106 Rallye Prep and Restoration

[davenport]

I can't help thinking that anyone who believes that their 106 is rust free just hasn't found it yet

yes.. yes.. YES!! the amount of times i see "mint" shell for sale.. it drives me mad.. it metal.. its 10 year old metal it WILL have rust..

satchshift!! i like to feel slightly responsible for colin getting these sorted.. they really are a massive improvement..

 

[Cris B]

I bought an 8mm spot weld drill bit through Frost not so long ago, but it's always been fairly poor at removing any of the spot welds on the car I've tried, so in the end I've gien up and sourced this Wieländer and Schill 10mm bit... what a difference in terms of cutting power and the spot welds are now properly separating the panels

I've also picked up an AEG flexible shaft kit (via eBay) for the drill and then sourced a heap of 40 and 80 grit flap wheels. So finishing the welds in some of the tighter spots will be a lot easier now.

Cracked on with the car earlier this afternoon...

Removing the last section of rotten panel has created a hole into the cabin. So now I need to remove the cage so I can removed the flocked dash and save it from being ruined by further works. I'd been putting it off but will be heading back out shortly to take it all out...

 

[Cris B]

Cage and dash are out, it's one of those things that's really easy once you've done it a few times, still takes ages though. Once it was all out and safely stored, cleaned up the chassis rail and marked out the section to cut.

This bit is called a bond floor panel for some reason on 106 parts but in reality it's a support brace for the wishbone mounting. Weighing up whether to repair it or replace it.

 

[Benj]

Hi Cris,

Looks a little different from the last time i saw the car... Benji from 106RR

That panel from Pug is about 51 quid i think. Well worth replacing!

 

[davenport]

ooooh mate.. its becoming serious now...

 

[Cris B]

i don`t recall that row of spotwelds though... unless i didn`t go low enough??

Found out what they're for now

Reinforcing bracket was very rotten though so chopped it out...

Pretty much all of the roof of the rail which is thinner SWG20 is badly rotten - it actually went to holes as I cleaned it up with a twisted knot bit. I've started making templates for all the bits that were cut out and will finish those and get the metal repair sections ready before I chop anymore.

 

[Cris B]

Finally managed to get back to this. Having managed to get my hands on a sheet metal folder, I set about making the reinforcement gusset to sit inside the chassis rail. Starting point was a cardboard template which was transfered onto steel and shaped to give the initial shape.

The chassis rail curves in the horizontal plane between where the top of the wishbone mounting strut joins the rail and where it levels out. I didn't notice this with the cardboard template, but once the steel part was made up it was quite evident. Only one thing for it... mark out the points for the bend and cut slits into the wall and floor that needed shortening.

Test it in the chassis rail and it seemed enough, so welded it back together, ground it down and did a second test for fit and managed to get it spot on. The gusset also needs to follow the curvature of the rail in the other axis so then it was chopped and triangles made to join it back together.

Welded up, ground down and test fit all went okay. Just need to drill some 10mm drainage holes into the bottom of the gusset and then I can move onto the other repairs. These pictures show the curves created.

 

[kenmac]

That is some really nice work there, watching this with great interest

 

[davenport]

things are looking good cris... your repair panel fabrication looks pretty good...


ready for French Car Show??? haha

 

[Drains]

Cris - nice job. Your metal shaping seems to be coming on a treat. But gizza look at your welds would you? Worth making sure they're going well too

 

[Cris B]

Shaped the repair panel for the chassis rail based on the cardboard template I'd made up. Took a lot of fine tuning with the file to get it to fit well, but it's pretty much a perfect fit now.

With that done I removed the rotten section from the top of the chassis rail.

It was bad!

Thanks for the comments. Will post up some pictures of the welding next time. Don't seem to be doing much of it at th emoment though...

Did a little bit more prep work, but that was it for today.

 

[kenmac]

I must admit I didn't know a Pug of this age would be as rust ridden as this but by the sounds of others it's common but your doing a fantastic job

 

[Cris B]

I must admit I didn't know a Pug of this age would be as rust ridden as this but by the sounds of others it's common but your doing a fantastic job

The worrying thing is you could look at it and think that it wasn't too bad. It's only once the paint and underseal is off that the true extent of the rust damage has become apparent.

 

[Cris B]

Really unproductive weekend. Probably managed 3 hours on the project...

Chopped out some more rotten bits. I'm happy I've got to the bottom of the problem areas now, so started making up repair sections.

When it's all put back together this section creates a water trap on top of the chassis rail. There was really bad rot here so I've added a drainage channel.

Welded in and started grinding. Welded from both sides to get good coverage.

Ran out of time at this point, but next jobs are to removed the steering column and rack.

 

[Cris B]

During the week I finally managed to get the steering column and rack disconnected. It turned out to be very easy in the end, but it was just a job I’d been putting off. The rack unbolted without any drama and pedal box came out simply too. There was a fair bit of gunk and some algae lurking behind there so spend the rest of the evening just giving it a clean with degreaser.

Yesterday I managed to grind down the welds on the repair patch that I'd fittedm but not finished off on the last bit of work. Then the next tassk was making good the lower bulkhead lip that had been distorted by drilling the spotwelds and removing the rotten sections.

Then the next sections to tackle were the off side bulkhead seam joint where the top section was rotten and the lower section had started to go where the seam sealer had failed and with the seam sealer removed from the footwell you could see a seam of rust running along the joint. Top half chopped out and bottom half chopped to give a new edge. Patch tacked in place:

Welded it and then ground down:

Top section that needs replacing. The rust is what was hidden in the joint of the seam. This is the repair job for tomorrow.

Finally I removed the last section of the chassis rail top. I had originally contemplated leaving this in place and welding the repair to it, but close inspection revealed it was pretty far gone. It was held in place by a spot weld that needed to be drilled from the footwell.

Once it was out I was glad it had gone after I saw the state of it!

 

[Cris B]

Following on from yesterday, I made the patch panel for the upper part of the bulkhead seam repair panel. Then prepared both faces of the joint with zinc etch primer.

Once it was dry, marked the sections for the spotwelds and ground off the primer in the appropriate areas:

Cleaned up the surrounding metal work and welded in the patch. Really difficult spot to work in as it was hard to get close enough to see what was going on properly.

Penetration was good, but I went off line a bit. After this photo was taken I laid some extra welds in from the footwell side to make it good.

Used a number of different tools to clean the welds back. This shows them mostly tidied up. It just needs a little bit more finishing.

With that in place most of the day was spend making the chassis rail top. What a mission! It's a very complex shape and was difficult to fabricate up. There was a lot of work in both cardboard and steel to get to this.

End point for today. This is the panel ground down and ready to prep for paint and fitting.

 

[Angusdog]

There haven't been a lot of comments on this recently so I thought I'd add my 2p: Great work! I love following this sort of thread, and I'm impressed with the level of commitment and skill. I usually learn something and eventually put it to use on my own projects.

 

[SamT]

coming on good, i know rust too well myself lol, can understand how much effort your going into, but that last piece looks really tricky lol looks fantastic finished up

 

[woody_02g40]

Coming on a treat, would love to do something similar myself! Well done

 

[Cris B]

Thanks for the comments. I managed about and hour and half yesterday on some other odds and ends on the car. Progress on the work documented here has stalled while I wait for some Clecos to arrive and some Tungsten Carbide die grinders.