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** 26/02/23 Heading Up ** Probably how not to restore a Herald!


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I was rather hoping that the weather would have improved, or at least warmed up this weekend, but waking up to snow on Friday morning and a day time high of 0 degrees didn't bode well for working in the garage over the weekend.

Despite the fact there is a heater in the garage, it's a choice of being able to weld and cool the or having heat.

This limited me to no more than a couple of hours at a stretch in the garage for fear of hypothermia!

So, Saturday's stint was spent finessing the fit of the two arch repair panels, allowing me to make the monumental step of starting the tacking in.

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Focus was on joining the repair panels to the rear wing rather than the inner arch, as I figured fettling would be required at the join between the wing and the inner arch.

At this point the cold drove me out of the garage in search of a hot shower and tea, so ending Saturday's efforts.

Suitably rested and warmed up, I returned to the fray this afternoon, and set about getting the wing fitting where it should be, which meant rolling the dolly out of the garage to compare the two sides of the car to ensure that what what I created on the passenger side matched the driver's side. After all a mismatch would be more than a little embarrassing!

What this comparison showed was that the lip of the wing needed to come in by about 8mm, which meant a lot of clamps and Clecos.

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This had the added benefit of bringing the suage line above the arch into the correct orientation, e.g. vertical.

Nothing for it now but to start welding the wing to the inner arch!

Having heard horror stories of distorted panels due to over enthusiastic welding, I knew that I was going to have to take this next bit slowly, welding a little bit at a time, and then cooling it down with a prolonged blast of cold air from the compressor.

Just what I wanted in a freezing garage!

First up, I plug welded the arch lip to the lip of the inner arch, before setting about slowly welding the wing repair sections in fully.

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Rather than seam welding the joint, I went with stitch welding which puts less heat into the panel,  it's not as pretty, but it will do the job.

I then gave everything a buzz over with a flap disc in the angle grinder. This will need more welding to plug the bits I've missed, as well as the bits I just haven't got around to yet.

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Not quite professional body shop quality, but this will get further attention from the sander to further reduce the step left by the weld.

Looks like I should be able to get away with a thin skim of filler to blend it all together, but that is far in the future for now.

Karl

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  • Bordfunker changed the title to **10/01/21 Winging It! ** Probably how not to restore a Herald!

Following on from last week's start on finally welding up the arch and lower B-pillar repair sections, I actually made it into the garage on Monday night and got a the B-pillar repair section welded in.

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But that was the end of my week day efforts, as the rest of the week I didn't get into the garage, other than to unload/load the tumble dryer, or get dog food out of the freezer, neither of which really count as progress.

Which meant Saturday afternoon was spent finishing off all the little bits of welding around the edges of the arch, followed by cleaning up all of the welds and edges.

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It then got a coat of primer, which as per usual highlighted all of the bits I'd missed, so once the primer as dry, out with the welder again, and then yet more grinding and sanding.

And then suddenly the work on the wing repair was essentially complete! Yes I know it needs filling, but that will have to wait until I have finished all the welding.

That only took 3 months, but I have loads in the process, and my welding has improved markedly, which is probably not surprising given the amount of practice I've got in.

Which meant Sunday was time to turn my attention back to the step area that I removed a few weeks back.

This is where I left it.

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A bit manky, and with the remains of multiple spot welds left from where I removed them with a lump hammer and chisel, of which more later.

So out with the angle grinder with the big wire wheel attached, and I took everything back to bare metal, both underneath, or the top, if the tub was the right way up, and the underside which is currently the top.

I didn't take any pictures of the underside, but did take some of the top side.

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Now about that lump hammer and wood chisel that I used to remove the step panel.

It was only after, a long time after, that it dawned on me that I could have just drilled out the spot welds from the 'top side', actually the underside, which would have been much simpler, and left me with pre-drilled holes ready for plug welding. D'oh!

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but at least this revelation came me to before I did the other side of the car!

The reason for cleaning up the underside, other than just removing rust, was to allow me to see the indents left by the spot welds, allowing me to drill them out.

You can see them here, looking like a line of little lights.

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Nothing for it now, but to start prepping the new step panel, which means drilling out the mounting holes for the lower sill panel mounts, and punching out the holes for the plug welds.

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Clamped up reading for marking up.

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And drilled and punched ready for welding.

But before we get carried away I needed to paint the whole area covered by the repair panel with rust stopper, which was duly accomplished, and the whole lot left to dry overnight.

Which still left me at least 40 minutes to kill in the garage on a Sunday afternoon.

Now I could have done some tidying up, but where's the fun in that, and that welding around the seatbelt mounting point was really bugging me.

Specifically this bit.

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Yes, I know that's my welding, done when the car was still on the chassis, and the welder wasn't working properly, but given that this is very much safety related, I decided that it was going.

10 minutes with the air grinder left me with this.

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Yes, a hole in the car that hadn't been there before.

And that is when I finally decided I couldn't put off tidying up, at least just a little, any longer, so fired up the vacuum cleaner, and started cleaning up almost 3 month's worth of metal shavings, which turns out is quite a lot!

Next week I'll tackle the step repair panel, and with a bit of luck the seat belt anchorage.

Karl

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  • Bordfunker changed the title to **17/01/21 Stepping On! ** Probably how not to restore a Herald!
  • 2 weeks later...

I work in the mining industry, nowhere near a mine mind you as I work in IT, but as a result we have a tendency to have a 'safety moment' at the start of meetings, just to remind everyone that we work in a dangerous business, so I'll start this week with my safety moment.

Last week I needed to make up a repair panel with a strengthening rib, so made up a wooden former to shape the sheet steel against.

So far so good, until I decided that I didn't need to clamp the workpiece to the former, and just set to with a panel beating hammer, beating both the steel and, unfortunately my thumb!

It did hurt at the time, but not that much, so I carried on working, and it wasn't until I had taken my gloves off at the end of the session that I realised what a whack I had given my thumb.

Long story short, I ended up in A&E on Monday night with a throbbing and swollen thumb following a conversation with NHS 111, but got sent home after 3 hours and an X-ray.

Following day, call from the hospital, 'You've chipped the bone by your thumb joint, does it still move?'

Me: 'Yes'

Dr : 'OK, nothing else we can do then, bye!'

This is what it looks like a week after the event.

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Not pretty, still swollen, but at least it's not throbbing any more.

I believe that the technical term for this type of injury is 'Twatting it with a hammer!'.

I didn't post last week despite making progress, as unfortunately we lost one of our dogs in the early hours of the Friday morning, leading to a very subdued Bordfunker household over the weekend, and to be fair most of last week.

So this week's post includes some of the work I managed to complete last week.

Remember the patching around the seat belt anchorage that I cut out the other week?

I decided to do a weld test, and stuck the removed section in the vice and whacked it with a hammer (Keeping my thumb well out of the way, and it did this.).

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As expected, given the lack of shielding gas, the weld just failed, meaning that all of the welds to the car done before the welder was fixed are suspect.

I will have to revisit all of them, but better safe than sorry, and given the steady improvement in my welding skills, I am actually quite looking forward to it. I know, sick bunny!

This is what replaced the shonky patch, note remains of previous patch alongside.

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No I haven't become a Satanist and started drawing inverted crosses on things, that is just where the seatbelt mount needs to be drilled out.

Despite re-welding the patch on the right, I still wasn't happy with it, so cut it out and welded in a new section.

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And yes I have hit the above with a hammer, and that was before the above picture was taken, so confident that this patch is now strong enough.

With that done, I turned my attention to the passenger side door step, which just needed plug welding, but first I needed to grind back to bear metal, as there was a coat of FE-123 rust stopper in the way, which you just can't weld to, so I marked up all the points that needed clean up with a marker.

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This included grinding the Zintec coating off the repair panel to be extra sure.

It didn't take long to get the plug welds done, leaving me with a firmly attached replacement door step.

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Not the neatest plug welds, but only the ones on the outer face of the step which get seen, and so ground back, whereas the ones underneath, above, I will simply leave as is.

With the step sorted, I moved to the front edge of the tub where it overlaps the back of the bulkhead directly in front of the passenger seat, as it was looking somewhat distressed.

Au naturale...

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..after a quick blast with the angle grinder and a wire brush...

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Ooops looking slightly worse than expected!

Cue latest addition to the tool kit....

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...air powered nibbler, as I find cutting out sheet steel with an angle grinder nerve wracking!

Marked up for cutting out.

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Which proved horribly quick with the nibbler, as was cutting out the repair section.

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You'll notice that in the above pic I haven't completed the welding, because again I have managed to run out of welding gas!

Not sure whether I have a leak, but the last cylinder didn't last too long either, despite the previous one last almost 2 years!

Now to be fair, given that the welder wasn't working properly and therefore using gas in the manner intended before I fixed it, and I've been doing a load of welding, this just may be my new reality.

Not with standing the incomplete welding, I cleaned up what I had done, leaving me with a very acceptable result.

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Note freshly cut mounting hole courtesy of my step drill.

With that done, I decided to given the tub a good hoover, along with the garage floor as it was covered in grinding dust, before giving everything a coat of primer to prevent flash rusting.

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I took delivery of a couple of litres of RustBusters Epoxy Mastic Primer last week, so once I've got some welding gas, I'll finish the last repair, and maybe even look at putting a coat of primer over the passenger side of the tub.

Now I am counting that as progress.

Karl

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  • Bordfunker changed the title to **31/01/21 Twatted! ** Probably how not to restore a Herald!

Many years ago when I was first doing up the house, (So about 28years ago) I was in the garage and was on some steps hammering a nail into a beam - 6" one - and the hammer slipped off the head onto my thumb - to be fair the hammer wasn't the best - bit rounded on the head - and I was hitting it hard cos the beam was solid.

Well I got into the kitchen and put it under some water and then felt a bit funny. So sat on the bottom of the stairs. Next thing I was upside down in a heap - I'd fainted and rolled forward off the step onto the floor. Was only out for a second or so! Quite funny looking back!

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Karl been there and done that as most of us wiil have done, it's a moment where we want a "time machine" just to go back 5 secs,

Karl I bet you didn't mutter one swear word it hurts too much to even open the mouth! Nails have a memory and mine still cracks at the end where It broke just to remind me!

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Luckily I was wearing anti-cut gloves when I did it, which at least absorbed some of the impact, but it didn’t help that I was using the skinny end of a panel beating hammer which probably increased the force of the blow!

And Pete I swore like trooper, utilising my full range of Anglo Saxon vocabulary!

Mark, the only time I’ve got close to feinting was having stitches removed following an op on my hand, but I can imagine wanting after your experience.

But a time machine would certainly have been appreciated, even if it only allowed that 5 second skip back in time! The number of times I could have made use of that are truly countless.

Karl

 

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I’ve known my doctor nearly 50yrs every time I go in to see him what have you done now.

Bet you haven’t scalped yourself late one night taking the rubbish out I walked  into the garage roller door which was partly down, my doctor said a specialist couldn’t have done as good a job with a laser!

Mind you he’s no better last year he fell off his hobby farm barn roof and broke his back in a brace for 6 months, all his contempories have never let him live that one down! His wife was a nurse so you know what sympathy he got.

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34 minutes ago, Peter Truman said:

Bet you haven’t scalped yourself late one night taking the rubbish out I walked  into the garage roller door which was partly down, my doctor said a specialist couldn’t have done as good a job with a laser!

I walked into our previous garage door which was not as far up as I thought. Had a massive slice in my head which bleed like a stuck pig - and being on top and having hair could do nothing with it.  Hurt like hell too. 😂

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I think I’ve managed most of those apart from walking into a four post lift, but that’s only because I don’t have one.

I have repeatedly walked into the edge of the garage door, sliced the top of my left index finger off as a teenager making an Airfix kit, and recently burned myself making a cup of tea!

We’re all doomed at this rate!

Many years ago, while a student, I worked at an Indian food factory in Southall, and had to tidy up the spice cupboard one afternoon.

There were shelves around the room, each one with multiple 25kg sacks of various spices.

I reached up to move one sack, not realising that someone had ripped it open, and it promptly deposited its contents over my head.

Trouble was, it chilli powder!

I sneezed and cried for about an hour after that, and went a shade of orange for a couple of days despite many showers.

Karl

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6 hours ago, PeteH said:

Sometimes the result is permanent. This was during a House build in 1998/9/2000. Everytime the Nail grows it splits, so it`s permanently cut/filed right back!!😢

 

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Pete

I tore the edge of my left thumb on a big copper staple in a box I was opening while working as a temp in a warehouse about 25 years ago.

Even now it splits at the first sight of cold weather.

Maybe these things are there to remind us to be safer in future?

If so, it’s not working.

Karl

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5 minutes ago, Bordfunker said:

Maybe these things are there to remind us to be safer in future?

You certainly remember to be more careful! I was working on a garden extension and removed the old D-rail fencing off the posts, then stepped back and got two four inch nails through the sole of my foot. I felt every inch of them going in. I flapped about like a one-legged skier until it dropped off then made it to the kitchen, where I stood against the worktop, unable to move any further, with one foot raised off the floor. The wife arrived a few hours later to find me still standing there in huge pool of blood, and all I could do was smile and say: I think I've hurt myself...

 

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It could be said were a clumsy lot, or it's that were a DIY lot, and enjoy the challenge!

My brother  died last week 8 yrs my senior, at the funeral I happened to think back to our youth in the late 50's when we built a Guy Faulks bon fire on the vacant block opposite our house complete with straw figure on top, having finished we and others stood back to admire our work, when I felt a sharp pain in my left foot a garden fork had impaled it, my brother said I had done it myself I responded how come your holding the handle!

The worst pain was to come with the trip to the doctors on the back of his DKW scooter which had a DIY very hard rear seat to get the jab in my backside I was sure the doc had left the needle in!

Come to think of it he never did apologise!

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