S2 Restoration Options.

[newsh]

Good work dude

[geryS2]

huge respect for your work !

that takes some courage, impressive, keep on man !

[andy10v]

This is really interesting to see what is under the skin.

Keep up the good work!

[AndyP]

that said my skills are fairly limited!

I think looking at what you've achieved so far, that may be a bit of an understatement

[Twenny Benson]

The cat is 22 years old, deaf, almost toothless constantly barb'ed up so he doesn't have a seizure and follows me everywhere I go, thats why he's always in the background of most of my pic's! Because he's deaf the grinder, MIG or metal bashing doesn't scare him off! He would happily sit in the shell while I cut it up if I let him. Gets right on my ****!

I have a feeling trying to replace the inner A pillar for some straight metalwork will be a reet headache, nothing is going to lineup, the picture doesn't really show how badly dented the whole area is, but your right, now I know its pretty fooked it will do my head in if I don't put it right. I guess I better start bracing this shell up properly before cutting anymore out of it.

On another note, replacing your rear outer wheel tubs will be a challenge & a half with the rear quarters in place, not sure how you would pull that off to be honest, that said my skills are fairly limited!

[Error404]

nice pussy

I think the question really is can you live with it knowing its there?
No-one else will ever know except you. Things like that grate on me when I know about them, even if they;re hidden. That's why i started stripping mine previously, and why one day i will replace both sills and outer rear arch tubs as i know they are not right... i only did a quick fix to stop them corroding any more

[Twenny Benson]

Slow progress update. I haven't been feeling 100% for a while, just about over it now I think as my strength is slowly returning.

So almost there with the sill dents, been bashing away.

This end I have finished to a point I can live with, it wasn't to bad anyway.





The dent in the middle is pretty much there now





The problem end is starting to play ball but still requires more work!





So enough of the tin bashin

Back to the shell, I've made a start at the front floorpan replacement, removed a section from the CQ



After taking some measurements something wasn't right, after a quick check with the floor cross members it was obvious the 6 speed tunnels are different from the 5 speed!



So quick headscratch, I trimmed down the replacement piece and was left with this



Marked out the floor pan and started trimming it away.



You can see the end of the floor pan rib here, this extended right into the rear half of the floorpan on the Coupe, much shorter on my ABY. I once again lost my breakfast when I saw the state of the A pillar behind the floorpan





Errr thats a bit worrying, it should look like this



I really am starting to wonder what happened to this car and how bad the smash was that resulted in these half arsed repairs. I found the reason why the sill was filling up with water which has caused most of these issues, the front driver side sunroof drain wasn't connected to the outlet grommet in the A pillar, the outlet was plugged with a regular grommet and the drain left dangling inside the A pillar to fill the sill with water! Nice one.

So what to do about the inner A pillar??? Do I deconstruct the A pillar and repair it all or just hammer it into shape the best I can with the limited access and live with it, no doubt it has lost some of its structural integrity as it is. To put this right will require alot of structurally invasive work, more than I had planned for anyway. She will never be a show queen, in all honesty it will just get the crap flogged out of it everytime it gets driven so is it worth the time & effort to put it 100% right?

[Twenny Benson]

respect for your work

Thanks mate

The first floor repair section is pretty much fully welded where it needs to be now, I was cautious to take my time as I'm worried of warping the panels. Welding thin stuff is a whole different game to welding fat section stuff. Here is what the finished weld looks like.....



Not massively pretty but it has penetrated through to the other side nicely so I'm happy its as solid as it can be. I will dress the weld down when I exchange grinder number 3 under warranty!

In between welding small spots at a time I turned my attention to finishing the sill prep. There is a bit of surface rust that has pitted the metal so still deciding what to do with that, I could POR15 it or cut it out!?! Anyway it had suffered the usual jack damage and a little transport damage


Jack damage





Transit damage





This one is nasty because you will easily see this on the car, the dent aint to bad but the crease to the swage line will be visible from a far, so I broke out the hammers & dollies and started tapping them out







Gone! well good enough you wont see it anyway

I've made a start on the jack damage buts its tricky cause you can't the hammers in there to knock the metal out, slight improvisation and over enthusiasm!



More work required! It will get there eventually, I guess you have to tread carefully to not overly stretch the metal but I can't leave dents in it!

I've resided to the fact this will take ages and I thought I would have got alot more done this week, hours just turn into minutes. Good job I'm enjoying it really!

[quattrostyle]

respect for your work

[Twenny Benson]

Cheers dude

[Error404]

cracking work mate, you're making a real nice job of that

[Twenny Benson]

Update

I jumped to it this morning and thought it a better idea to trim the floor out in pieces rather than trying to cut it right first time as I was thinking yesterday



Shat myself at the sight of the inside of this box section, then shat myself again when I realised the B pillar is floating the bottom flange that sits between the box section bit & the sill has completely rotten away! Luckily I have the donor one to graft in, starting to wonder how badly this car is going to crab when its done





Bit of a scratch at the filth and luckily there is alot of cavity wax in there but it don't look great and I anticipate more rust in there.



I will come back to this once the floor is done and the sill & outer arch are off.

So I continued to trim away and check, trim, check etc



Once I was happy with the fit I cleaned up the floorpan & primed it, repaired the flanges where I had drilled through them by accident and primed them.



Fitted it up and tacked it in



Bear in mind I don't plan to use the stock seat rails so didn't pay any special attention in getting them parallel, just best fit the section and happy days, out of interest I will check to see how square they are tomorrow

I think its safe to say this is the turning point, the stripping down has turned into rebuilding feels good to see one nasty bit sorted, now to finish up the welding and move onto the other floor section.

[Twenny Benson]

I think so mate, pretty much anything the sill or quarter touched is rusty, the entire driver side of the car is corroding because of the previous dodgy repairs.

[Error404]

good work mate, was the floor pan rotten where the sill has been replaced before?

[Twenny Benson]

Update.

Finally the spot weld drill's arrived this morning so I jump right in and made a start. I've decided to leave the sill attached for now so I have a reference while fitting on the floor pan pieces. I removed the rear bench front lip piece and the front seat support thingy







Now I only need to replace the sill side of the floor pan as everything else seems alright.



So I marked up an area to remove on both panels and cut the piece from the donor





^ You can see the floor pan stiffening rib on the CQ this doesn't extend as far on the ABY so I drilled the rib off from underneath so I don't have holes in my floorpan, well not as many!

I still need to triple check the markings on the S2 floor against the cut section and cut it out, then drill off the million spot welds holding it in. This is job No.1 for tomorrow followed by tacking in the floor piece.

I've also made a start at repairing the few small rusty bits on the CQ rear quarter, there are a few crusty bits where the glass seal sits, like this.



Luckily the S2 rear quarter wasn't rusty here so I cut it off



Cut the rusty bits out, I cut them so they will be hidden under the window seal, you can see the dirty line where the seal starts.



Fit in the appropriate piece



Weld it in, dress it back and prime with zinc primer, it will get a lick of filler when its in place on the car and you'll never know.



I thought this was a good first repair since you'll never see it, wasn't too bad but could have been better.

So thats were I'm up to, prepping everything is taking forever and the thought of cutting the floor up makes my **** twitch! Oh well it is only metal!