At the weekend I started to clean up the floor pan of under seal. I used a propane torch to heat up the under seal and scrape off the seal then cleaned up the rest of the mess with a good dose of thinners.

This is what the panel looked like before cleaning most of the seal was already removed except in the hard to reach places as you cn see on the inside chassis rail.

These show the panel cleaned up before I repair the rust that I found. In one of the pics i tried to show the pinhole rust spot which I may well have missed had I sent the car off to be soda/sand blasted. this method may be time consuming but in finding spots like this I think worthwhile.

This is the rotisserie in its finished state

As you can see the post slides up and down and is secured by the 2 bolts fitted. I havent had any problem with this set up. It was easy to load the car on to the rig and with the assistance of a trolley jack it was easy to raise up to the working position. The only thing I would possibly change is to put a bolt through the inner posts so that it could "pivot" slightly as the front jockey wheel can lift off the floor when rotating the car.

Well it is a new year and lets face it last year was a shocker as far as the project goes. I am currently building my rotisserie for the car. Here is how and in some cases why I doing it. I started with a pair of standard engine stands available from your local accessory store. I cut off the main post at the base and welded a length of 100mm x 50mm steel to the base. the reason I have used this size steel is that I want to use the original post and have that slide up and down (telescope) inside. First problem found one of the original posts is tight against the weld flashing inside the new post so it will need to be ground down to slide freely the second one works fine. To fix the telescopng in place I will weld 2 12mm nuts to the rear of the new post and will fit bolts to them to act as a lock. For mounting the spindle to the car I started at the rear. this requires 2 lengths of 50 x 25mm steel tube one cut to bolt to the rear bumper holes 1000mm long and one cut to fit onto the tail light holes (these will need to drilled out to 10mm). This bar I have cut to fit the full width of the rear 1450mm. The reason is that when I used the old rotisserie the rear panel started to bend as the brace that has the boot latch on it was not welded in place down the centre so let go and is bent. This was a good idea as I have been able to use the bar to straighten the rear panel. These 2 bars are then welded together using 50 x 5 mm flat bar 3 x 250mm 2 by 320mm all bent at 50 mm from the bottom to fit the angle of the lower (bumper) bar. the 3 shorter ones are welded to the centre of the bars and each end of the bars, The 2 longer ones are bolted to the spindle of the rotisserie the top bolts will sit just above the top bar the lower bolts are in between the 2 bars. Onto the front I cut a piece of 40 x 10 mm bar 340 mm long (this will need to be checked to suit your car)as mine has the front panel removed I guessed the length and the piece of steel was 680 mm long so I just cut it in half. I drilled 2 x 10 mm holes to suit the bolt holes for the front bumper and have bolted them in place. Because the front panel and slam panel hve been removed I fitted a a length of 50 x 25 mm tube across the bulkhead and bolted them in place. then all that needs to be done is to fit bars to the bumper bracket and 2 bars from the bulkhead to a bar across the front fit 3 brackets/braces and 2 more for the spindle to attach to and you are done

Things to do plan

Ok this is the start of what I need to finish this build I have included all the stuff I already purchased stuff I need to purchase and Ideas that I need to source. If you have any ideas let me know. Rotisserie: the basis is already sourced (2 engine stands) these need to be adapted and frames to bolt to the subframe. Panelbeater: things he will be doing; rear turrets; Sourced. Mini Tubbing: he will supply; 2 link plates to purchase (Palmside). Gussets: He will supply. Seam welding: He will supply. Any structural rust: He will supply. Strut tower plates Supplied and Sourced. Roll Cage Supplier to be sourced. Material: Chrome moly; They will supply. Style:Fully intergrated picking up rear turrets and front struts, Side intrusion bars ETC. soda blasting using sodablast south Auckland. Panelbeater: for priming. Home: this is the big one: Engine Sourced 2 litre Pinto:Will be freshened by Performance Automotive Onehunga. things needed; Twin sidedraught dellortos, Alloy sump and pick up, High volume oil pump, New Cam Fast Road, Head to be flowed and polished big Stainless Valves. World cup cross member; Palmside. engine mounts to suit. Adjustable TCA's. New Rotors and calipers. Quick rack Sourced from White car. Adjustable suspension. All the wiring. lights I am considering going LEDs all round if I can find them. Switch gear. Alloy centre panel; Sourced, Seats; Probably from a 2 door Alfa 147 these are among the most comfortable and supportive seats I have sat in and they will be leather. Gauges; RS speedo cluster, Smiths ancillery gauges; from Robinson guages. Fibre glass dash pad (flocked). seatbelts; 5 point. fuel tank; Alloy from england. fuel pump and swirl tank. brake lines; all Braided, Rear axle; English Sourced from white car will need to be converted to disc rebuilt and fitted with a LSD from Palmside, More to come as i think of it!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not a lot of serious progress over the last few weeks but I thought I would pop on to give any upddates I can. Basically all I have been working on is the front guards one is now finished and waiting to be glassed over and the other is nearly there but it needs a bit of work to remove some of the damage that was hidden under the bog. This is requiring a bit of time as the panel is way out of shape but I will get there eventually. I havent bothered with any photos as you cant see what I have done very well. Funds are on hold ATM as we are having some alterations done to our bathroom and we also have a rental property that has had some (a lot) of the car budget spent on it so all I am doing is tiding up what I already have and slowly moving forward. Thats it for now updates when I get something done.
Peter

Got a few hours on the black girl this weekend. It was spent cleaning off the rear drivers side floor. This has had some repairs done to it and then had a rubberised coating put on it. This coating was quite sticky and needed to be removed so that I could locate any problems. To remove it I first sprayed some meths on and put a match to it, this softens the rubber enough to be able to scrape it off the remainder is then cleaned off with thinners and then finally all buffed off and cleaned up. I found a small bit of surface rust of which only a small hole had penetrated. I will fix this when I get the welder back. The rest was then coated with a good coat of hammerite. I have found that the meths system also works well on underseal as it burns at a lower temp and burns a bit slower than other chemicals. If trying this method only do a small section at a time so that you can work on the rubber while it is warm.

how to fit fibreglass bubble arches

Hi Welcome to My How To Guide to fitting Fibreglass Bubble arches. Before I start I need to point out that I am not a professional at this I am not a panel beater or a mechanic. This is to show how I did it and is definitely NOT the professional way. Some of you may have differing views as how I am doing it and if you know better please let me know and I may take your advise on my next project.

1 To start I have removed both guards from the car. This is for 2 reasons 1 to allow easy access to some of the rust under the guards
2 I am changing the guards to Bolt On this is to allow easy access to the suspension and it will allow me to remove the guards to clean out the underside if I take it on a gravel event.
So First stage
The tools and parts
The guards
The arches
Drill both Power and battery are handy 1 for drilling and the other for countersinking and screwing (these will be explained as I go.
One tool that I have found very handy is a Nibbler or in my case a versicutter. ( if you watch the infomercials on TV you would have seen them)
Pop Rivets (4mm x 10mm counter sunk heads)
Screws
Small washers with a 4 mm hole
Urethane (glue)
A scribe or a good marker pen

Now for the arches I got mine from a local company off our local trading website. Their website is www.msfibreglass.co.nz
They cost about $450.00 nzd + shipping
These guys have been around for a long time and the products seem to be excellent.

The first stage is to test fit the arches I use tape to hold them in place and once I am happy with the fit I then tack them in place with a few screws.

Once I am happy I use a scribe (on dark colours) or a marker ( on light colours) around the outside of the arch

Remove the arches and put to one side
With the nibbler cut out about 20 mm inside the scribe line (the arch will be fitted on the inside of the guard) this will give you enough steel to rivet the arch to

At this stage I proceeded to clean all the paint, bog and rust off the guards and painted both sides with Hammerite primer Before proceeding.

You can see the scribe line easily in this picture (taken after I cut the excess out) the excess can now be discarded. One issue I had was this guard was difficult to cut with the nibbler because of the amount of filler that was used the nibbler could not fit the steel and filler through its jaws so I had to grind away the filler before I could cut it out.

Once you are at this stage you can test fit the arch. I fitted the screw at the top of the guard first from the underside. Then once I was happy with how it fitted proceeded to fit screws around the rest of the arch. Check how the arch fits to the guard and make changes as required. In my case on this guard I cut out the bumper bolt hole and I found a section that needed a small amount of work with the hammer and dolly to make a smooth fit.

This is the fit at the rear lower corner You can see the extra screw hole from when it was fitted to the outside of the guard.

This is the reason I removed the bolt hole. The arches have a location for the hole and the steel around here is quite tough to get a good fit. By removing the shape you get a easier piece to flatten out into a good finish.

I have used long screws here so that you can line up the screw holes and then pull the arch into place rather than try to line up the holes with shorter screws and need to slide the arch on the urethane and make a mess.

Now this is when you need to move reasonably quickly.
Put a good bead of urethane all the way around the guard. Then starting at the top screw the arch into place (this is where the battery drill with a screw driver bit is handy) Screw from the underside. I put the guard on a couple of blocks of wood so that the arch was not sitting on the bench.
Turn the guard over and again starting from the top down drill the holes for the pop rivets with the power drill and then with the battery drill lightly countersink the hole. I drill 4 or 5 holes at a time about 75 - 100 mm apart.
Insert the pop rivet and on the inside fit a washer to the rivet to prevent it from pulling straight through the fiberglass.
Continue all the way around the arch till finished. When the riveting is done check for the fit and as required fit more rivets in between. You will find this is needed more on bends that flats.

You can see the washers on the underside of the rivet here

The top of the rivets you can also see where the guard doesn’t quite fit the arch another rivet here works wonders

The finished job

And the new guard sitting in place.
From this stage it is quite easy all you need to do is clean off any excess urethane ( use a good boxcutter when the urethane is dry). Give the guard a light sand and proceed to finish it off with filler. Once I am completely happy with the finish I will get the guard covered with a fiberglass skin to prevent the filler from cracking.
Hope this is useful. However if I had a choice I would use steel arches but have gone this way because of cost.
Peter