Bordfunker

And how would you know that Colin? So excited that I keep polishing it! I don’t think he’s a guy anymore. I once had to explain this to a colleague of mine after a meeting with our IBM account team, one of whom had recently had the op. He just couldn’t get his head around the fact that someone would have their Crown Jewels removed, and spent the afternoon just saying over and over again, ‘Why would you do?’. Karl

Pete, I wish it were still £4K a year! Like your son I work in IT, and changed companies 2 weeks before lockdown commenced last year, so have spent a grand total of 8 days in the office since joining the company! Not a big deal as my team are scattered over the Southern Hemisphere, from Australia to Africa, and South America, so not like I would be bumping into them in the office anyway. Now the company are looking to reduce time in the office to 2-3 days a week tops, so even when we go back I should see a reduction in commuting costs. And I was under the impression that sexual proclivities were a prerequisite of obtaining security clearance! Karl

Pete, far be it from me to tell you how to spend your money, on shall we say your other hobbies, e.g. cross dressing, but maybe fewer dresses for the weekend and a new welding helmet would be money well spent! Or have I misunderstood you? I don’t get overtime either, but at least I’ve had a year of working from home, and not paying exorbitant sums for the ‘privilege’ of commuting into central London. Karl

That looks like its been a full on weldathon! Kudos for going to the effort of sorting it all out before selling it on. If nothing else, you should get top dollar for it now. Karl

Pete, it’s a Lincoln Electric Viking, from Rapid Welding see link below: https://www.rapidwelding.com/dynamic/Category.aspx?c=LINCOLN-WELDING-HELMETS&o=0&zl=2&sq=17 It was a 50th birthday present, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to justify that sort of money. Having said that, it is million miles from my old one, and I haven’t really tried playing with the settings yet, and given the amount of welding still to be done, is probably a good investment long term. Karl

Adrian, I am amazed at the difference the new mask makes. It’s not just the larger field of view, so you’re not peering through a letterbox, but the clarity of the view, particularly at the arc. It makes it much easier to control the weld, because you can actually see what’s going on. Colin, like you need an excuse to spend money on tools! I meant to say in my last post that the repair panels came from Rimmer’s, who were actually very competitive on price on these. Matt, like you I never throw anything away, and have a box of all the odd bits of steel that I have cut off the car over time. Could just do with a spare body shell to pick parts off at times. Karl

Colin thanks for confirming that. I figured it was, but couldn’t for the life of me remember what had been there originally. Thanks again. Karl

Matt, I’m definitely getting a bit quicker, with much less faffing around, and the welding is becoming much more predictable. The helmet certainly helps with the latter, as you can see so much more, and more clearly too, so no needing to keep taking the helmet off to take a look. Colin, given the rounded ends to those indentations, the easiest method would be to build a former out of wood. I’d be inclined to cut the ovals out of thin piece of ply, something that is the same thickness as the depth of the indentation, and then screw that section of ply to a much heavier piece of wood or ply. What you can then do is clamp the steel to the former, and then using panel beating hammers gently hammer the steel into the former. You could make a former for the full panel, and I saw one on a Triumph Facebook page recently, or just make one former, and move the panel along. Karl

I’m currently rebuilding the boot corners of my Herald, including the L-shaped lower boot sides, and the floor itself in the corners where the body is bolted to the chassis. So my question, is the reinforcement section welded to the boot floor and sides? This is the second time I’ve done this repair, and I can’t remember what was there originally, though to be fair that wasn’t actually much physically left! I’m assuming that these should all be welded together, but it would be great to get a definitive answer. Thanks Karl

So much for spring, it was bloody parky in the garage today, which was a bit of a shock after Saturday and Sunday! Before I get on with bringing you all up to date with my latest trials and tribulations, I did receive a couple of replacement boot corner panels, this time from another supplier, and this time, with the flanges in all the right places, and going in the right directions. Much better, even they do look like they have been painted with a bog brush by a blind man! And look what else fell into my basket! Half inch lowering block for the back of the Herald, to be salted away with the diff for later in the year hopefully. Despite the weather, further progress has been made on the driver's side boot corner, starting with my dodgy previous repair to the boot corner reinforcement piece. Cue cutting out a rather odd shaped section, and creation of a corresponding oddly shaped repair section. As is my usual way, the curvature of the repair section was formed over a selection of old sockets held in the vice. Then the whole lot was welded up, before being ground back. It doesn't have to look particularly neat as it will be hidden between the reinforcement piece and the boot floor. As well as the patch above, I also needed to address some of the damage I inflicted from my overly enthusiastic wielding of an angle grinder first time around. Oops! Still nothing that a wave of the magic welder couldn't sort out. Quickly flashed over with a flap disc, and looks good. Needless to say the cut on the left also received the same treatment. In the pic above, if you look to the far right, you can see further evidence of my previous butchery of the reinforcement panel. Rather than weld in a new piece of steel, I decided to put a copper block behind the lip, and weld back and forth across the block to build the section back up. Weld doesn't stick to copper, which leaves you with a nice flat surface to the rear, and another flash of the angle grinder does the same to the front face, at the very least tidying the panel up, and hopefully also restoring some strength. OK, that was the repair work to the reinforcement section complete, onto fitting the new panels? Not quite, as there were still a number of areas around the periphery of the boot which required attention, starting with this one. When I'd removed the old boot panel I'd had to take a wood chisel to a couple of spot welds, which in the case above lead to the metal tearing, so nothing for it but to cut out the offending section. The repair section itself was straight forward enough, a flat S-shape, which was formed, yet again, over an old socket in the vice. What can I say, my metal working skills are very limited, and I have a large selection of hammers from which to choose! As usual I made the patch oversize, and then tacked it in, correcting the shape as I went, before seam welding it all up and grinding back. At this point it would have been great to have my powerfile, but unfortunately that has been sent back to Machine Mart, and I'm now waiting on it's replacement, so for now I will leave as is. Time for the repair panels now? No, still more little bits to do, like the flange inside the boot, that the boot side panels attach to, which was a bit thin in a couple of places. This ended up requiring a couple of patches, both of which need to be flush as the corresponding flange on the boot lower panel is spot welded to this. And the reason it took two patches it because I managed to grind through one end of the repair patch with the angle grinder!!!!! Another reason for wanting my powerfile back as it really is a much better tool for this type of clean up where a little finesse is required. So again, I'll park that for now. But that at least means the peripheral welding is complete bar the clean up, so time to trial fit one of the new boot corner panels. The new panels fit perfectly, and have been tacked in with self-tapping screws, so that I could check the fit of my homemade boot floor corner repair. Cue about an hour and a half of fitting, tweaking, removing, making miniscule adjustments, and then starting the whole process all over again. Which has at least now left me with a corner where everything fits as it should, so with a week off I'm looking to get this corner completed before I go back to work. For those of you still awake at this point, thanks for following my ramblings on what has been a longer than usual update after a very productive weekend. Karl

Looking very good, especially as you are having to work outside. Karl

Think I might have to give that a go with mine, rather than buying a new plastic tunnel. Now where did I put it? Karl

Mathew, I think having a decent welding mask will really help, as even on a couple test welds I was able to see clearly what was happening at the wire tip. It should also be more comfortable to wear, particularly given how much welding is still left to be done. Karl

That looks amazing, loving the colour. Karl

I had a day off today, after all no one should ever work their birthday, no matter how much they enjoy their job! And the birthday fairy yielded a couple of car related presents. First this, which is very apt, and is now hanging in the garage. Wish my car looked that good! The second present is a bit of a game changer as I have been struggling with my current kit. My current welding mask is a cheapy picked up at the NEC a few years back, and although it is auto-darkening, it's like peering through a letterbox, and keeps slipping down my face, blinding me completely! This one has a full size, true colour screen, and I'm blaming Adrian for this, following his post on welding helmets a few months back. It even comes with a bag and cleaning cloths! I couldn't resist giving it quick trial this afternoon, and the difference is amazing, I can actually see what is happening at the weld pool now! Looking forward to using this in anger, of which there will be plenty of opportunities. Colin, thanks for the kind comments, they do help. With regards gauge of metal, I typically use 1mm for body panels bought in small sheets from B&Q, or off-cuts from a local metal fabricators. Happy to show you how I do things when it comes to fabricating repair sections, but would also point anyone at the link below, as this is an excellent guide to body fabrication: https://forum.retro-rides.org/thread/70135/panels I did some more work on the boot corner today, finessing the fit, using a large socket to get the curvature at the front and side of the panel, where it dips into the corner of the boot. This is great for creating a constant curve, but doesn't work on the corner where the two curves meet. For this you need to form a curved corner, for which one of these comes in very handy. Yes, a common or garden ballpein hammer, utilising the ball end of the hammer, hammering the corner over the ball, and working around the corner to join the curves on either side. All of which should leave you with this. Always best to leave the repair section oversize when forming complex shapes, as it gives you a margin for error, and allows you to focus on getting the shape right, without trying to get everything spot on straight away. With the shape right, I trimmed everything up with the air-nibbler, and a flap disc, before tackling the two holes for the chassis to body mounting bolts. Holes marked, and centre punched ready for drilling of pilot holes, before using the step drill to make the full size holes. I find using a G or F-clamp in a vice is a good way of holding sheet metal horizontally. The remains of previous repair was cut and ground out, leaving just the corner post reinforcement, now a little bit wobbly. I am assuming that the patch in the photo is something that I did previously, but for the life of me I can't remember doing, and it's coming out. Also visible is hole in the base of the support which will need patching and welding up before I can even think about welding in the boot floor corner, and that can't happen until I have a boot side repair panel that actually fits. Here's the repair panel resting place. I did contact Paddocks this morning with regard the issue with the repair panels, but they only have a passenger side one in stock now, so these two are going back and I am now on the look out for two new ones which are correctly pressed. Back to work tomorrow, but at least this is a short week, and I've got my Covid vaccination tomorrow, so may be even shorter based on the manner in which Mrs B, Master B junior, and Mistress B have all reacted to the vaccine. Karl

Despite not posting last weekend, I wasn't idle, and spent a few hours finishing off the B-pillar lower rear wing repair, which first meant doing some micro-welding. This was the issue. That gap shouldn't be there, so needed filling with this. Which was about the size of my thumb! A bit blurry, but all welded up! It needed a copper block behind it while welding, otherwise I would have blown holes all over the place. Time to fit ready for welding. Before waving the welding wand over the whole lot, going for a butt weld rather than an overlap, as I have come to conclusion that I find these more effort and faffing than a simple butt weld. And with a coat of primer. It'll need some filler to tidy it up, but nothing substantial. I had been intending to simply replace the cosmetic sills with new ones, but decided to take a closer look at the ones that I took off the car just in case, plus I have noticed that new ones seem to be no longer available from the usual sources. Like everything else on this car below the wheel arches, they were both slathered in underseal, and had then been painted body colour over the top. Here's the part cleaned driver's side sill, and the untouched passenger side for comparison. Actually not in bad nick, maybe underseal does have a use after all! The underseal got the usual treatment of hot air gun and much scraping, followed up by a through going over with strip discs and rotary brushes. Still a bit more to do, but very definitely salvageable. Note the lovely underseal texture on the untouched sill! Which brings us up to today's activities. I did replace the lower boot sides a few years back when the shell was still on the chassis, and more importantly, when the welder wasn't welding properly, so for the sake of safety and peace of mind I am revisiting these areas now. First up was removing the replacement panel that I fitted, which didn't take long with a grinding disc applied to my dodgy plug welds. Except at the back below the lights where I had to drill out the spot welds, before taking a wood chisel to them, hence the slightly dog eared appearance of the edge of the boot panel. I did replace the boot floor corner below the reinforcing bracket a couple of years back, but again, it coming out, so time to make up a replacement as it doesn't look like Chic Doig are doing these anymore. Not exactly a difficult shape to replicate with a few hammers, and an old socket. That's where I left it for today in terms of active fettling, but thought I would trial fit the new boot side panel. But it wouldn't fit, despite persuasion from a mallet. I didn't remember them being this awkward first time around. Take a look at this photo of the panel. Can you spot what's missing? They have managed to put the boot rain channel/seal locating lip on the inside of the boot, not the outside! No wonder it wouldn't fit I'll be making a phone call in the morning to certain establishment in Cheshire regarding this. And on a similar note my power file has also bitten the dust, seizing completely, despite having a loaded oiler fitted. That'll be another call I'll be making in the morning, this time to MachineMart. Hopefully I can get both issues resolved before the Easter weekend as I've got a week off, and would love to get the tub finally welded up. Karl

This week's update is 'Nuts & Gusset', but fear not, you have not strayed onto one of Pete's sites for the discerning older gentleman, the reality is far more pedestrian, if you can say that about a car restoration. The 'gusset' in question is the section at the base of the B-pillar behind the rear wing, here: This area had rotted out, not unsurprisingly given that it's just a funnel for condensation to run down the interior of the B-pillar itself, with little opportunity to escape. Thankfully it's a straightforward repair section to make up, just requiring a joggle, mid-way up the section to clear the horizontal portion of the sill. Welding in was simply a matter of clamping it in place, plug welding through the pre-punched holes, then seam welding the lower portion of the patch to the pillar itself. Ignore the ragged bits at the top of the vertical sill section, this piece is over-size at the moment, and will be trimmed down when the outer repair panel goes on. With the 'gusset' out of the way it was time for a bit of lip! This bit of lip to be precise. What did you think I meant? The original section was pretty ropey, and wasn't going to survive contact with a welding torch, so I had already cut it back when sorting out the little Z shaped piece the other week, meaning it was just a case of making up a short L-section to fill the gap. Again, a quick wave of the welder, and various abrasive devices, left me with this. It'll get a thin smear of filler eventually, but is at least structurally sound now. With the lip sorted, it was time to focus on my nuts! That would be the captive nuts that retain the rear end of the cosmetic lower sill, to be clear. These were first marked up using the sill, and drilled, before applying a couple of tack welds to each nut. You have to careful doing this as you need the nuts to work after you've finished. And finally welding up the open corner on the repair panel with a few quick tacks. The holes for the plug welds have now been punched out of the flanges on the outer repair section, so this is now approaching the point next week where I should be able to weld the whole lot together. It feels time consuming getting to this point, but compared to the same exercise on the passenger side, the driver's has been infinitely faster, which gives me hope that I have the bulk of the welding done by the end of the summer. Karl

That’s the one I’m referring to. Karl

Colin that bolt looks a lot like one of these. Handbrake pivot bolt. Karl

There seems to be some mistake, as I am sure the weather was supposed to be getting warmer, particularly after my last update where I was welcoming the warmer weather! The last 2 weekends have been bloody freezing in the garage, not that is why I haven't posted for a couple of weeks, just what I have been up to is not very interesting. With the sill tread plate out of the way, I shifted my attention to the b-pillar to rear arch repair. Yes, I haven't forgotten I've already replaced it, but the welding was quite frankly appalling. Where I had seem welded it was plenty strong, but the plug welds gave way with leverage from a big screwdriver, no doubt because the welder wasn't supplying shielding gas when the trigger was first pressed. Nothing for it but to cut the whole lot out and start again, which didn't take long given the quality of the welds! First task was to make good the front edge of the horizontal section of the sill. Rather than try and repair the edge in a single section, I split it into two this time and simply welded two new sections. Leaving me with this. On the passenger side I did both the horizontal and the vertical elements of the repair as a single piece, which in retrospect probably only made it more complex than it needed to be. With that in, I then needed to replace this. There was no way this was going to survive contact with a welder without evaporating in a puff of smoke, so nothing for it but to cut it out. Which I did, followed by an attack with the wire brush in the angle grinder, which took me back to good metal, but a bit further back than I expected. Cue the world's smallest patch. The bit is red is the bit that I actually needed! With that in, I welded in the vertical section, which was Z-shape in profile, and then complete forgot to take any decent pictures of it. Well that was worth it wasn't it! The next section up was more substantial, the vertical web that runs across the body mount and to the rear arch itself. This is where doing this bit as a separate section, paid dividends as it made it a very straightforward panel to make up, being essentially flat with a kink at one end to accommodate the rear arch. I also put a 90 degree fold in above this so that it would tie in better with the outer repair panel. And pretty simple to weld in too, just needing a handful of plug welds, and a bead of weld run along the lower edge to tie it firmly to the horizontal portion of the sill. The plug welds just need a bit more of a tidy up, but that can wait till next week, and it has since received a couple of coats of zinc primer for protection. It’s nice and solid now, certainly a million times better than what I originally put in. A reinforcing gusset needs to go in on the front of the lower B-pillar where it meets the sill, and then I’ll need to remake the lip on the front edge of the B-pillar before the outer repair panel goes on. Karl

I always liked the look of the side marker lights on the TRs, I think they look very stylish. But what would I know about automotive style! Karl

I re-wrapped the front loom on my Herald when I restored the loom last year using the non-sticky tape from Autosparks. It’s time consuming, but looks very nice, however rather than use sticky tape to secure the ends on mine, I went with heat shrink tubing, again from Autosparks, as it’s much more resilient and doesn’t break down like old fashioned electrical tape into a gooey mess over time. Karl

That looks spot on! Get a nice warm day and the creases should drop right out. Karl

Mat, that looks amazing, and all done in 11 weeks! I’m impressed. Karl

As long as the original welds are of a decent quality, they will be stronger than the surrounding steel, and given that the replacement panels are only single thickness in this area, aside from neatening it all up, I’m not sure that you are adding any additional strength. You could always add a non-welded reinforcing plate to spread the load, and further put your mind at ease. Karl