FOM The Clubman Estate

[Tupers]

Did a bit more yesterday and decided to add some braces to the subframe towers. Seen as it's a road car they not really needed but I think they look kinda cool.

 

[Tupers]

I did a bit of work tidying up the rear frame this evening. My brother had started gusseting the area where the rubbers cone rest in the frame but there was one left for me to complete.

Matts one.

Opposite side.

New gusset tacked in with zinc primer on the back side.

Fully welded, I had to stop and start a bit to save me from blowing through but it's pretty beefy none the less.

I also seam welded the trusses the to cross members and then ground them down to make it look a little cleaner.

I flicked some primer over it and you'd never know there was a joint there.

 

[Cris B]

Will the swaged holes be visible when the car is put back together?

 

[Tupers]

They will be if you're underneath it.

 

[tux]

Looking good. I like the tower braces, so what if they aren't needed, its touches like that, that make your car individual.

 

[Tupers]

Thanks Tux.

Had a little spare time last night so I finished up blending in the welds on the section I'd added between the side and rear gutters.
Originally it would have looked like this.

And now it's nicely closed up and looks a little more fluid. All I need to do now is drill a small hole for rain to drain through and sort out the flat spot.

My order from Smiffys Bits turned up as well, one rear subframe mega fittings kit and a pair of large rear trunnion washers.

 

[Tupers]

Did some more work to the rear subframe today.

Started out by marking up and drilling the for the swaged holes on the underside of the O/S leg.

Bolted the swaging die up.

It didn't take long to get them all done.

I also plugged up some little holes on the top and bottom of the legs. I drilled the holes out to 13MM and then welded in a washer to save having to make 6 plugs.

All welded up and primed

I also got rather nice aluminium inlet manifold from my brother.

 

[Tupers]

I got the last set of swages on the O/S leg done today.

There where 3 spare holes on the rear X member that needed filling so I popped some thick washers in a welded them up.

Nice beefy welds.

All ground down a primed.

I also welded up and smoothed off the joints where the rear X member meets the legs.

 

[Angusdog]

Great work. I too love swaged holes like that, just for the way they look. I'm trying to work out where I could use them in my estate. I think replacing the rear seat braces that run from the window down to the floor with something much beefier might be the go.

I spent yesterday with my new MIG, making one good rear door out of two rusted ones. Today's job is to get all four doors ready for painting.

 

[Tupers]

Great work. I too love swaged holes like that, just for the way they look. I'm trying to work out where I could use them in my estate. I think replacing the rear seat braces that run from the window down to the floor with something much beefier might be the go.

I spent yesterday with my new MIG, making one good rear door out of two rusted ones. Today's job is to get all four doors ready for painting.

It sounds like you're getting well stuck into it, I recon the seat braced would look quite cool with a few swaged holes in them. I've got something special planned for my rear doors that require me to learn some new metalworking skills so they might not done for quite some time.


I started smoothing all the casting marks off of my radius arms today and removed the brake hose tab that will be relocated to the inner side of the arm to give me some more clearance. My face was black with metallic dust by the time I was finished with the second arm.

My rear subframe bits turned up from Mini Spares, Specialist Components and DNS Classics as well. All I need for the back end now is brake backplates and a cleaned up set of hubs.

It also happens to be my 21st birthday today so I had a nice pile of tools from my parents waiting for my when I got home.

 

[Angusdog]

Happy Birthday! I wish I'd got such nice tools on my 21st, although that was 23 1/2 years ago...

One warning: Your car looks like it might be just as attractive from the underside, so you're going to have to check underneath for sightseers before you take off.

Hopefully I'll get all 4 doors painted this weekend, although I'm on child minding duties which might slow me down a bit. Then it's all about the reassembly.

 

[tux]

Belated birthday wishes dude.
Nice selection of tools that I am sure will be useful. Now get out there and use them on that project of yours!

 

[Tupers]

Thanks for the birthday wishes guys. My new tools are indeed very useful, I used the set square, clamp and grinder today and was very pleased with them.

I grabbed a pair of hubs this afternoon and after stripping the studs and bearings out I gave them a scrub in the safety clean, went over them on the wire wheel and flicked some primer over them.

I also went over the radius arms again with the die grinder a cleaned up the harder to reach areas, now I just need make new hose mounts and spray them.

 

[Tupers]

After sitting and looking at the engine bay I decided I wanted to smooth off the seam between the crossmember and the bulk head.

After using the Oxy torch and multiple wire brushed I managed to get the seam sealer out of the joint and then welded it up and made a start on grinding it back down smooth.

We've also been talking a lot about different cooling options and I've decided/been coerced into using a front mounted alloy MGF rad. With that in mind I drilled out the welds holding the old rad shroud on and will be filling in the old slats.

I also put my shrinker stretcher into action making the right angled sections that will join my rear quarters to my inner archers when I get around to tubbing the rear.
I started out with two 1M folded lengths of steel and ran them back and forth through the stretcher to curve them to match the radius of a wheel arch tub.

This is what it looked like after running through the stretcher twice.

And after a bit more tweaking I got it to match almost perfectly.

 

[tux]

Nice work. How was the stretcher to use? Worth the investment?

 

[Tupers]

Thanks Tux, it was definitely worth the investment and the stand made them really easy to work with. I couldn't imagine trying to use one of these in a vice at a bench.

I'm more sure now than ever though that I'm going to convert it to a kick machine as my right arm was killing me by the time I finished it.

 

[caveman]

tupers mate just wanted to say a real inspiration u are im currently building a clubby with a 2.016v vaux twincam.you really inspired me to take the metal work that little bit further your attention to detail is spot on and good luck with your project

 

[Cris B]

Good work with the stretcher, very impressive results and it was good that you noted the number of passes needed to produce the results. I notice you marked sections onto the metal work. How did you use them to aid the stretching process?

 

[Tupers]

Good work with the stretcher, very impressive results and it was good that you noted the number of passes needed to produce the results. I notice you marked sections onto the metal work. How did you use them to aid the stretching process?

In essence I aligned each line on the steel up with the side of the stretchers jaw to in insure that each stretch was an equal distance apart from the next. This means the pressure you put on the handle and the depth of the material are the only things you need to worry about to create uniform curves.


I got the other arch curve knocked out this morning so now I'm all really to start tubbing the arches.

With all this talk of front mounted rads I though I'd better make a mock up the same size as the alloy MGF unit to check the size. I think I'm going to go with something slightly shorter and narrower to leave some room for an oil cooler and of course air to the carb.

After lunch I turned my attention to making a new N/S flitch to get rid of the original slats.
I started out by going over the different angle changes in the O/S flitch with a marker pen and then copying those lines onto several sheets of A4.

I then taped the sheets together, flipped them over and traced over the lines to create a mirror image of the O/S flitch.

Before committing to big sheet of steel I did a small test piece to see if my proposed method of forming would work. The basic idea is to chase over the markings with a hammer and chisel to form lines in a similar way to a press break.

When I was happy that this method would work I set about creating the new flitch. All in it's got 13 angle changes and took me about 3 hours to beat out.

It still needs a little tweaking but with any luck it'll be all welded in by lunch tomorrow.

From the top the original flitch and my one look pretty close although it's a little hard to see it without paint.

 

[Tupers]

The flitch on the O/S has a brace that comes off the front panel to reinforce it but due to the placement of the rad on the N/S it's not there.

So I made one.

I also finished trimming the new N/S flitch and welded it in.