how I get on with it. I always do have a habit of laying a bit too much weld down as it is, so it may end up being a bit of a disaster. 🤣

Having any better luck with your GYS Multi-pearl or given up with it now? Pretty sure a lot of the problems you have had on the synergic mode is the long torch setup you usually use, as the settings won't know to take it into account.

[GingerNuttz]

5 minutes ago, SiC said:

When my current .6mm reel finishes up, I'm going to try .8mm and see how I get on with it. I always do have a habit of laying a bit too much weld down as it is, so it may end up being a bit of a disaster. 🤣

Having any better luck with your GYS Multi-pearl or given up with it now? Pretty sure a lot of the problems you have had on the synergic mode is the long torch setup you usually use, as the settings won't know to take it into account.

I never used it on synergic, I tried it once and went straight to manual 😂.

I hate it, it's fucking hopeles compared to the 162 on thin stuff. I can weld 0.6 on that old transformer mig and this just can't go that low imo, I even went to 0.6 wire and laid down 2 1cm welds and ripped it back out 😂 On thicker stuff it's great and lays down cracking welds but I weld a ton of thin stuff so it's kinda pointless

Toying with shifting it on and going back to transformer tbh

[SiC]

10 hours ago, GingerNuttz said:

I never used it on synergic, I tried it once and went straight to manual .
I hate it, it's fucking hopeles compared to the 162 on thin stuff. I can weld 0.6 on that old transformer mig and this just can't go that low imo, I even went to 0.6 wire and laid down 2 1cm welds and ripped it back out  On thicker stuff it's great and lays down cracking welds but I weld a ton of thin stuff so it's kinda pointless
Toying with shifting it on and going back to transformer tbh

I'm really surprised you've had so much trouble with it. I've just been welding 0.8mm material tonight and had no problem with it. Tbh I tend to turn up the power a tad too as it's slightly too low for my taste by default. Voltage setting goes down to 13v and 1mm/s on mine. I'll try getting a current measurement from that to see what it is going down to.

Have you contacted GYS support? Apparently they're pretty decent in the UK. I do wonder if there is something wrong with yours - maybe wasn't calibrated in the factory properly?

[SiC]

I'm Dolomite related news, I welded the left hand square tonight. A bit slapped on but it does the job. Priority is to get this car done, so didn't spend ages fettling into shape and position this time. It's strong and won't be visible under stone chip underseal.


Painted the rest of the inner arch.


Next job is to line up the outer arch panel and sill. Then grind back the edges to provide something to weld along.


I'm going to take my time on this as, unlike everything else so far, this will be directly visible bodywork. So plenty of air to cool down the tack welds as I go. It will still need filler as I'm not planning to remove all the old stuff, as trying not to go overboard. Plus more paint I remove, more expensive a professional paintjob would be.

[GingerNuttz]

8 hours ago, SiC said:

I'm really surprised you've had so much trouble with it. I've just been welding 0.8mm material tonight and had no problem with it. Tbh I tend to turn up the power a tad too as it's slightly too low for my taste by default. Voltage setting goes down to 13v and 1mm/s on mine. I'll try getting a current measurement from that to see what it is going down to.

Have you contacted GYS support? Apparently they're pretty decent in the UK. I do wonder if there is something wrong with yours - maybe wasn't calibrated in the factory properly?

It bird nests 0.6 with the slightest bend in any length of hose with the roller pressure fully off so I can't go low enough in wire size for it to work right. I think the 4 rollers grip the 0.6 too tight and won't allow slippage when the wire jams so it just nests it inside the machine.

I've got other welders I can use but I've been persevering with it. 

 

[Bfg]

On 2/2/2022 at 8:55 AM, GingerNuttz said:

It bird nests 0.6 with the slightest bend in any length of hose with the roller pressure fully off so I can't go low enough in wire size for it to work right. I think the 4 rollers grip the 0.6 too tight and won't allow slippage when the wire jams so it just nests it inside the machine.

I've got other welders I can use but I've been persevering with it.

I cannot use 0.6 wire with my Clarke 151 TE  as it likewise soon kinks the wire and then gets itself into a rats nest.  I presume the friction in the cable & torch-head are too much and so it's like pushing a bit of thin string.  Replace that with 0.8 wire and it all works well, throughout the range.  Of course the wire feed needs to be dialed down (when using thicker wire) to lessen the amount of wire being feed, but in using this MIG., the difference is like between damp chalk and Yorkshire Wensleydale .. ones foc useless for anything, while the other is "just grand". 

Pete.  

[SiC]

Spent a good 4 hours moving, clamping, trimming and re-clamping till I got things lined up as best as it would go. I'm fighting against factory inaccuracies and repro repair panel inaccuracies.






Also put a slit into the sill so I could bend it out in the middle. From what I've read, the factory sill has a curve in the middle but the Dolomite club sill doesn't. A screwdriver works well enough as a cam to push it out and line it up to the door.


Then tacked the outer repair arch panel on. Hadn't quite got the settings dialed in correctly at first, so some may need grinding off and redoing. I used a lot of compressed air to try to stop too much heat getting into the panel.

[SiC]

I've (badly) plug welded up the outer arch to the inner. Will need more work to clean this up as I've managed to blow holes on the edge where the inner didn't quite meet with the outer. I may even try seam welding it, but it'll be a grim job with the drum in the way.


Lined up and clamped the sill in place.

I've done a smaller lip deliberately at the bottom, so I can seam weld all the way along here and not make it too noticeable. Hoping it'll be stronger than plug welding along and tbh I'm not that great at plug welds either.



Smashed the top of the lip into place. You can see the screwdriver and cuts I made so there can be a bend in the middle.


Removed the rear door.


Then tacked it all into place. The front I think is a bit set too far in, so may have to slice that weld and pull it out slightly.
I may quickly rehang the doors to check alignment and if all good, seam weld the lot up.



Also need to fix this front of the sill back up. I lined it up on the back of the sill in the rear arch, but the front is a tad short. Most of this should be hidden under the lower wing anyway and I have a repair panel for that.


The next problem is the b-pillar door mounting plates have stripped threads. They must have been like this for years and some of the bolts were barely grabbing when I first removed them last year.

This is a tricky one as I can't easily cut them loose, nor I'm not sure where I even can get replacements. Seems options are helicoil, retap then hope or drill out larger and tap for a bigger bolt.

[GingerNuttz]

I just cut the hinge plates out on the Herald and remade them in 4mm steel, mines had been retapped a few times by the state they were in.

You could just buy a size up in a drill tap and go that route too if they're not wallered out to buggery.

[SiC]

9 minutes ago, GingerNuttz said:

I just cut the hinge plates out on the Herald and remade them in 4mm steel, mines had been retapped a few times by the state they were in.

You could just buy a size up in a drill tap and go that route too if they're not wallered out to buggery.

Plenty of meat left on the plate in mine, so I think I may just go a size bigger. The pillar is still factory and in good condition otherwise, so don't really want to go choppy chop into it. Even if the factory welds are quite laughable.

 

While I have your attention, do you reckon the penetration is good enough here? I've reverted to manual mode now and trying to learn how to setup a machine myself. The welds are the other side and this is the backside.

[GingerNuttz]

6 minutes ago, SiC said:

Plenty of meat left on the plate in mine, so I think I may just go a size bigger. The pillar is still factory and in good condition otherwise, so don't really want to go choppy chop into it. Even if the factory welds are quite laughable.

 

While I have your attention, do you reckon the penetration is good enough here? I've reverted to manual mode now and trying to learn how to setup a machine myself. The welds are the other side and this is the backside.

As long as it's showing penetration on the opposite side of the weld it should be good.

I'm using mine about 14v and 7 on the wire feed atm with 0.6 wire on 0.8 steel and it seems to do fine.

[SiC]

Just now, GingerNuttz said:

As long as it's showing penetration on the opposite side of the weld it should be good.

Yeah that's the opposite side.

That's running on 22.5v/4.5mm with 0.6 wire on 1.2mm steel. I've found that I can run at a lot higher voltage and speeds than synergic default, which I find more comfortable and still getting (what I think are) decent welds. 

[GingerNuttz]

1 minute ago, SiC said:

Yeah that's the opposite side.

That's running on 22.5v/4.5mm with 0.6 wire on 1.2mm steel. I've found that I can run at a lot higher voltage and speeds than synergic default, which I find more comfortable and still getting (what I think are) decent welds. 

The synergic is crap on it anyways, I tried it once and it was totally wrong for how I weld.

I'm up in the 18-23V range on 1.2 with the wire speed about 9-10 depending on the joint I'm welding.