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Is the forum going to live on, even though it's not active any more? 

When does all the hosting/domain registration, etc. run out?

I've been a bit too slack with my updates.  Although not much was done, I was expecting to complete certain jobs and post an update to cover all of it, but for various reasons I've not had the time to work on the car - in fact I've not been able to get to it for nearly 6 weeks now - which is really annoying as the weather has been ideal for it.  Anyway, using the photos for reminding, here's what I managed to get done in June and July.

As mentioned at the end of the previous post, I was in the process of patching up the rear crossrail.  Here you can see the first part of the patch roughly welded in and before cleaning up. 


It looks an odd shape, but that is because it will match up to the patch parts I started a couple of years ago.  It will make more sense when you see them together.
Here is said piece, which has been cleaned up and had a layer of epoxy primer applied to the inner face.  The other side will be accessible when it's on the car, so I will clean/paint that later.


This was trial fitted and marked where it needed triming or primer removed in the welding areas. 


I then drilled all the holes ready for spot welding and whilst the drill was out I did the same on the other side.


I'd (relatively) recently cleaned up and epoxy primered the end of the frame rails. The patch was offered up and I marked all the areas that would be welded, then proceeded to grind the epoxy of these spots.



And here you can see the patch welded into place.  It still needs cleaning up and epoxying, which is one of the next jobs on the list.  Just ahead of that, I plan to chop out more of the lower edge of the tail panel.  I'm going to cut it along the line of spot welds where it joings the trunk pan, as this will give me something to support the new panel, rather than it being a straight butt weld.




Lets hope the next update isn't as long coming as this one was!

As has often been the case, I've had a change of direction since last time.

The fitting of the quarter skin was started when I realised that the alignment of the trunk drop off depended on the wheel house and quarter skin.  I've now realised that now I've got that base alignment done, there was no reason not to weld the wheelhouse in place, which would allow me to work on the trunk drop off again.

First job for this was drilling lots of hole for spot welds.  For this I used my new punch/flange tool, which made it quick and easy.


These were then sanded back and sprayed with weld-through primmer


The mating surfaces on the body were cleaned up and primered to match.


The panel was then clamped and screwed to the body, ready to be welded on.


I then proceeded to spot weld the numerous holes.  All seemed to be going well, until I was applying the last couple near the rear of the panel.  As I released the screw holding it in place the panel popped forward, showing a lack of weld penetration to the body.  It look fine from the outside, but closer inspection showed that a number of the welds were the same.  I don't know if the problem was the smaller holes than I had been using (the punch is 5mm, where previously I'd been drilling 8mm) or my welding technique (probably a combination of both), but I needed to rectify it, as it was clear the panel wasn't properly fixed on.

Rather than spend lots of time cutting out out, cleaning up etc, and potentially ruining the panel, I took a different approach.  Most of the welds were far enough apart to fit the sheet metal screws I was using, so I proceeded to put one in each gap, effectively drilling a hole through both panels.  Then, one at a time I removed a screw, enlarged the hole in the outer panel, then plug welded the hole, ensuring good penetration into both layers. It took quite a while, but it did get the job done.



Whilst I had the welder out, I finished off the welding on the inner panel that hadn't been completed before.



I did a small amount of clean up work on the welds, then applied a 1st coat of epoxy primer.  A further coat will be applied next time I mix some up.





Continuing with the change of direction, I've decided that I want to tackle the tailpanel before going any further with the trunk drop off, as there is already a lot of metal missing from that corner, and I wanted to have something in place to use for reference.

Before getting to the tail panel I'd need to finish work on the crossrail panel that sits behind it.  I'd made a start in fabricating this a couple of years ago, so dug that bit out and assessed what needed to be done next.  Offering it up showed it needed some addional sections made.  I also came to the conlusion that I'd not cut enough of the bad panel out, so chopped some more of the outer panel away to get a better view.


Since this picture I've cut away most of the rusted bit you can see, and have cut a section ready to replace it.  It needs a bit of finessing, and then it can be attached, then the main patch I'd prepared can be adapted and also fitted.

Another small step, that actually feels like a big one!

After looking at the window channel, it looks like the earlier repairs have held up well and don't need re-visiting.  There is some surface rust to be tackled, but I think that can be dealt with without welding.

So, back to the outer wheelhouse/quarter/trunk drop off alignments.  First off was to trim the lip that was around the window edge.


Now there are no lips to interfere with fitment, I clamped the quarter over the outer wheelhouse lip and see how far off we were.


Amazingly, it all looked good straight away. A little encouragement and the body lines were where I wanted.



Looked good at the back end too.



With that all held in place, I had a go at aligning the trunk drop off too.  This didn't work as due to the rough edges on the bottom of the old quarter.  I'll cut this out when I'm ready to have another go at this.


As I started to disasemble the parts, I realisd I'd made a mistake.  The outer wheelhouse hadn't been properly held in place.  There were screws at the front and rear, but these still allowed the top to rotate out slightly. Only a quarter of an inch, but enough to mean the alignment I thought was good was actually wrong.  After re-applying the top screws I found the alignment at the front was too far out to be acceptable, so the process had to start again.

I made a couple more tweaks to the front bottom end of the outer wheelhouse, so that it could go lower still - lower than I needed, but this helped as it gave more wiggle room.  Rather than screw the outer wheelhouse in place, this time I use a few well placed clamps, so that I could adjust it easily if required.


Then the quarter was offered up and clamps applied to pull it in tight where required.


This time I got things lined up properly, and was able to apply some screws to hold the position of quarter to outer wheelhouse, and wheelhouse to main body.


With those all lined up and held, I set about bending the quarter lip up to meet the wheelhouse flange.  Theres about half inch to be close up, all around the arch.  I placed a small piece of aluminium between a clamp and the panel, squeezing it up, and bending both parts up a bit at the same time, sort of rolling the arch, but not as extreme.



I'm about half way round so far, although I can't do the rear most part until the trunk drop off is in place.

Realistically, I've not moved on much, but seeing the panel in place is very satisfying, and it doesn't feel like long until I will be ready to start welding it in.  In practice, this could be a long way off, as I think I will need a full day to do all that welding.  I will go as far as I can up to that point, and then may move onto something else until the right opportunity comes up.

Slow progress is still progress, right?

After last weeks thought that the outer wheelhouse location is going to affect the quarter panel location, I switch focus to the quarter panel.

It took me about 15 minutes to mine a way through to the back of the garage and pull the panel from it's hidey-hole.  I then pulled the rear bumper, spoiler end and rear glass, and had an initial stab at lining things up to see what the start point was.  (Sorry no pics, it's hard enough lining up a large panel as it is, let alone trying to take a photo - perhaps I'll stand the phone up and take some on a timer?)

Anyway, it became clear that some modifications would be needed to the panel to get it ready to be aligned.  There is a lip along the front edge, where it folds over into the door jamb.  Looking at the fold, it was clear that it's not suitable to be fitted that way, so I cut that bit off.


With that out of the way, I was close to getting the front section of the panel flush with the car, but there were problems with the lower section at the front.  The very bottom of the panel is bent over, to be tucked in above the rocker.  This wasn't at the right angle, and I'm not yet sure the right height either. I made a small cut at the rear corner, then flattened the bottom section (without affecting the lower body line!).  Once the panel is aligned I will re-do the bend, ensuring it's right this time.


With those mods, I'm close to being able to try and get an alignment.  I'm not yet sure if I need to remove the upper lip, around the window frame, to complete this or not.  It will have to be removed anyway, so I will look at doing that next time.

I think I was close enough to see that where I had temporarily screwed the outer wheelhouse was about 1/2 inch too high.  This was evident at the mid-height and lower body lines.  I had to tweak the bottom edge of the wheelhouse to get it to sit lower into the rocker, and got it about 1/4 down. 


The rear side I have left where it is for now, and this appears to have lowered the front part of the panel by rotating it.  Next time (after removing the upper lip) I should be able to start clamping things and knowing for certain.

When I say next time, I mean next time I get back to this panel, as plans have changed again.  Having taken a look, I figure now is the best time to do any repairs that need doing to the window channel.  With the quarter and outer wheelhouse out of the way, I'll never have better access to the underside of this part of the panel.

Fun, fun, fun.  Or not as the case may be.

I've started trying to line up the driver's trunk drop off, and it's proving to be harder than I had imagined. I thought it would be a simple case of get the outer wheelhouse lined up where it needed to be, then fit the trunk drop off between it and the trunk edge. However in practice I'm not so sure.  I lined up the outer wheel house so there was a nice join around the full arc where it meets the inner panel, and fixed it in place with a couple of screws.


Then things start getting tricky.  The mating surfaces between the outer arch and the front of the drop off panel aren't even close.  The angles are way off, so I started massaging things a bit to get them somewhere near acceptable.  I can get the outer edge to line up nicely, so the arc for the quarter panel looks right, but it didn't appear far enough foward at the back edge, as it stuck out more than the end of the frame rail.
After looking at the replacement tail panel, I noticed that it isn't flat in that area and the drop-off does stick out slightly, so that may be alright after all.  I'm still not totally sure though.

To confuse matters even more, when I started looking on the passenger side for reference (it still has the original wheelhouse and drop-off in place) I noted there was a good 1/2 lip where the inner and outer wheelhouses meet, and a slightly lower one on the drop-off to trunk joint.  It looks like I may not need to be so exact in lining things up.

This did however get me thinking even more (I'm sure I'm over thinking things!) and I now think that I need to include the lining up of the outer quarter panel before committing to any welding of these panels.  The lower edge of the quarter has no option other than to line up with the outer wheelhouse lip, so I may need to raise or lower it from where it is now, and that may affect the drop off.


Whatever happens there, I know that I need to rebuild the trunk floor section, so started work on a patch piece.  Even this isn't as simple as expected as the lip of the drop-off isn't totally straight as I would have expceted.  The rearmost 10% kicks out and up slightly, making the patch panel fabbing a bit more tricky if it's going to match properly.

I'm back to the cardboard templates, here lining it up so the edges can be marked.


Then when it's pulled out I was able to firm up the lines ready for cutting.


As usual - I ran out of time to continue.  Hopefully more next week...

Work in 2017 is struggling to get started properly.  It's taken a while for the weather to come good, then when it has I've not had the time available.  I have however managed short session where I've been able to make a start on the trunk floor.

As previously described, I removed a chunk of the floor directy above the drivers frame rail, and cut/pulled back the section next to it to give me room to do the frame rail repair.  Therefore, my first steps are to put that back as it was.

First job was to clear some of the junk and dirt from the area, and then clean up the edges ready for welding.


It's then carefully bent back down and clamped in place.


Then welded up.



Sadly the session was too short to go any further.  I'll probably leave the welding clean up until after I've welded in the next section - whenever that happens to be...

Pictures Update....

I (almost) finished off welding in the rear most part of the inner wheel house.  Here you can see I've welded it up along the seam and the spot welds on the edge.  I've started grinding back the seam, but there's a thin spot where I've gone through and need to re-do.  I sprayed on some basic primer to give it a bit of protection over the winter, and will strip it back before putting the epoxy primer on.


Here's the void left just after the trunk drop off has been chopped out.  It doesn't really show the rough edge very well, but I'm currently planning to make a patch that will fit the whole area between the green lines.

Just in case there's anyone still out there....

Having spent the 2016/17 winter playing with manual tyre changing tools I got for Christmas, I've finally started back on the Camaro for the first time this year.

Yesterday lunchtime was spent removing the driver's trunk drop off.  Armed with the air hammer (my new favourite tool), I was able to rip through the seams quite quickly.  There were a few rips to the trunk lip, but that wasn't too bad as it was clear that there was some excessive rust along here too, so I will be looking to patch most if not all of it.

This may make the job of welding the new drop off in a bit easier, as I'm now looking at the possibility of welding the trunk pan patch the drop-off before it's welded into the car, then tying it onto the frame rail and the surviving trunk edge.  Time will tell if that works as well as I imagine.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, I ran out of time, but will snap a couple when I get back to work next time.

I tried to mock fit the drop off, and it looks like there will be some massaging required with the outer wheelhouse, which hasn't been welded in yet.

Time for another update, just to show I'm still here and working!

First up was the removal of the rusted section of the inner quarter.  This was the first opportunity I'd had to use the air hammer with chisel attachment. (You can also see my nice new carpet, which has a deep pile and is kind on the knees :-) )


All I can say is wow - I wish I had this when I started, it would have saved me hours of pounding away with a lump hammer.  I need to get used to using a bit, as it can be a litte over agressive, but will make a big difference going forward. Anyway, it took just a few seconds to cut away 5 spot welds to the inner support and the piece was out.


With that piece out of the way, I noted that it gave me good access to re-do the repair done to the trunk floor, many years ago when I was still working out which end of the welder to use.  To say it was ugly and poor is an understatement, and needed to be taken out.  I didn't get a 'before' picture, but here it is cut and primed ready to go.


When it was a case of weld it in, clean it up and apply some epoxy.



Before applying the epoxy, I took the chance to clean up the last lot of welding (to the inner wheel house) and some of the trunk support and frame rail and make good use of that batch of epoxy.




The final part of this installment was the insertion of the new part to replace what was cut out at the top of this post.
I carefully aligned it at the lower edge, where the arch is, to ensure the contour remained smooth across the pieces. A couple of butt weld clamps held it in place, and once tacked in, I was able to massage the upper parts to get them to line up as I needed.



When the seam was done, I was then able to clamp the piece onto the inner support and refill the spot welds.


I've ground down the welds on the lower part of the arch, as these will be visible behind the wheel.  The upper parts will be behind the outer wheelhouse, so I'm not going to worry about cleaning those up.  There is a section of welding that will be visible from inside the trunk, so I plan to clamber in there sometime to clean it up.  I'll need to do that before I apply any epoxy, so for now have just sprayed some cheap paint over it to protect the metal until I'm ready to sand it back of, clean it all up and epoxy both sides.

Before I do that, I plan to fix the trunk floor (where I'd cut some away to allow access to the frame rail) and make it whole again, so that it's secure enough to work inside when working on the arch.

The weather has well and trully turned now, and is a lot colder and frequently wet at the times when I'm available.  Work rate will have to slow, but I do want to keep plugging away at it.

Very nice.

I'd like to see Sam trying to move it to do the hoovering though... :tongue:

I think it helps that I know that the glass that I'm taking out isn't going to be re-used, and I have the replacement stored behind the shed. 

It's not that tricky though, just be very careful.

Did someone say progress? 

With some time off work I was finally able to put some reasonable hours into the car for the first time this year, and some good steps have now been made.

First off, and most important of all - I got a new piece of carpet!  I picked it up for pennies at a village fete, it's wide enough to fully cover the gravel area to the side of the car and was long enough to cut in half and give two pieces about as long as the main body section. Happy days!




Any way, back to the serious stuff, after a bit of fettling at the front section, I was able to get the drivers side rocker panel 95% welded in.  There's a couple of holes at the front door jamb where I need to get the door off before I can get to it, but the rest is done.  I've still got to grind the welds back and primer over them, but that will wait for another day.



With that now in, I was able to focus on patching the inner wheelhouse panel.  After mocking it up in place I could see that the floor/underseat panel needed extending along the lip.


A rough shape was cut and offered up, tweaked and then welded in place.



That, along with the edges of both panels were then cleaned up and zinc primed ready for welding.  I used my butt weld clamps in anger for the first time, to ensure a nice even fit around the panel.


I tacked in between the clamps, then jumbed back and forth between them to extend the weld without warping (good practice for when I get to the Quarter panels).  Clamps were then removed and the rest of the runs completed.  With the panel join completed, I then filled in the spot welds along the lower perimeter.


I didn't completed the full panel front to back though.  The front section needs to be welded from inside the car, and there was too much junk in the way, so that would be cleared later and welded another day. (still pending...) The rear section didn't quite fit where I'd cut (bad cutting) and will some metal removing from the car side, but there is also another section of the same panel that needs replacing, so I will do both of those at the same time. 

As with the rocker panel, the welds haven't been cleaned up yet, and I will wait until the rest of the welding is done and do them all at the same time.


Before attacking the rearmost section of the inner wheel house, I wanted to know how much of the rear quarter I could safely remove and still be able to cover with the patch panel.  Offering up the panel as it was didn't help as it was being blocked by the door's chrome trim.  This was removed, after carefully extracting the weather seal first - It did split around one of the plastic clips, but I am hopeful it can be re-used.  I do have spares if it can't. 

With the chrome out of the way I tried again, but also, now the rear window glass was in the way.  Having taken the glass out a few years ago, I knew this wasn't going to be a quick job, but it was necessary, so I got on with it.  I'd already pulled the trim off, so the first task was to remove the filler panel.  Getting the screws out was simple, but gettting the panel out whilst the trunk lid was still attached proved more tricky. I'd got myself in a bit of a mess, having moved the panel but not enough to get it out, but too far to be able to fully open/close the trunk.  It took a fair bit of wiggling, but it did come out - note to self - remove the trunk lid next time.

With that out of the way, I discovered it was really easy to use a sharp knife along the lower edge from the outside.  Using a narrow blade I was able to get it right around the corner too, being able to bend it slightly as the angle changed.  That was half the job done with relative ease - it was now the more difficult upper section that had to be tackled from inside.


You may remember that the inside was still storing a lot of the interior pieces, including the seats.  This was all pulled out and given a quick clean up, before being re-located to a freshly vacated area in the loft.  With a relatively clear interior, I was able to clean it up a bit more, before climbing in to attack the window seal from the inside.  It was a lot tougher along the top and needed a heavier duty blade, as the thin one was bending too much for my liking.  Even so, it didn't take long at all. I was well chuffed at around 40 mins of cutting to get it fully out, about 10% of what it took last time!



With the glass now out of the way, I was able to get a real check done on the size of the replacement skin.  I was pleased to find that it extended right up to and just past the trunk edge, confirming that I could take pretty much as much of the quarter out as I wanted.

Armed with this knowledge I cut out the section of quarter immediately around the section of inner wheelhouse that needed to be replaced.  I need to but a bit more, but have already got a much better view of what needs to be cut out.




More next time...

Maybe.. :chiny:  How much would you be looking for?
Any pics?

Corrected the link to the pic that should have appeared in the first post.  Here's a couple more.





I forgot to add, the pedals are adjustable, there are three holes so you can move them as the legs get longer.

They are £150 new.  This one isn't far off as-new condition.  Open to sensible offers at the moment. 

Anyone intested in a car the same as Jensen's?

We're getting rid of Alex's, which is the exact same model as Dean used as a base:

http://www.mkb.cc/forum/index.php?topic=11462.0


Totally stock, low miles, tax and MOT exempt.

Nice to see an old face.

Whats the latest updates on your fleet?

Another 4 months with no updates!

Time on the car over this time has been very limited, often odd sessions of less than an hourm, once or twice a week.  It doesn't feel like much has been achieved, however a couple of longer sessions last week have meant I've been able to make a few bigger, more satisfying jobs.

I mentioned in the last update that a compressor was on it's way, so I spent quite a chunk of time building a pipe system to help remove the water vapour from the air. Not used it in anger painting yet, but it seems to have done the job.


When that was done, attention finally turned back to the car.  I welded in the drivers front floor patch.  I've didn't have the time or energy to grind the welds back, so for now I just gave it a quick spray to cover it until I do get to it.


Then it was the Drivers rear floor section. This was a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, requiring lots of welding to piece the bits together.  I wanted to get all of the sections joined and ready to be welded in, so that they could be epoxy primed before going in.  First job was to fill the missing spot, which I was able to extract from the original floor piece that came out when the torque box was cut out.




I mocked it up and tacked it in situ, to ensure it was at the right angle, then it was taken out and fully seam welded and cleaned up.



This and a few other parts were then epoxied ready for fitting.



The patches were then welded into place, cleaned and primed.  Photos don't show it, but I also welded the inner rocker into the floor edge too.




Next up was going to be the outer rocker panel, but when checking over fitment, I remembered that the lower fender mount point was rusted out and needed fixing.


Not sure what the hole on the left of the pic is for, but I made use of it to help line up the patch so that the threaded hole was in the same place.  I started with a cardboard template which recorded the location of both holes.  This was then transfered to the donor piece, and a suitable threaded block (taken from a scrap fender) was welded on.



A bolt was then threaded through this and into the one on the car, the open holes aligned, and then the car section marked for cuttting to match the patch.  Then some careful cutting with the dremel and the rust is out.


The patch is then tacked in at one end, again using the open hole for alignment. The patch is then trimmed to match the size of the cut hole, tapped up into place and finally welded in properly and cleaned up flush.






With that done relatively quickly, I was able to start looking at the outer rocker.  It has already been drilled and prepared for welding, but the car side hasn't.  I put it into place with screws, jacked it up into place and started to mark the areas that need cleaning up. 



Not sure what needs to be done in this area yet. 

I may need to replace some of the metal, but I don't have any decent reference on how this should attach if it were a complete panel. Not sure if I'm missing anything, and what bits should be welded to the rocker.  Guess I'll be doing some research...

Congratulations  :up:

I keep changing my mind over what I want.  I'm currently drawn to gree, but a bit darker than the pics.

I like this, its a good discussion.

And it's doubled the weekly post count  :lol:

Personally, I prefer forums to FB, but do recognise it has a place.

I agree with the suggestions of consolidating things down, but ultimately keeping this forum alive.

I'm now leaning back to staying white, with blue stripes. 

Why can't this be easy?

The top two of your pics are fairly close to my likeliest options.

Currently I'm favouring Vauxhall's Arden blue, as it's the colour I had my Sprint Car back in the days....

I'm a way off painting yet, but with the weather not allowing my much car time I've been pondering what colour to paint and mocking up some samples.

I can't take credit for the original picture, and my mods to are it a fairly crude, but I think they are good enough to give me something to judge on.

These are all based on me using the current hood scoop, painted white with two-tone blue stripes.  The car is currently (was) closest to the top left, being all white except the scoop and without the trunk stripes.

I'm also undecided on roof stripes or plain.

What do you think of these combos on the possible list? With or without roof stripe?



Going to have a play now and change to a black scoop/stripe and maybe look at side stripes based on the original z28 stripes too.

Wow, more than 5 months since the last update.  The good news is I'm still here and so is the car.

Time has been pretty limited, and progress very slow and/or not particularly visible.

Following on from where I left off, the rest of the old outer wheel house was pulled off, and the new one offered up for trial fit.


By this time the weather and motivation was against me, and I didn't get any further with that area.   When the weather was good enough I did a bit of work on the drivers front floor pan.

First off was some exploratory work to determine how big the patch needed to be, and then a patch was cut from an offcut of the rear quarter.



I was then able to cut out the bad bits to match the patch.



The toe board area has previously been repaired (not by me) and there was some surface rust where the new patch overlapped the original metal. This needed cleaning up, as the patch I have made goes underneath this.


New patch trimmed and in place.



The patch has now been welded in, but not cleaned up yet. No pics yet, but I'll remember to take some.  All of this looks pretty short piece of work, but was done across about 5-6 weeks in short 30-45 minute stints.

That is almost it for on-car progress.

Time has been well spent in the meantime though.  I've spent many hours in the garage tidying up and re-locating things.  There were a few reasons for this:

1 - I had no room to move:



2 - I couldn't find anything. There were a few things that I had been looking for, but couldn't find (for obvious reasons). I've now been through about 90% of the stuff in there, re-organised and catalogued where things are to help in the future (when I finally get as far as rebuilding and move stuff OUT of the garage!)

3 - I need to make space for a compressor.  I'd managed to gather enough money over Christmas and birthday to afford a budget compressor that would be up to the job of spraying when the time comes.  It's not a small thing, so space had to be made and in the right place (not sure why, but all my sockets are on the same wall).  In preparation for this I have been making some cooling pipes from copper. I'm about halfway through this now, and aim to finish it soon.  Pics to follow...


Finally for now, I'd been mocking up the rear quarter panel to the outer wheel house to check compatibility.  The profile is good, but the lip is only folded about 45 degrees and will need bending in further to be able to weld the panels together. (pics would be really good here - need to get back on the game with those) I'm not keen in the idea of trying to hammer it down without distorting the panel, so I've looked at using a fender lip roller to do it.

This looks like it would do the job, with one big problem - the tool first to the rear end, which isn't fitted yet.  The plan therefore changed to getting the rear floor sections finished so that I could fit the the rear springs and get it all in place.  With this in mind I've started cleaning up the rear springs ready for a coat of epoxy.

However, whilst writing this I thought it will be easier to do the lip welding with the rear out, so it's got to go in and out a few times and not worth doing the paint work on it yet. Yet again, the plan changes...


The good news is that the weather is getting much better now, so there should be some more frequent updates.