Nev's tidy up

[Johns]

Hi all.

Since taking delivery in February and a trip to the Nationals, Nev hasn't been out.

The reason is that I discovered a rusty NSR floor, much to my disgust because I thought I had checked cafefully, before purchase. I blame the underseal which is over 1/2" thick in some areas.

Like the guy in Dirty Harry, I just had to know what was underneath, sooo, on Anzac Day I stripped the interior. Getting the original front mat out without destroying it was a @#$%^& of a job.

This is what I found;

NSR



and NSF



Fortunately on cutting out the rusted sections we discovered that the under floor braces are sound, this was the real concern. Despite appearances the brace under the front floor is only surface rusted. This will be treated with rust converter then filled with cavity wax. We will only need half sections for both front floors.

I bought a set of floor sections fron Rares, however we weren't happy with the fit so, over time, I acquired NOS sections which are perfect. The rear sections aren't quite big enough for the rear floors as we have rust a little way up the tunnel. To fix this we cut and shut the rares sections to get a good fit. The next photo shows this, the NOS section is yellow and the black is from Rares. This is what it looked like before grinding:



We used a mig for the repair, drilled holes where the original spot welds were and carefully migged them to look like factory welds.

We are very lucky that the floors have rusted from the inside out. There is no apparent rust in the sills or A pillars.

We will progressively repair all floor sections before taking the guards off. The NS one has rust down the rear edge.

I will post some finished floor pictures later and some detail of the guard repair. We will also take this opportunity to have some rechroming done.



Cheers
John

[graham_fuller]

Hi John,
Looks like your taking good care of Nev and he will be good as new I'm sure in the not too distant future.Keep up the pics.
Cheers,
Graham

[the_love_god]

Hi John, looking good mate ,if it was me would be best to garent blasting the floor top& bottom. then replace the floor pans.then you have a better look and clean were he welded is on rust he should spray weld throu ,it a spray you use between the new and old metal so it want rust inbetween.cheers AlfioM

[Johns]

Thanks Alf.

We thought about bead/sandblasting, but didn't for two reasons, firstly we will have cut out all of the rusted and weakened metal by the time we are finished We are going to do a little local blasting on the front box section floor braces, treat them and drill a couple of small holes so they can drain. Secondly, in a complete car, blasting makes a fearful mess.

If I were stripping to a bare shell, I would do it.

Cheers
John

[Ed]

Nice work John,

As Alf says, weld thru paint is great for these areas.

just bump up the amps a little to compensate.

Cheers

Ed

[Johns]

The near side floors are now complete.

This is how the nsf looked prior to repair, when this photo was taken removal of the damaged section was not complete;



We were concerned about the state of the underfloor brace, fortunately, apart from some jacking damage, it was ok, the pitting is light and we will fill all of these with cavity wax when we are finished;



Here is the floor with the new section in;



Here is the near side finished off, the joins are over braces where possible and have been ground off carefully so they are smooth;



Note the crayon marks on the doors. We have re-hung the rear door, a bugger of a job, no wonder they eliminated the filler strip between the doors on the FB!The original paint on the doors is in excellent condition, I just carefully cleaned it all up.

The welder we are using is a Pulse welder, it's not a MIG and we are using silicon bronze wire, this runs 600 degrees cooler than MIG so there is almost no distortion. We did not need to panelbeat anywhere, all we did was grind the welds flush.

Cheers
John

[the_love_god]

looking good john, just one thing your going to do is cavity wax ,ok   cavity wax is use on new paint ,not on old paint ,or rusty surface, use rust converter,then paint then cavity wax,sorry John not been a smart a##s just to help you out and others,cheers AlfioM

[Johns]

Thanks Alfio.

I'm working with two panelbeaters, I think we've got it all covered

Cheers
John

[Rabbitoh]

The welder we are using is a Pulse welder,

What are these welders worth?? are they as versatile as MIGs

[Johns]

Hi all,

We have finished the floor repairs. All I need to do now is apply the POR15 process to the floor, after cleaning it up with a wire brush.

For those who haven't used it, it is a three part process involving a cleaner, rust converter and the final black finish.

Needless to say when I went to buy it, the supplier didn't have the rust conveter, so we won't get to this now until after Christmas.

Here are some photos;



You might notice some holes in the repair section. These are for the application of cavity wax to the box section braces. We couldn't do this earlier for fear of fire, compounded by the underseal that covers the underside of the car. When finished we will seal the holes with grommets.





I found the original front seat uncomfortable, so we have been experimenting with light weight replacements. I think we still have some work to do  



Here is the welder we used;





It is an inverter pulse MIG. Inverter means the amperage is more controllable - it doesn't draw current straight from the mains - it comes from internal capacitors. The Pulse program allows you to halve the amperage, it welds at 900c as opposed to 1700c from a normal MIG. We used silicon bronze wire.

These units are used by MB, Ferrari, BMW etc.,

This completes the major part of the job, next is removal of the front guards for a minor rust repair on the NS and inspection and clean of the OS. I'm stll debating whether to take off all the chrome for replating, its a bit tired but not too bad. I'm trying not to interfere with the car too much, as its quite original.

Then we will remove the engine for repainting and possibly a precautionary head service and rear main replacement.

As the firewall and inner guards are in pretty good original condition we have decided not to paint these. We can't avoid repainting the engine, it has no paint on it!

More pics to follow.

To everyone on the forum, Merry Christmas and all the best for a happy, healthy and rust free 2007. And mostly thanks for your company - its been informative and above all, great fun.

John

[-KIWI-]

john
i have got a few spare cans of WURTH cavity wax if you want them (1 of the perks of being a WURTH rep }
free also have a couple of cans of weld thru primer if u need em
regards


queensland kiwi

[trevwood]

A very generous offer there from queensland kiwi, I just bought a can of weld through primer at $30  .
Maybe they saw me coming  .
Trev

[Johns]

Happy new year everyone.

Efter a vst to Nu Zuland over Chrestmus thet wus ruly weckered eh?, work recommenced on Nev last weekend.

As foreshadowed we removed the NSF guard for inspection and repair. Here is the skirt after it was removed.



It is hard to appreciate from the photo just how much underseal has been applied to this car. At the rear of the guard it was 4 inches thick, such that we thought there must have been a splash shield covering the A pillar! Because we could'nt see the rear guard bolts, we thought they bolted fron the guard end, took a while to figure that one out:

We weighed the stuff on the ground, we dug out 2 kilos just from this guard alone. I reckon the car must be at least 30 kilos heavier than normal. Its ugly, sticky, horrible shit that turns really gooey when wet with petrol, which seems to be the best stuff to remove it. I did, briefly think about trying to remove it all, but I don't think I'll live that long. Here's a close up;



What looks like rust in the photo is only holes in the door rubber return, underneath its fine. The only rust in the A pillar is where the bump for the bottom door hinge meets the guard inner surface, apart from a little surface rust the bottom of the A Pillar and subframe mount bolt area are perfect. The guard has has two previous small repairs which have been quite well patched, we will tidy these up. The stainless molds need some minor repairs. Since I took this photo I have removed more of the underseal, as you can see its about half an inch thick on the front face of the A pillar

The door seals don't appear to be original but as you can see in this photo, they have a return section which fits between the A pillar and guard. Can anyone clarify?

There was also a small u shaped rubber gasket over the lower portion of the guard;





Does anyone know if this is original? it looks like it but I couldn't find it in the Master Parts book.

Cheers
John

[mcl1959]

Yes original. They are listed in the parts book 8.161 ANTI-SQUEAK.  One at the top of the guard rear 7409498,
One at the bottom of the guard rear 7409621/2 and one at the grille opening 7410013/2.
The rust proofing treatment was also a Nasco option.
I have had a few cars with this treatment and generally it held the cars in good stead rust wise.

Ken

[Johns]

Ken,

Thanks for your response, I thought you would know.

The other gaskets weren't present, but this guard has been off before. The OF side one hasn't, as far as we are aware, so I will be interested to see what is there.

It's difficult to be positive about the underseal in this case. The car has done few miles and clearly not been left in the weather. I can't really see how it could have been much worse off if the stuff hadn't been applied.

regards
John

[zulu]

Keep up the good work John, looks like you are making good progress.

I had that stuff on my FE as well, although I don't recall it being that thick, took ages to remove.

Ken, Is there an appropriate replacement rubber profile that you know of for those guard rubber seals

Cheers, Gary

[Fast_Eddie]

There was a whole bundle of them at the place at Redfern. I presume they would still have them.

From memory only one side was available though.

Edward

[mcl1959]

Both the guard rear sections are a u shape moulded to shape, but with careful cutting both pieces could be made from straight sections. The front piece is really only a rubber sandwich between the guard and the grille with a bit of a lip on it to hold it in place during installation. Once again, could be made with flat rubber and glue.
Problems I have had with the rear lower section is that after repair to the bottom of the A pillar, the rubber doesn't quite fit properly any more and is easier to eliminate than fix.

Ken

[Johns]

Hi all.

Work on Nev progresses steadily, if not quickly.

I have finished applying POR 15 to the floor. Expensive, but really good stuff, you just have to forget everything you ever learn't about being a bloke and actually read the instructions because if don't you wear gloves and get it on your hands, you can't get it off. Sorry about the poor photo, I had to take it inside.



We then repaired the FE speed limiter, aka the sun visor, which did its best to fling itself off the roof when I was cruising at 110kph up the Hume on the way back from the Nationals last year (the car was on a trailer). It looks as though the centre screws came undone, the centre lifted, the OS bracket then let go and the visor was left flapping against the roof, only held on by the NS bracket

People were pulling along side waving at me, I just thought it was because they liked the car. Unbelieveably the visor just needed a little straightening and will need paint, I didn't even lose the acorn nuts.

Therefore, if you are travelling and you have a sun visor, check your nuts

The NS guard had been repaired but had not been off. It had a couple of rust spots, one where it is tight against the A pillar, the other was that the return around the rear edge had rusted away between the centre and lower guard bolts. We found this gives this part of the guard most of its strength so we repalced this section and refitted the caged nuts.

This part of the guard was out of shape. We made a cardboard template of the door shape adjacent the guard, so we knew the profile it had to be when it was off the car and didn't have to keep fitting and unfitting it. We shrunk and filed it, we'll put a skim of filler in later to get the profile exactly the same as the door.

We cleaned some of the !@#$% underseal from the inner A pillar, it came up pretty well. If you look carefully you can see a small rust hole near the lower bolt hole. We'll repair this also.

There is a photo of the bottom of the A pillar, we are lucky its very good here.







Next, we have to finish the guard, cavity wax it both before and after it is refitted, cavity wax the floor box sections. K & H make an acceptable one but the best I have used is made by a Dutch company called Den Braven, it comes in a green and white aerosol can. It flows very well and has a fine nozzel extension for hard to get to areas. The K&N product doesn't have this.

After an exploratory look inside the OS guard, the car will be off to the painter for some colour matching and painting.

The door trims are at the trimmers for new cards, I have some calico at home to glue to the underside of the original front floor matt where it has split, so that I can refit it later, without further damage.

As soon as we've adjusted the headlamp rim mounts, we'll send the die cast bits off for plating. I've decided not to rechrome the grille and bumper bars. Although worn, they are in fairly good condition and as this is a conservation exercise rather than a resto, I'll leave them be.

Cheers
John

[Johns]

Hi everyone,

Nev went to the painters yesterday, his longest trip since the Phillip Island Nationals. He cruised beautifully at 55 - 60 mph and I even had a couple of truckies toot me on the M7, sweet.

All the die cast parts, except the tailamp surrounds and rear quarter badges were sent to the platers in Queenbeyan on Monday. The trimmer has the door trims for new cards to be made and I will take some of the Tilli molds for repair next week.

After 5 months we're nearly there, then I have to start on the engine bay

Cheers
John