2CV welding help required

[BertiePuntoCabrio]

Hello All,  long time, no post!

I have been very much enjoying the ex @Six-cylinder 2CV Dolly, but the mot is expiring VERY soon.

Dolly needs welding - the floors and sills. 

2 peeps have had a look so far - a "specialist" who says it needs a complete restoration, and an enthusiastic amateur who assures me patching will be fine!

However, I need to find someone who can do the welding for me - MOT pass is the target, not perfection. 

I am in North West Norfolk, and getting quite desperate to get this done as the mot expires 12th May. I have no off road storage after that!!

Please can anyone help me or point me in the direction of a tame, friendly, realistic welder?

Huge thanks in advance, from me and Dolly!

[Noel Tidybeard]

ahh that's where it went- i was sworn to secrecy at the FOD as it was only just sold!😁

[BertiePuntoCabrio]

Yes, she is still alive and well and has survived a coastal winter outside - well apart from the floor..... 

[Split_Pin]

I'm no welder, and have no pictures to go on, but your specialist is probably right.

[500tops]

Is Cambridge too far? 

https://cambridge2cvltd.co.uk/

[SiC]

Any pictures of the crusty bits to give an idea?

Presumably they are too near prescribed areas being a body on chassis?

[BertiePuntoCabrio]

4 minutes ago, 500tops said:

Is Cambridge too far? 

https://cambridge2cvltd.co.uk/

Full resto there

[BertiePuntoCabrio]

[BertiePuntoCabrio]

[SiC]

Doesn't look terrible from initial glance but it depends what it looks like after being cleaned up. It's not exactly a complex structure to be welded up. 

Personally I'd probably chuck it in for an MOT and see where the yellow chalk ends up. 

[BertiePuntoCabrio]

Yes, it's all saveable - I just need to find someone who can actually do it for me

[richardmorris]

I’d suggest Cambridge 2cv given your location, but I don’t think it needed a full on job. Saw will Walden ( of Cambridge 2cv) yesterday at Bicester with a very nicely done beachcomber.

there’s a huge difference in cost between full restoration to better than new, and nice useable 2cv. Mine is definitely in the nice useable..

 

[BertiePuntoCabrio]

Agree, a full resto is all very nice but my funds are currently quite limited so that's not possible right now. 

I just need Dolly back on the road for now.

[chaseracer]

All the panels are available from ECAS - www.2cvparts.co.uk - and they're galvanised.  We used a lot of them on the racer rebuild!

Another vote here for Will Waldron at Cambridge 2CV.

[BertiePuntoCabrio]

Thanks All. 

Look, I haven't got the money for a resto by Will at this time.

For the future, yes, but right now it's not an option.

I have to park on the road and I can't weld, so I need someone to patch this up for me, right now - if anyone knows someone who can help, please let me know.

Keywords - patch (bodge even!), cheap, mot passable 😀

Thanks so much!

[Stinkwheel]

This  hits me right in the heart/head thing that we so often encounter with old cars. 

Back in the day  (whenever that might have been) and Dyanes/2CV's and CX's were my only cars and all i ever wanted to drive, there were lots of 'patched up every year' for the test cars, they were loved and they were pretty well looked after, just never going to be anything but a much loved and useful car and never going to be restored. Most garages understood this and would help out with a bit of a 'special' wekding job or do it myself after i learnt. It seems a shame things apparantly now always 'need' full resto, what happened to solid but scruffy repairs?

This thread really shows how things have changed, i understand that car needs floors and sills and other bits in reality and they can be done in a day, reasonably easily. Years ago i'd have done just that and offered to do the same here, but distance is a killer here. I guess what im really doing here is lamenting my youth and cheap 2CV's kept running happily along on a shoestring. Not much point to my waffle other than that really, fingers crossed you find a welder  @BertiePuntoCabrio

[Rocket88]

Living where you do, I’d be inclined to seek out someone who does welding in the agricultural industry….

[Mr Pastry]

The problem is that patching isn't nice work to do.  The patches themselves have to be cut and shaped and that can be quite time consuming, and with the MOT requirement for seam welding, it can take just as long, and cost as much, as cutting out and fitting a new panel properly.  So basically you are asking a skilled person to do it badly, which understandably they are not going to be happy with.  There will be a back street guy somewhere who will do it, but don't expect too much, you get what you pay for.  As said, take it for an MOT first so you know what areas actually need doing.

 

[Split_Pin]

This all reminds me very much of the struggle of Huggy the Cadillac and the 2 schools of thought. One was to keep it scruffy and 'bodged' and the other was to let it go as a full restoration was going to cost more than buying a better example, both of which were out of the question at that time.

Keeping very old cars and either not having welding facilities or someone you trust to do it for you is difficult, I have been there in the past before I bought my own stuff and also found out about Gingernutzz.

The problem is, normal garages do not like or will not do welding. As you may know, those patches of rust are going to multiply to at least 3 or 4 times once you start poking. It's always the tip of the iceberg.

My opinion (feel free to ignore it) is that it all needs sorting properly, now. Take Hubnut for example. His 2CV has been fully rebuilt several times over and he is fully aware that further work is needed.  Bodging is putting it off and then it will be even worse than before.

Feel free to flame me but I've been there before.

[Joey spud]

1 hour ago, Mr Pastry said:

The problem is that patching isn't nice work to do.  The patches themselves have to be cut and shaped and that can be quite time consuming, and with the MOT requirement for seam welding, it can take just as long, and cost as much, as cutting out and fitting a new panel properly.  So basically you are asking a skilled person to do it badly, which understandably they are not going to be happy with.  There will be a back street guy somewhere who will do it, but don't expect too much, you get what you pay for.  As said, take it for an MOT first so you know what areas actually need doing.

 

I have to agree with Mr Pastry it's a horrible job repairing random inaccessable rot.

I have an elderly relative with a Rascal Camper van that needs front arches,seat belt mounts and front panel sorting out he has tried local garages and mobile guys and got nowhere so reluctantly he asked me it i could have a look as he knows i am busy with a house move and my own crap.

I don't want to do it but i've looked at it and it doesn't look a lot but it's fiddly,awkward shapes and has been bodged before and i know once i start cutting i will end up finding more corrosion. Flanges that have gone crispy and swollen are far more time consuming than they they look.

I  estimated three days to do a nice tidy job and as he is family quoted him £240 labour plus gas and sundries say £300 all in which i thought was reasonable but i have now heard back through the family grape vine that i am being greedy and ripping him off.

I am in a no win situation here as if i just patch over the rot or ignore the flakey bits it will look crap (and its an area that is very visible) and it'll need attention again in the future and i'll get called a bodger and expected to put it right for free.

 

 

[Matty]

1 hour ago, Joey spud said:

I have to agree with Mr Pastry it's a horrible job repairing random inaccessable rot.

I have an elderly relative with a Rascal Camper van that needs front arches,seat belt mounts and front panel sorting out he has tried local garages and mobile guys and got nowhere so reluctantly he asked me it i could have a look as he knows i am busy with a house move and my own crap.

I don't want to do it but i've looked at it and it doesn't look a lot but it's fiddly,awkward shapes and has been bodged before and i know once i start cutting i will end up finding more corrosion. Flanges that have gone crispy and swollen are far more time consuming than they they look.

I  estimated three days to do a nice tidy job and as he is family quoted him £240 labour plus gas and sundries say £300 all in which i thought was reasonable but i have now heard back through the family grape vine that i am being greedy and ripping him off.

I am in a no win situation here as if i just patch over the rot or ignore the flakey bits it will look crap (and its an area that is very visible) and it'll need attention again in the future and i'll get called a bodger and expected to put it right for free.

 

 

300 for 3 days. Take the consumables off and that's £80 a day. Maybe the families right @Joey spud? At ten pound an hour you're robbing them blind! All them years at technical college and serving our time, ten quid an hour is far too much for the likes of us 😄

[Mr Pastry]

1 hour ago, Joey spud said:

I am in a no win situation here as if i just patch over the rot or ignore the flakey bits it will look crap (and its an area that is very visible) and it'll need attention again in the future and i'll get called a bodger and expected to put it right for free.

Yeah typical friends and family.  Nobody else is prepared to  do it, and yet they think you are too expensive.  I guess it will take more than 3 days so call it £500 and they can take it or leave it, but I think you are probably going to be too busy with other stuff for the forseeable, aren't you?

 

[Dick Longbridge]

1 hour ago, Joey spud said:

I have to agree with Mr Pastry it's a horrible job repairing random inaccessable rot.

I have an elderly relative with a Rascal Camper van that needs front arches,seat belt mounts and front panel sorting out he has tried local garages and mobile guys and got nowhere so reluctantly he asked me it i could have a look as he knows i am busy with a house move and my own crap.

I don't want to do it but i've looked at it and it doesn't look a lot but it's fiddly,awkward shapes and has been bodged before and i know once i start cutting i will end up finding more corrosion. Flanges that have gone crispy and swollen are far more time consuming than they they look.

I  estimated three days to do a nice tidy job and as he is family quoted him £240 labour plus gas and sundries say £300 all in which i thought was reasonable but i have now heard back through the family grape vine that i am being greedy and ripping him off.

I am in a no win situation here as if i just patch over the rot or ignore the flakey bits it will look crap (and its an area that is very visible) and it'll need attention again in the future and i'll get called a bodger and expected to put it right for free.

 

 

Tell him to get a quote from a garage and you'll beat their price by 10%. 

[Bren]

Having done welding on similar to the 2CV I concur it is horrible - it is much more pleasant to replace a panel than patch.

Many garages no longer do "hot work" other having oxy acetylene for stubborn fasteners and fitting ring gear to flywheels. Insurance don't like it and a shortage of competent people.

Thirty years ago mk2 cavalier sills and mk 3 escort battery trays were bread and butter repairs - things have changed so much now.

I have turned down jobs because you cannot get people to understand that the work will be more involved than they think - all the deck clearing just make sure the thing doesn't go up in flames once you start welding. The clearing back to something you can weld to. The time to prepare a new section. Cleaning up to make the repair look as invisible as possible. Sadly there are plenty of people still think you can do this for £50 and a bottle of whisky.

I hope the 2CV can be repaired.

[Stinkwheel]

As i said above and as all others have said above, new panels are the way, if its complete floors and sills a 2CV can be done by even an only  competent welder in less than a day, add another day if it needs bulkheads (inner or outer) as well  - This is basically a 'patch up' job on a 2CV anyway, far from full restoration.

I'll even make a bold statement. If you could get the car to Northants and leave it with me a few weeks and leave the new panels as well, I'd do it 

  

[BertiePuntoCabrio]

24 minutes ago, Stinkwheel said:

As i said above and as all others have said above, new panels are the way, if its complete floors and sills a 2CV can be done by even an only  competent welder in less than a day, add another day if it needs bulkheads (inner or outer) as well  - This is basically a 'patch up' job on a 2CV anyway, far from full restoration.

I'll even make a bold statement. If you could get the car to Northants and leave it with me a few weeks and leave the new panels as well, I'd do it 

  

May take you up on that, thanks 👍

[warch]

12 minutes ago, Stinkwheel said:

As i said above and as all others have said above, new panels are the way, if its complete floors and sills a 2CV can be done by even an only  competent welder in less than a day, add another day if it needs bulkheads (inner or outer) as well  - This is basically a 'patch up' job on a 2CV anyway, far from full restoration.

I'll even make a bold statement. If you could get the car to Northants and leave it with me a few weeks and leave the new panels as well, I'd do it 

  

Bloody hell, you can't say fairer than that!

I concur on the welding issue, based on my extensive* previous experience*. Piecing in little repair sections takes bloody ages, especially when the welding process suddenly decides to reveal further areas of weak or corroded material by blowing it through. Most weldists would prefer to replace entire sections going back to good metal, especially given the requirement for continuous seam welding. Bodging looks shit, takes ages to make look cosmetically respectable and will invariably deteriorate in no time.

 

[Talbot]

3 hours ago, Joey spud said:

i have now heard back through the family grape vine that i am being greedy and ripping him off.

"Fine, take it to a garage then".

2 hours ago, Bren said:

I have turned down jobs because you cannot get people to understand that the work will be more involved than they think - all the deck clearing just make sure the thing doesn't go up in flames once you start welding. The clearing back to something you can weld to. The time to prepare a new section. Cleaning up to make the repair look as invisible as possible. Sadly there are plenty of people still think you can do this for £50 and a bottle of whisky.

I'll trot these two pictures out again:

This:

Became this:

And required some fairly complex reconstructive surgery.  If I had a garage do a bodge job on it, it would have been £300 and lasted maybe 6 months.  What I did (full reconstruction) would have cost £1500 at a garage.

And despite moving everything out of the way, I still set fire to the fucker.

[Mally]

Is that the one that had the full restoration, or have I got my wires crossed here?

EDIT scrub that, Different one to my thinking.

 

[Bren]

13 minutes ago, Talbot said:

"Fine, take it to a garage then".

I'll trot these two pictures out again:

This:

Became this:

And required some fairly complex reconstructive surgery.  If I had a garage do a bodge job on it, it would have been £300 and lasted maybe 6 months.  What I did (full reconstruction) would have cost £1500 at a garage.

And despite moving everything out of the way, I still set fire to the fucker.

What car?