Restoring my Renault Clio 172 Cup track car.

[conor1n]

More so agreeing with setting up a board to peg out the loom in such a way that it can be folded and transported between home and the workshop. There is merit to knowing your loom is right and there's less to have to wrap your head around down the line if something does go wrong

I agree.. but i'm just concerned about time really.

...... just to add, that there's a world of a difference between stripping back an old loom and building a new one .... I know which one I'd rather be doing

I don't want everything to be ready to go and then there's me with 10 miles of wiring getting stressed about everything working.

I think if I can get the current loom in good shape and the car running I will be happy. The innards of the car will be wide open, so if the need ever arose I'd say I could pull the looms out very quickly.

 

[conor1n]

Ok, so for the second weekend in a row I have been working hard at welding the rotten area back into shape.

You can review the raw damage in these posts, #22, #32, #33

Overall, the process I decided on was to cut small fillets of steel to rebuild each skin individually and then plug and lap weld them together as I go along. some of the fillets early on had some cold welds with only minor penetration, but overall the welding is good and strong.

First two pics show my first weld on a car body panel.. ever. It was where I had over cut when cleaning up the rot.

Then just plug / lap weld these two skins back together. From memory, they were original split for inspection purposes.

Side note: Throughout this, you will see some coating wet (blue) and dry (black). This is Bilt Hamber Hydrate 80 rust killer/barrier.

 

[conor1n]

Adding another fillet. Got some good penetration on this.

Arrrgh.. looking back on my photos, I have very few of me actually prepping the stuff and fitting etc, along with underside penetration. I remember it being too hard to photograph really, but you get a peek in one picture here.

Also, I made some videos of me working one of the weekend (meaning lack of photos).. thinking I would do YouTube. I really don't have the time for that. Running a video camera slows the work and my general workload is too high to be editing decent videos.

I think going forward I will continue to make videos here and there and edit them / upload in time (winter maybe).

ALSO - I had another thread querying some of my welds on one of my first fillets, here. Might be useful.

The main reason for the cold/bad welds was my 1 second spot timer use. I turned that off and kept all other settings the same and everything got much hotter.. the welds pooled/puddled a lot more and generally ended up not as high.

I am VERY chuffed at how this is turning out. Everything is coming together nicely. I think that by adding many smaller fillets and welding all together it is quite strong, according to others and that it certainly wouldn't be weaker than factory.

See the jagged skin there. That was my biggest concern really, and wasn't sure how I would address it.

In this photo you can see where I separated it from the cabin panel, by drilling the spot welds from the inside. This allowed me to get in there with the BH Hydrate 80 to kill the rust.

Is it just me, or does this kind of stuff always look ugly/crap before it starts to get good again lol.

 

[conor1n]

To fix that jagged/flimsy skin, the plan was to weld in a panel from a donor car door. The plan is to weld it on the exterior so the patch won't be visible from the cabin. I would then plug weld it on the inside and tidy up along with a lap weld on the outside.....to that very thin steel, which was quite tedious and ended up a bit messy.

The intention was to mark out the cutouts so that I could mimick factory. In the end it turned out ok. But, before I forget. One hole ended up covered so I just welded it up lol.

Needed to really pound in some wood to keep the new sheet pressed up against old for welding.

I was happy with these. I'm disappointed I didn't get pics but there was really good penetration here.

 

[conor1n]

The outside part of that new panel was very tedious.. I kept blowing away the light steel broken down by rust. Eventually I got there. A few gaps and holes but overall, I think it's strong.

I laid the heat on pretty thick around here.. That might have added to the panel warp, but that is largely down to the wedging technique to get flush fitment with internal panel for the plug welds. This will be hammered down and plug welded to the lower layers later on.

I even stacked a few pennies LMAO!!

Once that was done, I used the holes from the original drilling to plug weld the seams from the inside. Again, very messy but laid on the heat pretty strong.

Time to tidy up....

Ground and flap disc used here..

Few little blemishes here and there... but "it's finnnnee" - I need to remember "it's only a track car"..

I personally feel like it came up quite well.. What do you think? Still looks reasonably original.

 

[conor1n]

Then I just cleared up the other side a bit.. No major needs around that as this will ultimately be covered over..

Now.. I must say I am really pleased with how this final panel has come together.. I was really concerned about how I would go about making a decent repair of that flimsy stell.

You can see here how the panel is going to be easily formed into a nice profile. It will start off low and be plug welded.. then as it raises up it will be made available for a piece of folded steel to replicate the factory fold, which adds strength. That folded steel is thicker too, not sure what, but maybe 1.5mm :/

That fold was given to me by one of the guys, that he got folded based on his visual memory, which was very kind! It's not ideal as is, but I am confident I can make it work. The side hanging off the bottom will need to come off..

I wasn't sure how the box/folded profile was done, but by looking at the other side, I could see that it tapers in. With that in mind I only need approximately less than half of the folded length I have. I'll probably cut some slits into it to aid further folding, shaping, as it will need to be tapered on two surfaces.

 

[conor1n]

What do people think.

I've really enjoyed it so far. Was chatting to somebody the other day who say this and said given the complexity (not difficulty for a pro) it would take time to get it all back into shape and depending on who I got, could easily be into the €500-700 mark to get it done. That made me feel a lot better about the amount I spent on that welder lol.

 

[Cosantoir]

could easily be into the €500-700 mark to get it done. That made me feel a lot better about the amount I spent on that welder lol.

I told ya man. The welder will pay for itself and you'll have so much more to show for it.

I'm no pro at all but I've found when I see the weld so pronounced it's usually got very poor penetration and only looks to be bonded at the surface.
Ive found the over the past few weeks I've actually cranked the power up an extra notch more than I thought was required and also the wire speed and everything is working so much more smoothly as my spot welds and tacks are doing so much better.


In sure you'll find areas where there was corrosion and it keeps blowing through. For this I tend to drop the power right down and get some tacks on the seam to it can absorb the heat. And then I bring the heat up and start 50% on the weld and it allows me to get the job done and get the penetration as I re melt the existing tack.

Keep it up it really gets quote addictive from here on

 

[conor1n]

I told ya man. The welder will pay for itself and you'll have so much more to show for it.

I'm no pro at all but I've found when I see the weld so pronounced it's usually got very poor penetration and only looks to be bonded at the surface.
Ive found the over the past few weeks I've actually cranked the power up an extra notch more than I thought was required and also the wire speed and everything is working so much more smoothly as my spot welds and tacks are doing so much better.


In sure you'll find areas where there was corrosion and it keeps blowing through. For this I tend to drop the power right down and get some tacks on the seam to it can absorb the heat. And then I bring the heat up and start 50% on the weld and it allows me to get the job done and get the penetration as I re melt the existing tack.

Keep it up it really gets quote addictive from here on

Yea very true.. I have it forever now. I seem to hate paying people to do stuff that I think I can do myself.

Re: the welding.. yes, I agree. That one you quoted was the first ever weld on a car panel. The problem was that I was using spot timer set to one second which ultimately meant a cold weld with little penetration. I was just obsessed with not burning holes.

For the vast majority of the work done now I switched off the spot timer and held for much longer.. seems the welds are lower down now and I could see it burning through to the other side..

 

[500e]

Coming along well impressed for first go & no previous time on tools a big

 

[Cosantoir]

For the vast majority of the work done now I switched off the spot timer and held for much longer.. seems the welds are lower down now and I could see it burning through to the other side..

I was at that for a while and about a 2 weeks ago I ended up increasing the power and the wire speed from uphill and overhead welding and never changed it back and tacks now get full instantaneous spot welds and because its so fast not much of the panel get the change to heat up and start deforming could be worth testing out,

 

[conor1n]

Right.. so a quick lunchtime update from me, on the weekends work.

It basically took me all weekend to get that one piece of folded steel fitted and welded to the chassis. I was super careful about it all as I know it is somewhat structural and wanted it to fit nicely, in general.. just because.

So this is what we are dealing with here.. note the taper on the panels..

I was running a bit ahead of myself but then I remembered the cardboard and all it's wonderful uses. This was a decent fit and figured if I could get the steel to fit like this i'd be doing well.

Fast forward for a moment.. this is the final fit, just before welding. I don't think it turned out too bad after all..

You will notice a weld along the vertical surface. That surface was just too long really, so I cut along the middle. I had then tacked it both ends so I could mark it to cut. Then I figured, why not keep it lapped and weld both sides..it certainly can't be weaker that way..

Next pic shows the tack welds to hold the correct fitting.

For the lap welding, one side turned out with a nice bead, then I ended up enjoying the welding on the other side too much, playing with the puddle etc. I ended up with a massive bead, but good penetration nonetheless, so it was all good.

 

[conor1n]

Sunday... :


Decided to pepper the piece with plug welds. For that piece measuring about 150mm there are 9 plug welds coming via both sides on one surface. Surely that should be great. Admittedly, some of them didn't penetrate as good as other welds I have done. Overall, now that everything is welded up, the whole area is totally solid, based on my hammer test lol.

Oh and the top surface has another 8 plug welds from the top surface only.

And tacked along all the edges.

While the welding here looks incomplete, I didn't get a raw weld photo of it all complete, it did get all completely welded.

Plug welds from the other side..

I felt like these were great at the time.. because I started the puddle on the underside sheet and filled in the whole. For some reason they didn't penetrate fully. Maybe the welder was a little low for that slightly thicker steel??

After welding fully.. nice penetration on the cabin panel.

Welds ground down.

Oh, I didn't get a polished pic, but I think you can see it finished off here..

Overall, it was a bit fiddly and the welds look kind of messy. I feel the welding could have been better but I am chuffed with the fit of the steel, especially the taper on it. The taper won't be visible once the outer layer goes on but at least I will no it's smart and it was great fun to do it.

EDIT: Wow, I feel a tad sick after watching that clip.

 

[conor1n]

Ok... so here goes another update. I've been a bit silent on here of late, as I had to travel away for about 10 days (jab #2 amongst other bits).

Anyway... I have completed the welding repair.

TLDR: My last update finished up everything bar the outer section which effectively closes the whole thing up. It was fiddily and time consuming. I made a few mistakes here and there, but it did turn out a good fit in the end (I think!). I think most of my problems arose from trying to make the entire piece as one big compound shape. There were loads of angles and I was doing great until I went to fit, when I realised it was all wrong lol. I hadn't accounted for the curved floor pan section. By the time I was have way through hammering/shaping the piece, the scored sections (for folding) gave way, and I ended up with three separate pieces. No sweat, I just welded them on individually.

This is what I started off with. I gave a shot of Zinc 182 and some rattle can black just to try and keep things somewhat sealed / tidy. There will be cavity wax later anyway.

Much shaping... simple, right!? :grimace

This steel I am working with here is 1.5mm and quite strong.

Marked out the places I need to score with the cutting disc to help fold.

It ended up not fitting all that well for a few reasons, and it was at this point I realised a single compound shape was a bit too ambitious of me. I guess my lack of folding abilities were always going to be a problem (I just didn't realise it).

You can see here that I now have three pieces instead of one. The fold lines ended up breaking as I tried to form the single shape. No sweat. It was actually a relief when it happened as I knew it would make things easier. I guess I was just keep to try and do it in one.

And this is what I ended up with. The logic is that I will weld up piece 1 first, then plug welds at 2, allowing me to pull the area at 3 forward and plug weld that. Then finally, I will weld up 4.

 

[conor1n]

Plugged up nicely. I played around with the settings a bit as I felt like the weld was building up too high before the bottom piece had been penetrated. On the smart mig feature I couldn't lower the wire speed past a point, so I went to manual and played about. I'm not sure it helped or if it was a fluke or what.

That's decent penetration though, right? That's not a rhetorical question. I would assume it is as you can see where the metal was partially molten.. on the other hand if it was to go much past that point, you are sailing very close to the wind with regards just burning a hole? Am I right in saying that, or could that have penetrated better? Answers on a postcard, please

More plug welds after the break.

Lower plugs done, and you can see how I was successful in my logic to pull the piece forward to allow plug welding.

Plugged up.. you can see how the final piece fits in too.

Ready to tack in the final piece of the puzzle.

Plug welds on the final piece. I don't have any pics, but if you look at previous photos there were holes (from OEM spot welds) on the floor pan. I used these wholes to do plug welds from the other side onto the final piece too.

So this is the three pieces welded in. A few brutal looking gaps there that make me wince a little, which isn't fair really. I think overall i've done a good job as this was really my first MIG project.

 

[conor1n]

Don't look if you are squeamish!!!

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In the upcoming photo you will see where I just went total open season on the weld in an effort to just sink some weld, add some reinforcement and just generally seal things up a bit.. For the large gap in top left, I just stuck a piece of 1mm sheet in there, bent it into place and used it as something to catch the weld from the torch. Then cut the excess off with a grind. Total caveman **** there lol, but what the heck.

For the piece on the far right, the weld wouldn't penetrate/stick to the floor pan. I think that was due to some of the rust treatment I hadn't cleaned off. I thought it would burn through, but didn't. Oh well, there are plenty of plug welds in that to have it nice and strong. As I mentioned before about the plugs from the other side, the second photo below shows the three areas of penetration from the other side.. should be plenty strong?

Did some cursory grinding for the photo op. This will be primed, painted and seam sealed with some strategic seam sealer use LMAO!! Then UPOL Gravitex over that. Once it's all done, I don't think will be all too visible, so I'm easy enough on myself LMAO.

This repair is _very strong_. I can beat any area of the repair and the whole car resonates loudly whereas any of the other corners have a shallow thud in comparison. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but the repair seems very strong. This was the first time I have ever welded anything with my MIG (with the exception of some light sheet metal, to see how it actually works). Considering that, I think it's a pretty decent job really.

Here is a quick video snipped of the job, which shows a brief comparison to the other side.

 

[conor1n]

Before the weekend, I need to weld in the small square hole in the roof where the arial was and that is the main welding work done. I have also started stocktaking the various bits of running gear that I need to get cleaned up / blasted and sprayed.

Then it's tidying up the remaining rust on the bottom, painting, seam sealing and UPOL gravitex..ing the underside. Prep and pain the inside and then the outside. Simples, right!?

Also, colour update.

Originally, I wanted to go purple with black/silver wheels, similar to a Porsche 911 GT3 RS.. I was toying between that and some kind of Racing Green with gold/bronze wheels. I like the purple a bit more, but I think that purple could make the car really undesirable when it inevitably comes to sell, so green it is.

Here's a flavour of what it could look like. I will be going flat (non metallic) to keep the painting process a bit simpler.

What do people think of my thought process and the colour?

For reference, purple below..

 

[Nick DV]

Plugged up nicely. I played around with the settings a bit as I felt like the weld was building up too high before the bottom piece had been penetrated. On the smart mig feature I couldn't lower the wire speed past a point, so I went to manual and played about. I'm not sure it helped or if it was a fluke or what.

View attachment 305486

That's decent penetration though, right? That's not a rhetorical question. I would assume it is as you can see where the metal was partially molten.. on the other hand if it was to go much past that point, you are sailing very close to the wind with regards just burning a hole? Am I right in saying that, or could that have penetrated better? Answers on a postcard, please

View attachment 305487

More plug welds after the break.

View attachment 305488View attachment 305489


Lower plugs done, and you can see how I was successful in my logic to pull the piece forward to allow plug welding.


View attachment 305490

Plugged up.. you can see how the final piece fits in too.

View attachment 305491

Ready to tack in the final piece of the puzzle.

View attachment 305492

Plug welds on the final piece. I don't have any pics, but if you look at previous photos there were holes (from OEM spot welds) on the floor pan. I used these wholes to do plug welds from the other side onto the final piece too.

So this is the three pieces welded in. A few brutal looking gaps there that make me wince a little, which isn't fair really. I think overall i've done a good job as this was really my first MIG project.

View attachment 305493 View attachment 305494 View attachment 305495

Please don't take this as a criticism, but I think that it was a tad ambitious to attempt to fabricate the above out of one piece of steel of that thickness. If you have a look at some of Fitzee's videos, you'll see that he'll fabricate complicated parts out of many pieces rather than messing around with bending and shaping a single piece. He makes it look easy, but if you follow his methods, it actually is.

Great work and enjoying the rebuild so posting the build log

 

[PhillipM]

A lot of that welding looks very cold tbfh, and not blended into the previous tacks because of it.

 

[conor1n]

Please don't take this as a criticism, but I think that it was a tad ambitious to attempt to fabricate the above out of one piece of steel of that thickness. If you have a look at some of Fitzee's videos, you'll see that he'll fabricate complicated parts out of many pieces rather than messing around with bending and shaping a single piece. He makes it look easy, but if you follow his methods, it actually is.

Great work and enjoying the rebuild so posting the build log

No criticism.. if I was a bit more experienced, I may have known not to bother even trying it lol. Thanks for the encouragement.

A lot of that welding looks very cold tbfh, and not blended into the previous tacks because of it.

Yea, I don't disagree with you. I will say this though. They welds you are referring to are really just complementary to the main plug welds. Imho, the plugs are where all the strength is. The plugs all have decent penetration as I could check most of them.

If you scroll up, you will see that there were quite a few blank spaces and voids.. these spots were to simply fill them in. Now, I will admit, I probably should/could have reviewed the settings, or helds the arc for a bit longer, but I must say I really believe this is still strong enough.

I mean, unless it there was a general consensus among a few people, I would leave it as is. If this was regarded as very poor, I could look at grinding down all the places that were a bit high/cold and get some proper penetration in there. I don't think that is warranted though..

Another mistakes was that along some of the lines I was contenting with very light steel onto 1.5mm thick, which is kind of a challenge to weld up without blowing away the light stuff. I kept that conservative technique for when I was welding 1.5 to 1.5mm .. I should have adjusted and held the arcs for longer as that steel could take it.

Overall though. Still ok?