Project 34T Part 2
How bad did the rust get after 6 years of neglect. Starting at the rear sils where it all began. You can look up through the outer sill through what’s left of the middle and rear sill to see daylight from the inside.
It’s time to get the screwdriver out and start stabbing at the rust to see where it goes through.
Alot of people wince at the through of somebody starts poking and stabbing holes in there car. That fact of the matter is it’s rotten. Punching a hole where this rust has consumed your car isn’t making it worse it’s making you face the reality of the situation.
Project 34T had a lot of reality to face.
The rust had rotted:
Both middle sills at the rear,
All 4 jacking points needed some attention
Section of the outer sill
Around the rear fuel fill
Patch along The floor
both rear wheel archers
Section of front valance
Battery tray.
Part of the chassis rail
Suspension strut bracket both sides.
Inerr wing both side
The worth bit about finding all this rust you don’t find it all at once. You start with the worst part, by time you grind it back the size of ghe repair has doubled in size. After chopping it all to pices, cutting and shaping replacement pannles, wedding it and grinding the welds down. Finally your left with a repair and some job satisfaction. Your standing back admiring your work then you notice a rust sport just a little bit thurver down the panel that you never noticed before, and have to repat this process again, and again and again until you’ve chased the rust around the car for a few lap.
Once you’ve done all this the floor will have a few more hidden gifts, as your stipp all the underseal off going back to bear metal, it will reveal a few more cheeky little spots that have been hiding from you.
Is was a DIY job, we didn’t send the body to sand blast or chemical dip. These processes are used by professionals restoration companies to tripp the car back and see everything that need repairing.
It also avoids the rolercoster of emotion you get by fixing a patch and finding a patch, fix a patch find patch.
The reason Project 34T wasn’t completely stripped back it’s a project car, done in my spare time. You shouldn’t leave bear metal exposed for long periods of time as it will start to rust. It unknown how long it would take “2 years”
Learning to weld it’s essential
Crutial part of the repair process is the ability to weld, however, I couldn’t weld at the start of the project and now I can.
Learning to weld isn’t hard you just need practice. A little hobby MIG (metal inurt gas) welding is what i stateded with and its well worth the investment. Body rear is mostly small tack welds attaching replac pices into the whole you’ve cut out. Better quality preparation the easier it is to get a good weld. Also a good quality welding makes a huge difference. You need to be able to see what your doing.
A little tutorial on my rust repair process.
Accentual equipment you will need!
- Angle grinder “death wheel” with accompanying selection of; cutting, stripping and grinding disc.
- Personal protective equipment PPE, Gloves, goggles, dust mask,ear defenders.
- Welder with wire and gas!
- Cardboard
- Rust inhibitor ( krustasol)
- Paint and Primer
- Wire brush
- Air compressor and lines
- Spay gun
- Aerosol cans
- Sand Paper.
- Identify a rusty sport
Use a strip wheel on an angle grinder aka death wheel, to remove all rust and pain in the area you’re choosing to repair. As the volvo had been parked on moist grass there was an overwhelming amount of scabby rust to choose from!
Definitely recommend wearing eye protection and gloves, the amount of dust and bits of shit that get thrown up you seriously want to protect your eyes. Not with the shitty clear sunglasses you need proper goggles. I use sunglasses like goggles when grinding a weld in the FL wheel arch, being in a cramped space the metal got behind my glasses and into my eye, eye wash didn’t do shit! Had to go to the hospital to get the metal fragments in my eye removed. There was so much metal and I had to go back 3x times. It did permanent damage to the sight in my right eye. Luckily I can still read the 8th line on the eye test so it still has 20/20 vision but my left eye can read the next line and is much sharper.
Any way now you’ve got your goggles on, and the grinder strip wheel is cleaning up the area and exposing more rust than you expected.
- Message twice cut once.
Carefully think about where you need to cut to remove the infects rust. This sounds overly simple but rust isn’t always on flat panels, often it’s where panels joint and you need to think about the piece or pieces you can make to replace the mental you cut out.
Carefully cut out the rust with a cutting disc on a deathwheel. It might have to be cut out in two pices depending on access and angle. Cut in as straight lines as possible too!
Some cars you will be able to buy replacement pannles to weld in, with this volvo being such a unusual restoration I could only buy the outer sill and even then I had to import them from Holland! Ever other panel was made by me or jay using the special craft techniques…. I say special I mean abit of cardboard template tracing and the beating sheet metal into submission with a hammer.
- Cardboard Aided Design
Use cardboard to create a template. This is also known as CAD carbord aided design not computer aided design. You can get special paten cardboard to making template it’s almost an exact likeness to cereal box cardboard. Make use the template is tight fit into the whole you’ve cut out.
Once we have a cardboard template you’re happy to trace it out over some sheet metal. Make sure you cut to the outside of your traced line’s, this will leave you a little extra material to refine after you bend and shape your panel to match the cut out piece. It’s very handy to keep a small cutting disc as It can fit in tight spaces.
- Black Smith
Most pices will need some shaping to match the curves and contours of car body. To give the flat sheet some curves usually involves being it with a hammer. having a good stable bench vice to hold the metal as your bend and hammer the metal sheet creating body line. Is very helpful. As you bend the replacement pannle keep going back to the vehicle and offering it up. check its being shaped in the right way.
The replacement must be tight fit as possible. Now its the correct shape, trim any excess material off. A nice tight fit will weld in much easier and be a stronger replacement.
- Preparation and Primer
After all that work you’ve got a tight fitting replacement panel. It’s such a good tight fit it almost holds itself in places.
It’s time to perepair (prep) for welding in. The back of the panel will need sealing. Leaving it exposed will cause it to rust again and we have already put loads of effort into repair the rust. Prepping the panel can be as simple as scratching it with a scotch padded to key ut for primer then. spraying it with etch primer and water proof coating(epoxy primer, paint or lacquer) to protect if from moisture. A simple spray can will do this job. Checky not so pro tip, a vigorous shake and heat the can up a little bit, it must only be warmed up a little so you could still hold it with your bare hands! This will improve how it spays and applies. while you have a whole cut in your car some work on the inside in the panel can be carried out to prohibit and protect against future rust. spaying a coating in there.
All the paints are dry, make sure the edge where you will be welding is clear and bear metal is showing. You can’t put good welds down though Paint and it can contaminate the weld.
- MIG Welding
Prepping the car for welding you will need a patch near to repair stiped back bare metal for the welder’s earth/ground to attach to. Amateur tip, put a light/torch on the close to the aera you’re welding, this will help with visibility when in the dark mask. If you have two cut offs of sheet metal, it might be worth practicing welding them together. which will allow you to fine tune your wire speed and gas pressure. The main point of practice is to see the penetration you want to see the weld from the back of the panel, then youll know everything has melted together correctly.
When joining car panels we need tack welds. This is a selection of little welds that join together to fill a pannle gap. As welding is hot business laying down a contusion bead would worp the panels, by tack welding we can manage the heat with out distorting the weld.
When joining the pice of metal start the weld on the pannle attached to earth. Pull the trigger slowly this willl let some gas flow before you start the weld. My making a small tight half moon shape this will create the first tack weld. Do this at each 4 corners then retun to the 1st weld and right next to it start the 5th weld. Repeat this process so 6th weld is next to 2nd and 7th Is next to the 3rd until the is no gaps left. Eventually you will make your way around the whole panel. It won’t look pretty but it will be in solid. Grind the welds down near to flat. Any pinhole remaining can tack welded up the ground back. Once you happy the weld is almost flat, finish it off with a flappy wheel. the finished repair should almost blend in to the original panel.
- Rusinhibitor.
After taking a grinder and stripping dics to rust spots you might be plesantly surprised that the rust ground back to just a few black spots where it had eaten into the metal and the pannle doesn’t need replacing. With out treatment rust will come back. using a high quality Rust inhibitor like (metaflux rustasol) on the aera with the pitting dot will provent it from coming back.
alot of people dont believe rust inhibitor work because they expect them to work miracles on neglected rotten panel. Often joe blog has has left the rust so long it’s taken over and needs welding work, but instead of getting it done he applies rust inhibitor in a too little too late attempt to prevent rust.
Rust inhibitors should only be used as a preventative step during a repair.
- More Primer and Preparation
Getting the repaired area ready for pain really depends where it is as the process will be added or removed for different areas. If the repair is on the visible body you will need to apply polyfill and sand it back to smooth out the repair. P80 grit on a block its best to get the filler down then finish the filler with P180 before priming. If you only using aerosol cans finish in P240 or P320 grit. The next step if did or didn’t require filler is the same: the bare metal will need 1 coat of etch primer. As it adis the pain material to stick to metal, acid etch tends to be best for meat “as acid eats into the metal to improve adhesion” if you used filler a cost of high build primer will be needed. This is a filler primer to that will help to blend in the repair area, it requires multiple coats and can be blocked down with p320 p400 and p500 to aid blend the repair.
While on the topic of primer, you might want to primer aera as you repair but not pain immediately. Epoxy primer acts as sealant proving a good resistance against moisturiser in the air, while you’re waiting.
Once repair is primed seam sealer may be applied to close the panel seams. By closing the seam you prevent moisture from getting in and rusting the car.
Personal after this I like to apply one last cost of primer before paint.
- Pait and Top finish.
Ready for the finishing touches. Its important to scotch the whole area you want to paint. Grey scotch is ideal for paint as it only leaves very fine scratches enabling the paint to stick.
Next is masking to protect parts of the car and surrounding objects from overspray.
Most repairs will be ready for paint and lacquer, however, some will require stone chip applying before paint. Especially on repairs that are on the underbody or in the wheel archers.
Project 34T is absolutely covered in stone chip, volvo where pretty keen on it from factory and I’ve embarrassed, as this is a car that’s meant to get the mileage in.
For stone spaying a test pice match the OEM is recommended. By changing air pressure and spay distance the stone chip effect. Spraying stone chip can be a very messy process!
Paint and lacquer are the final process of the
After all that stand back and admire your handy work! Well when i say admire you will always find little bits your not happy with. mainly because as you start doing repair you get better and by time you finish you last repair your skills have improved and you wabt to redo your earlier repair. Just remember the state of the car when your started, car is soiled and repaird now its come a long way. It can take ages to get to this point too. For project 34T its been years of doings bits on evenings after work and odd weekends when I’m not away with the racing team. Slowly and steady it’s gone from a neglected shell to a solid rolling chassis.
