My 2002's resurrection - 56k go die

[Justin B]

Alright. Done welding for today, and what a relief. I was getting tired, and tired of welding. The beads aren't anything to write home about, but they're good enough. The plates are way overbuilt.

Anyway, pictures! Lots of em!

Holding in the patch panel with some small magnets.

Done, ...

... looks good enough underneath too ...

... and the drain plug fits :roll:


On to the landing plate welding nightmare.

Boxed in the inside forward plates, this is the passenger side one. I did the same for the driver side as well obviously.

Passenger side rear outside plate -

This is how I had to angle the gun so I could partially see wtf I was doing, meanwhile laying on my side across the transmission tunnel in front of where the rear seat would be. This is where I started to get a little irritated. You also may note that there's a fat bump in my floor board there that shouldn't be, limiting how low I can get the MIG gun. I might try to bash it down a little with a mallet but its really not going to be in the way of anything anymore, and I'll never get it perfect so I'll probably just leave it as is.

Like this.

The bottom weld probably came out nicer overall than the one on the left side of this picture anyway.

The basic plates for the pass side inside rear plate before I slaughtered it with welds.

Done.

Same thing, other side.

Done.



This is one of the next projects, body wise,

along with welding shut the original fuse box hole. I also need to get on fabricating my dual brake master cylinder set up on my pedal box. That'll be trick.

[Justin B]

Got the forward inside plates boxed in. Definitely not the prettiest welds I've done, but it's all well penetrated and solid. I hate welding vertically, especially in small spaces. The patch panel went in nicely too, and the drain plug fits well. I'm working on the outside rear plates right now the, passenger side went in quickly so the driver side one should be a piece of cake too. The inside rear ones will definitely need to be boxed as well, so my goal is to get all the plates welded in by quitting time tonight. The actual seat rails will go in tomorrow, then drilled for the sliding brackets and seats test fitted.

Pics later.

[Justin B]

Hmm. Looking at the pics above #4 in Post #132 it looks like I may be making two patch areas for the water-trap drain holes. I know there's rust there, but it looks like it's poking through in that pic. BRB!!

<30 seconds....>

Alright. Didn't think so. It's definitely pitted there though, and I knew that. As long as I can neutralize it with some of my Picklex20, I'll be fine. I have some POR-15 paste too that can be used to build up weakened metal so I'll use a little there. When I put in the drain plugs they'll get a good smearing of Wurth seam sealer to keep water out from between the two pieces of metal.

[Justin B]

Well, I'm supposed to be working on gokarts at the kart track at Infineon....but its kind of the off season, being all rainy and everything, and I havent gone into work in like 2 months (edit- not by my choice, just no work). Touchy subject, and I HATE retail (I worked at OSH for 6 months last year), so I'm trying to suck it up till I get work again OR give up on that and try to find work elsewhere but I honestly haven't really looked. I'm going to have to do something pretty soon though.

So basically, I don't. Right now.

[deutschman]

man can't wait to see her done!!! there is not much more i love in the world then a nice 2002. do you mind if i ask where you work? it always interests me to see where people who do this kind of work at home work. i hope i can do this my self some day.

[Justin B]

Alright another end of day update here.

Here's what took the bulk of my time. I'm afraid I'm going to have to do something similar to this for the rear tunnel-side plates as well. That's only the 2nd 1.5" cutting disc I've had to use between cutting out those little strips, and the floor sections. Not bad.

Undercoat begone-

The idea I had here is to put it in the best location possible, then trace the outside edge with a sharpie and cut/grind off the excess.

Something like this.

I probably could have left it like this, but I wanted a little bit of gap between the pieces. It can hold itself in at this point. I ground off a little bit more mostly on the right hand side in this picture.

Poifekt!


I should be busy tomorrow welding in the triangle pieces to box in the plates, probably welding in that floor piece, and at least starting to weld in the rear plates. If I need to box in the rear inside ones like the front I can pretty much gurantee that I won't get it 100% done tomorrow, but probably by Friday.

[Justin B]

By the way, the goal is to get this thing ready for the E30 Picnic, next year. Quite a goal to set without any real income right now, but I should be working on this thing EVERY DAY, doing something.

Kind of set myself up for that one, I've posted it on a public forum :)

[Justin B]

haha! Because I don't have the dough to farm out the work Vlad. I'm not as much of a baller as you are ;) I kind of take pride in doing stuff myself, anyway...but believe me, if I had the money, the bodywork would be one of the last things I'd want to do myself. It's kind of important to get right. I could only imagine the bill to fix the bodywork if I took it to a shop though. Probably the most expensive thing that a shop will get to do to this car, unless I give up and let someone put quarter panels on it, will be the paint (including stripping it to metal). I'd even do that but I don't have a good 60-80 gallon compressor, water trap, or good paint gun! I could buy all that shit for less than the job would cost and have a bunch of tools too, but who knows how good the paint would turn out...I don't think the poor sob story about how long I've had the car, and what it will be like done, would make any of it any cheaper either even at CM :P lol

As far as welding goes today, I think the welding god is frowning on me. I got a late start and it is some seriously tedious work cutting little strips of 8th inch thick metal (not exactly fast with a dremel cut off wheel either, but precise) to box in the inside plates. I have the two pieces for the passenger side front tunnel plate done, but it took me a long time to get even close to right. Im taking a short break, then I'll head out and work on getting the the driver side boxing plates done. That'll probably put me at 6:00 here by then.

If I get motivated I'll probably remove the dried up undercoating off the good piece of metal I'll be patching into the floor too. Maybe even mock it up, mark it and trim it down to size. It's just BARELY larger than the hole in a couple spots. Pretty sure though it's not too small anywhere, I just didn't want to have to remove a lot of material though.

[vlad]

daymn.. thread resurection !!!

I just realized, you are in Petaluma !!! How come the car is not done when Casey Motorsports is in the same town ?

[Justin B]

Well FWIW, so far I haven't gotten a chance to get working on the car. I've had to help out getting the race car trailer back in the backyard. Everything was going good until about 10 minutes ago when the stupid @%^*in motorized dolly thing we have for it didn't feel like pushing all the weight up a ramp to the side walk. Playing the waiting game for two smallish car batteries to charge from almost dead, trying again, and finally starting work on the deuce.

One thing regarding the 02 though, is I've pretty much decided it would be best to box in the inside plates. I think I might have to do that with the inside rear ones as well to an extent. I'm not sure 100% where the rear bars will land on the tunnel yet, but it looks like it'll be on a slight angle too, but shying away from the back side.

[Justin B]

haha. good to hear. I think today I'm going to see what I can do with the rear plates and possibly getting the rails in, and patching that ex-rust spot.

[Turf1600]

You inspired me to pull the motor out of my 1600.

I have been staring at it for about 4 months....

It was your empty engine bay shot that did it

[jakeb]

finally some progress. Keep it up and you might be ready for 2002 +10

[Justin B]

You're welcome :)

Last real update of the day. It's almost 9:00 and I just finished cutting out the "good" metal to patch my floor. Couple of pics, and that'll be it for today. I'd say it was productive!

Cancer, be gone!

Lay out of the good, the bad, and the ugly (missing! :D)

My ugly mug. Remember kids, safety first! Ah, the end of a good day. :up:

[craz azn]

Thanks for the link dude!