Saab 96L - An Occasional Series.

[DSdriver]

On 10/16/2019 at 8:34 PM, artdjones said:

When I get bored with the back corner,I do some more underseal stripping at the front corner.

Are those hand cut cross grooves in the tyre, spacing looks a bit random?

[bunglebus]

Goodyear Eagle NCT2 was like that, among others

[artdjones]

The welding is finished in that wheel arch, so I took 20 minutes today to seam seal it all.

Before

 

 

After



[juular]

This is a really nice car. Good to see it being saved. Your work is really paying off.

Totally understand getting fed up staring at one corner and so doing random jobs somewhere else. It keeps it from getting monotonous.

Following with interest.

[Uncle Jimmy]

Well done, plough on...I have about 20hrs work to do on my and it will be roadworthy!

[Cord Fourteener]

Nice thread, this is coming on well. I like the nice co-incidence to!

I'm looking forwards to seeing this running.

[artdjones]

And zinc primer brushed on today.

[N Dentressangle]

On 12/28/2020 at 6:45 PM, Nibblet said:

Well done, plough on...I have about 20hrs work to do on my and it will be roadworthy!

Get on with it!!! 😉

[artdjones]

Moving on to the front left wheel arch.

This strange looking patch is at the junction of the inner wing and the front valance.

What lies beneath ☹️

Tidied up.

Welded up.  It could be neater but is strong.

I realized that the two valance end are a mix of thin patches and filler so there will be some welding needed there too.

[artdjones]

 

After a good look at the valance I realised that the end was mainly some odd shaped patches. It all got chopped off to reveal this:-

It had a quarter inch of filler over it before I started. I put a patch in the valance edge, then opened out the main rot hole.

Next I tidied up the rusted brackets inside and got rid of the ragged pitted bit on the upper corner.

Then made a patch and held it in place with intergrips.

I lapped the patch slightly under the engine bay floor by a quarter inch.

Then welded it in.

I'm still not in practice with my welding, but the linisher is my friend. And I can always fill any small hole with weld. You can see that I added a narrow strip on the bottom of the inner wing where it laps around the valance. I treated all the bare patches and also put some Hydrate 80 on any surface rust on the inner wing.

Also I took the opportunity to clean and paint the shock :-

And the bumper bracket.

This work was spread over my spare time in the last week.

Next job, seam seal the repairs inside the engine bay and under the inner wing, then more zinc primer.

[Cord Fourteener]

This is epic. I can't imagine all this hidden rust makes you happy but the thread is very pleasing to see it get done so lovingly.

[artdjones]

33 minutes ago, Tim_E said:

This is epic. I can't imagine all this hidden rust makes you happy but the thread is very pleasing to see it get done so lovingly.

I'm not too upset by this amount of rust. And it being such an interesting car helps. I wouldn't do it for an Escort.😁

[Cord Fourteener]

10 minutes ago, artdjones said:

I'm not too upset by this amount of rust. And it being such an interesting car helps. I wouldn't do it for an Escort.😁

There are some who would for a mk1 or 2 Escort perhaps but ha no I agree, this is a special car needing some special attention. 

Amazing work, I'm glad you're unphased.

[artdjones]

Seam sealed on Wednesday.

Two coats of zinc primer yesterday and this morning.

Then on to the sills.

The front half was a bit crusty. On the last picture you can see the rear jacking point. I forgot to take a picture of its comrade on the front, but unfortunately the sill was holed behind it. So I cut it off.

These things cost ££ so I ground the sill remains off it and treated it for later reattachment.

Then noticed the edge of the floor had some small holes.

And finally extended the hole in the undersill up to the wheel arch. It will make for a neater join. And there are  two lap jointed patches on the sill further back and I don't want the underneath of the car to look like a patchwork quilt. Although I feel a temptation to cut those patches off and butt joint some new ones in.

The only thing holding up progress now is a lack of sheet steel. I have enough for the strip on the edge of the floor, but I need some 1.5mm sheet to replace the piece of sill(96 sills are very thick), and I'm wondering where to get it during lockdown. I have some cheques to pay in in town next week, so I may get a chance to go to the local sheet metal worker/tractor repairer to see if he has a small offcut.

[artdjones]

I still had a couple of scraps of steel left so l made a patch to fill in the front half of the hole in the floor

Then seam welded it.

I hate overhead welding. 

I filled in the back half as well.

Next bit was to replace the strip of steel that had to be cut out of the sill to get proper access to the floor.

Note BX jack.

After that the next stage was to replace the front 8" of sill.

I made a stupid error here. I should have welded the jacking point on to the patch rather than waiting until the patch was attached to the car.

It proved difficult to get the jacking point welded on neatly later, whereas I could have plug welded it on from behind on the bench.

There's a very small mudflap on a bracket on the back of the sill on these and in getting the rusty bracket off I found two tiny holes. I opened them back to solid metal with a step drill.

Then put in two tiny patches ground to shape. A good way of getting these small pieces exactly where you need them to go is to weld a piece of coat hanger wire to them, then you can steady them with one hand while tack welding them in.

They were welded all around, ground back , and a new bracket made and attached.

Then the whole sill was treated, seam sealed and zinc primed.

It's a bit of a patchwork quilt, as there's two other welded patches under there  done many years ago. If any other work is ever done under there I will buy a whole undersill and replace everything. So, now to side two.

[Sunny Jim]

Just been catching up on this thread. Great progress, keep up the wonderful work.

[artdjones]

Now moving on to the right hand quarter panel. Crusty at the top.

Also crusty at the bottom.

Rust removal at the top left a large hole.

I decided to work from the outside in. The flange that joins the wheel arch front to the quarter panel was non existent at the top and as it curves in two dimensions is fairly difficult to make.

So first I made a patch to fill the hole in the back of the quarter panel and tacked it into place temporarily.

Then made a slotted flange piece that curved in two directions.

Then ground the patch off and joined the two bits together.

Next step was to make the inner flange to match and weld in onto the car.

Then tack the outer piece in place.

Welded it all around.

Then ground it back.

This was all quite time consuming and I don't think I'll ever be invited on to Welding With the Stars.

[Bstardchild]

Loving this - good work on the welding repairs it really does look amazingly solid

I do lament the fact that a cheque for a fiver to DVLA used to get a sheaf of info on previous owners before data protection got in the way

Used to make tracing a cars history so much easier

[artdjones]

I do have a reasonable amount of history in a folder that came with it.

[Bstardchild]

38 minutes ago, artdjones said:

I do have a reasonable amount of history in a folder that came with it.

That helps for sure