339 replies to this topic

[Heath]

Looks like somebody accidentally supplied you the Old Man Emu lift kit there mate. Have to do something about that lol.

[stevemc32]

It's good for keeping the water off the belly at the moment!  I think I might have to revisit the springs once rego is sorted out.

[stevemc32]

It's been a long time coming but there's finally a roof over the Torana, gotta say I'm pretty happy about it!

 

Did a little stock take of rusty areas that'll need attention for rego and it looks like both front sills to about 30cm behind the front guard will go.  Tops of the sills are good and the inner sills beyond about 15cm from the front are good.  Inner sills at the front behind the guard and both lower guards need replacing.  The drivers floor is original and only has a few holes, passenger floor has had a dodgy sheet replacement that could use work.  Rear floors are good.  A-pillars generally look ok with just one spot of rust on the outer skin on passenger side.  Front valance panel is rooted and should probably be replaced in full but will poke further to see if anything is salvagable.  Both sides of the nose cone to radiator support need replacing and the driver side front cowl panel below the screen has holes.  The last is the bottoms of the two front doors are looking a little not there anymore...  Other than that, good to go!

 

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[stevemc32]

I'm thinking of starting with passenger side sill and lower front guard.  There'll be a bit of inner sill up the front that will need to be repaired as well so planning to cut the guard just below the raised strip but I've not really had any experience with this sort of stuff so that first cut is going to be pretty scary.

 

All the threads I've checked on these repairs show the car up on a trolley or rotisserie and the doors removed.  Am I kidding myself to think that the sill replacement is achievable without removing the door?  Door removing threads are even more daunting!!

[sibhs]

Hi Steve, garage looks good, just not big enough. :-)

 

Have a go at taking the door off first, you may be lucky. If not you may be able to do sill repair with door on.

 

Marty

[stevemc32]

Cheers Marty.

 

I had a go at getting the door off.  The top pin moved with the first tap which gave me great confidence.  The bottom one just bent for about 3 hours and I ended up ruining it but it conceded in the end!

 

So the door came off and along with it went any hope I had of a few quick rust repairs and a roadworthy car in the near future...  I'll admit I'm in way over my head here with respect to my previous experience but I reckon with a good few stuff ups along the way I should be able to get a half useful result.

 

The A-pillar repair is more involved than I was hoping for, looks like both layers are rusted but only in a small area around the bottom hinge.  There's also much less of the bottom of the door remaining than I expected! 

 

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[sibhs]

Wow Steve. That door is RUSTED! If that's the worst of it I'd try fixing it. 

Bend up some new steel and weld it in. Easier than it sounds I know.  If you fail, you have learnt something, I hope.

 

Marty

[stevemc32]

Yeah I reckon I'll give it a go.  There might be a couple of attempts but lets wait and see.

 

Time to buy some steel.

[LOWS2]

sounds like you have similar rust repairs to do as me, best of luck with it all

[Heath]

We all start in life with no sheet metal & welding experience.

 

It's nothing that can't be overcome.

 

That is a pretty nasty corner of that door. I hope they aren't all like that, lol.

[S pack]

I'd be inclined to look for a better door instead of attempting to fix that.

Even if you could get a door that the skin is stuffed but the frame is ok that you could use as a donor to fix yours

[stevemc32]

Cheers fellas,

 

I believe this door is the worst of them, the other front door is similar but the rear ones seem to be ok so far.

 

This one is kind of at the point where I guess there's no harm in attempting to fix it and see how it goes.  If I stuff it up then I can always look for a replacement but there's plenty of other rust to fix on the car so I've got to learn how to do it sooner or later.  Going to pick up some steel and a bender soon to get it underway though I might look at replacing the sill and cleaning up the A-pillar before attempting the door.

[stevemc32]

Grabbed a cheap little bender, a shrinker / stretcher, and some 0.9mm sheet and thought I'd have a go at bending up a section for the bottom of the door.  I've no idea what I'm doing so I came across a problem bending the small ledge where the door seal butts up against.

 

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This is close to the profile I need to bend for the bottom of the door.

 

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This is my problem with the bender.  After the first bend I can't get the next one into position. 

 

Just wondering if there's something I'm missing or if there's a trick or hack to get this to work.  It looks like the minimum distance between opposite direction bends is the thickness of the breaker bar which is 16mm, about double what I need to achieve.

 

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I got something close below by pre-bending the second bend in the vice and then jamming it into the bender but the bend radius comes up different to the other bends and I don't think I'd have much chance of being able to do it on a 4-500mm section that I need for the door bottom.  Youtube has failed to give me answers this time so any advice on getting this done would be much appreciated.

 

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[S pack]

Try doing the two bends in the centre first (the ones that are 8mm apart?) then do the two outside bends.

 

On second thoughts your bender is not capable of making bends any closer together than 16mm.

The sheet metal shop I by roofing & rainwater goods from cannot perform bends any closer than 10mm apart.

Edited by S pack, 23 April 2022 - 09:05 PM.

[rodomo]

The problem is you're drinking Coke...........................Grab a beer.........................Problem solved.

[madtoranajzedded]

Hi Steve.Id buy these bits if you have spare cash..still would have to repair behind door pin and would have to realign the pins back on .looks nackered all the way up to,the top pin.
Patchmaker done these.they look real good.  Screenshot_20220424-010308.jpg   324.96K   1 downloads  Screenshot_20220424-010230.jpg   308.4K   3 downloads  Screenshot_20220424-010118.jpg   324.5K   1 downloads

Edited by madtoranajzedded, 24 April 2022 - 01:10 AM.

[stevemc32]

Thanks Fellas, looks like it needs another plan (and a beer or six).

 

Those patchmaker parts are awesome but I really want to give it a go myself and stuff it up before forking out the dollars for the good stuff.  Saw your car on Facebook the other day Maz, it's really coming along nicely!

[S pack]

Bend up two separate sections so they lap onto each other then weld along the external corner to join into one piece.

[stevemc32]

That's exactly what the father in law suggested this afternoon Dave so I reckon I'll give that a go to make up the new section. Cheers!

[madtoranajzedded]

Cheers steve.not much has really happened..but got the foot planted down atm ..if i had a door id send it over to ya.

[claysummers]

I would at least try and find a door with usable corners. They are the tricky bit. Other doors can also be used to donate straight sections. I've been on the lookout for rust free doors for my cars for years and have managed to find NOS and rust free originals, and haven't even needed to reskin any.

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[stevemc32]

I've probably bit off more than I can chew on the door at the moment so I might ignore it for a while and see if I can get some useful repairs happening on the sills and lower guards.

 

While the cheap bender worked fine for a 50mm section it's a bit of a different story with a 500mm bend to do...  Needs more beer, clamps and some staring into space I think!

[stevemc32]

Ignored the door and started to look at the A-pillar.  It's just the lower hinge that's a problem, all the rest of it seems ok.

 

I got the outer skin off the side area and there is some useful metal still in the inner skin above and below the hinge so I'll cut a section out of the inner pillar and replace that in front of the hinge.  I'm a bit less confident on the hole in the front of the A-pillar as I don't want to take the hinge off.  I've got no idea how I'd realign it if I took it off and had to refit it.

 

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[lj72bathurst]

I think you might need to remove the front guard to repair as it will be rusty behind as well.
Unless sameone has a better technique to do it

Jason

[claysummers]

Ideally you assemble the hinge to your intended door and tack in place once sheet repair is complete.Usually this is easier said than done though.


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