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Post by Bilbo on Aug 8, 2022 0:05:50 GMT
Those of you who know me know that I seem to go through dailies very quickly. In the last 2 years I've had a K11, Civic, Bluebird, 107, Yaris, and currently a CMAX (it was £250 and does 52mpg, don't judge me). Anyway been looking into something the last couple of months, and decided to go for it. The plan is proper old school 4 door, RWD, MX-5 engine, daily driver. So here it is:    It's a 1980 mk1 Vauxhall Cavalier 2000 GL automatic. It's already partly stripped, but came with everything in boxes, and a ton of spares. It's pretty rusty but came with a load of repair panels and sections to weld in to about 90% of the problem areas. So lets get the rust photos out of the way: Passenger rear sill:  Nearside inner wing (previous owner already started to cut it out and fix it):  Another shot of the nearside inner:  Driver's footwell:  Partially repaired headlight housing/wing mount:  And one spot below A pillar:  There's some other bits of rust around the car, one chassis leg is a bit gone, some bits of the floor are gone in some areas, but this is the worst of it. The sills are the worst part. Small amount on front wings under where the front bumper would go. However other common areas are pretty good! Front strut towers and bay generally is in pretty good shape:  Rear arch tubs are good:   Boot shut and door shuts are nice and clean:   Roof and pillars all look alright:   Comes with all original parts that were removed, and a ton of new spares, as well as the partially disassembled original engine:      It was last on the road in '97, and has likely been dry stored since then. It's going to need a big overhaul of almost everything, and we have a few ideas for upgrades and changes. Will be making a start tomorrow on the front inner wing, as the previous owner has already made a panel that covers the bulk of it. Will also cut out and weld in the new jacking point and remove the auto box if I get time.  Potentially have a 1.8 VVT engine lined up from a 2004 breaker. I will be taking the entire loom and stripping most of the original electrics out of the Vauxhall, only keeping the light wiring, gauges etc. I'm pretty excited, these are really quite uncommon now and apparently one of the most scrapped cars ever in the UK, usually due to rust. This one has made it until now, and tbh it's no more rusty than my mk1 was when I got it, so I'll get it done. |
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Post by Bilbo on Aug 8, 2022 23:27:44 GMT
So, made some good progress today on the nearside inner wing and jacking point area. Got the panel the previous owner made prepped and welded in:  Never done any plug welds before, so they didn't start off too beautiful, but got better as I went on. The panel is all done now, and no pinholes viewable from the inside, so I seam sealed the welds, primed and undersealed.  The top corner bits I have had to make separately, got one of those done now as well. Decided I may as well make use of the new jacking point repair section, and cut the old one out, as well as the rusty sill end plate:  I cut the end off of the full length sill section and got it welded on:  Dressed the welds a little and got it all protected:  The floorpan above the jacking point was rusted through in some places, which is why I decided to cut the entire floor out in that section. I kept cutting away until the new panel started to fit a bit better. It is the same shape, but some minor variations to the original. The chassis rail the jacking point attaches to is fortunately in great condition, so that won't need cutting out. I'm going to weld in some sheet to replace the floor section, and then plug and seam the jacking point to it after. I will also be welding it to the sill and the chassis rail as it was from the factory. I likely won't use it to actually jack the car up, but want it to be as strong as it was designed to be. With a little more work it should fit perfectly:  I buzzed back the metal in front of the door and it was all perfect, so I primed and undersealed it to keep it good:  The good thing about the car in this area is that the back of all the repairs I have welded in so far can be accessed from the other side, so I am able to properly paint and protect them when I am finished. Not bad progress for day 2 of ownership! |
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Post by wannabe on Aug 9, 2022 0:33:45 GMT
Officially a Legend  |
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Crumpets
Chats A Bit
Insert witty remark here...
Posts: 227 
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Post by Crumpets on Aug 9, 2022 16:20:01 GMT
This is very cool, interested to see how it shapes out!
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Post by Bilbo on Aug 9, 2022 23:55:34 GMT
Officially a Legend Haha, officially something, but not sure it's a legend 😂 This is very cool, interested to see how it shapes out! Thanks, yeah a lot of work ahead but I hope it'll be worth it in the end! |
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Post by Bilbo on Aug 9, 2022 23:59:27 GMT
Bit more progress tonight getting the floor welded in above the jacking point area.  Plenty left to do in this area, but the jacking point should weld in without too much fuss, then I just need to make a plate to bring the floor round to the sill, and close off the front section that joins the back of the arch and inner wing. Not too bad just fiddly and takes longer that you plan for it to. |
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Post by Vindi (Russell) on Aug 12, 2022 18:35:09 GMT
Very cool, really like these!! Also 4 x 100?
Russell
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Post by Bilbo on Aug 13, 2022 0:39:07 GMT
Very cool, really like these!! Also 4 x 100? Russell Yes I do believe they are! Which is handy. Thinking some Minilight style wheels would look good, I've seen a couple of them on the JBW style ones and I think they look pretty good. Nice big tyre to go with it, and of course the wheels will be 13s. |
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Post by Bilbo on Aug 13, 2022 0:41:40 GMT
So spent this evening working on the jacking point and floor area on the nearside. Really horrible job, so many little awkward shapes to cut out and weld in. Some things have taken me a while to get right, but getting there now. Not a great photo but I'm pretty happy with how this is going:  I want to make it as strong as possible so I have seamed the entire new jacking point around it's edges to the floor and the chassis rail. The jacking point piece has an end plate that goes vertically up into the sill. I have welded one side of this to the inner sill and will get the other side sorted tomorrow, and I have one more seam to run on the far side of the jacking point on the underside of the chassis rail. Will have that sorted in the morning. Once this is done I'm going to plate up the big gap further forward, welding the sill lip to the inner wing I posted before. Then I'll be moving backwards onto the rear sill. It's a bit nasty! Here's a better photo showing just how sad it is:  Mmmm, crispy 😂 It'll be mint in no time! |
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Post by Bilbo on Aug 13, 2022 17:24:11 GMT
So I got the front nearside all welded up and protected today. The shape was a bit of a ballache, but I got some pieces cut out that fitted quite nicely.  I went a little overboard on the seam sealing I think haha, but I got all the welds sealed inside and out, then primed and stonechipped everything after:  Looking much better now:  The passenger now has a solid floor!  Also cleaned back and welded up the hole just below the A pillar:   Everything inside that area has also been cavity waxed, managed to get it all inside the new jacking point, and inside the front of the sill I have rebuilt. Pretty happy with it all so far tbh, far more major welding than anything I have ever done before. Learning quite a lot as I go, blown a fair few holes, but slowly improving! |
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Post by Bilbo on Aug 14, 2022 23:38:20 GMT
So no rest for the wicked. Woke up this morning with a moderate hangover, but couldn't waste the day. Got over to the unit, laid down on the floor and stared at this utter misery for about 20 minutes, debating what my plan was: Finally got my act together, jacked the back up, and started cutting out the rot:  Put the flap disc to good use to work out what was saveable and what wasn't. I was quite surprised at how much of the metal in there was actually still good, I had been expecting that an entire cut out of everything was going to be needed:  The floor was looking grim before a mid-job sweep up:  You can see a couple of points on the inner sill that were gone on the photo above, just to the left of the jacking point. I got those cut out and new patches welded in, as well as rebuilding the end section (which looks a little pissed in this photo, my Cardboard Aided Design wasn't 100% up to scratch today! I soon cut it nice and level with the rest of the inner sill line):  Anyway, with the holes dealt with and the end piece re-done, I got to work with my full sill panel to redo everything else. I was quite happy that the area surrounding the passenger seatbelt captive nut was all great and strong, and the area around the jacking point felt good. Gave it some grief with a screwdriver and the flap disc but no more holes to be found, which is good. So I got the rest of the sill rebuilt and got the outer welded on. Fair bit of grinding was needed to get the joins looking presentable, but I'm very happy with the result. It's on there, it fitted well enough, and I stuck an LED light in the end plate and there were no visible pinholes, so I got the welds seam sealed up.   Overall fairly happy with how it has come out. I need to address a couple of bits down on the sill lip, a couple of the plugs went a bit ugly, and then it's just a case of welding on an end plate in front of the rear tyre and this sill is done! Couple more little holes in the floor to deal with on this side, but only 7 days in and I'm thinking I should have all the welding done in the next week or so, and then on to refurbing the front subframe! |
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Post by wannabe on Aug 15, 2022 13:29:38 GMT
Awesome work, I think I need to learn welding and hire a garage with kit because the only other option to save my rust bucket will be paying someone a million pounds to do a full strip down and rebuild job that will last a year then be bubbling, if the usual experience is anything to go by lol
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Post by Bilbo on Aug 16, 2022 8:41:37 GMT
Awesome work, I think I need to learn welding and hire a garage with kit because the only other option to save my rust bucket will be paying someone a million pounds to do a full strip down and rebuild job that will last a year then be bubbling, if the usual experience is anything to go by lol Honestly it is worth it. I'm not a great welder at all, but I've learned stuff from a mate who was a quality fabricator for a number of years, various YouTube videos, and just doing little bits and pieces in the past myself. Visible panels are by far the most difficult to do nicely as not only are they thin but you always need to get them looking pretty. Stuff underneath is a bit easier, and honestly anything with metal over 1mm thick is actually a dream to work on in comparison as you can actually weld decent beads instead of doing the tiresome tack and move process you have to do with really thin body panels. It always ends up being disgustingly dirty work, and even with my hair tied back and a hood on I still get home and it washes out black in the shower, it's so grim but very rewarding when you look at before and after photos! |
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Post by Bilbo on Aug 16, 2022 8:43:00 GMT
So no major update as I begrudgingly took a day off the car yesterday to do some food shopping haha, but I have ordered a ton of stuff to refresh the underneath. I haven't even really inspected most of it, but it's been off the road 25 years so I thought it could probably do with it all being done. So far I've ordered:
Upper ball joints
Lower ball joints
Inner tie rods
Track rod ends
Front shocks
Lowering springs (40mm)
Rear brake cylinders
Brake drum rebuild kit
Rear shoes
Front pads
Dinitrol 1000 cavity wax (I like this stuff, used it to good effect on the 5 when the rust was sorted)
Need to order a few more bits: rear shocks, front caliper rebuild kit, and probably all the bushes tbh, still looking into options for the bushes as don't really want savage poly ones but rubber ones seem basically non-existent from my initial searches.
Other stuff I'll just buy as and when I get to it, but it will be nice to refresh all the old bits before ever driving it. I'll be back on the welding this evening!
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Post by wannabe on Aug 16, 2022 10:30:51 GMT
Definitely do bushes - a system is only as good as its weakest link, and sloppy bushes allowing a lot of movement will make it feel like a total handful lol Poly on the 5 is fine IMO - great granular steering feel but slightly wince-inducing over speed bumps and potholes, but your planned balloon tyres will take most of the hits! Do you need to do Top mounts or do they come with the shocks? Thanks for the info on the welding  I fear it will be like art - it's all good in my head but on the journey between brain and hand it all goes wrong...  lol |
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I fear it will be like art - it's all good in my head but on the journey between brain and hand it all goes wrong... 
lol
le sigh