Over the last week I managed to sneak in a few hours on the car and transformed cardboard templates into sheet steel and then formed it to the correct shape, drilled it and prepped it. With all the bends and unique qualities of this patch and probably because I tackled such a big section all... Continue Reading →
Did some more tidying up of welds and then cracked on with something I've been meaning to do for a while, reinforce the wishbone mounting points. I had been lucky enough to be given a piece of 3mm angle iron which I've chopped and modified into reinforcement brackets. These took ages, but just need to... Continue Reading →
Fairly busy week and haven't made much progress. I did get some work done though - fitted a replacement section to the wishbone mount support. I'd had to chop this off to fit the repair panel on the chassis rail. Then rather than start on the inner wing repairs I decided that I would repair... Continue Reading →
Finally managed to track down a Vauxhall Corsa electronic power assisted steering rack for the car. This EPAS is a 'c-type' and I'll be following the example set by James Ball aka Kiwi in getting it setup and installed. The use of the Corsa units has been popularised by the Mk1&2 Escort rally community and... Continue Reading →
After a little more prep work yesterday, the chassis rail top is now welded in place. Took my time carefully clamping it all in place and getting good contact for the plug welds and as a result I'm very happy with how it's turned out. Needed to get the dolly hammers out for one or... Continue Reading →
Following on from yesterday, I made the patch panel for the upper part of the bulkhead seam repair panel. Then prepared both faces of the joint with zinc etch primer. Once it was dry, marked the sections for the spotwelds and ground off the primer in the appropriate areas: Cleaned up the surrounding metal work... Continue Reading →
Managed to grind down the welds on the repair patch that I'd fittedm but not finished off on the last bit of work. Then the next tassk was making good the lower bulkhead lip that had been distorted by drilling the spotwelds and removing the rotten sections. Then the next sections to tackle were the... Continue Reading →
Finally managed to get the steering column and rack disconnected last night. Very easy in the end, it was just a job I'd been putting off. The rack unbolted without any drama and pedal box came out simply too. Fair bit of gunk and some algae lurking behind there so spend the rest of the... Continue Reading →
Really unproductive weekend. Probably managed 3 hours on the project... Chopped out some more rotten bits. I'm happy I've got to the bottom of the problem areas now, so started making up repair sections. When it's all put back together this section creates a water trap on top of the chassis rail. There was really... Continue Reading →
Little update as work slowly progresses. This is a rather complex shaped gusset that sits within the chassis rail acting as a support. It curves in all three axis. Mine was so rotten it had to come out and I fabricated this replacement out of sheet steel, it just needs finishing off and prepping for... Continue Reading →
Finally managed to get back to this. Having managed to get my hands on a sheet metal folder, I set about making the reinforcement gusset to sit inside the chassis rail. Starting point was a cardboard template which was transferred onto steel and shaped to give the initial shape. The chassis rail curves in the... Continue Reading →
Worked out what that row of spot welds were for... ... the internal chassis rail reinforcing gusset was very rotten though so chopped it out... Pretty much all of the roof of the rail which is thinner SWG20 is badly rotten - it actually went to holes as I cleaned it up with a twisted... Continue Reading →
Rallye Project 