my 66' impala hardtop :)

i thought id throw up a few pics of how i make patches. obviously there will be varying opinions, which are warmly welcomed, but this is how ive been doing it. maybe for the newer guys who want to get into it, itll help you get an idea of how to get started.

so first off we gotta identify our patch area. in this case it was a tiiiiiiiny bubble, no more than 1mm. at first i thoought it might have been a screw or something poking through, but after taking the paint off, it became very obvious it was cancer *edit, note that the cancerous hole is NOT where the bubble was, the bubble was in the small dimple you see in the nice looking steel. sometimes cancer can be misleading*.


once i had determined it was not repairable by filling with the oxy, i cut a patch. its always best to start by cutting a patch FIRST from the steel youre going to use to replace the affected area. what this means is you can scribe the exact area youre about to chop off the car, so it minumised the gaps you need to fill later:





so here is the reason it was rusting. two pieces of folded steel, sandwiching in dirt/debris. once a "matt" has formed where water can sit and stay moist, it spreads and continues to spread. ill say at this point that this door is fked. there is no way i can repair this permanantly. this patch will last 5 years, maybe 10 but the rust will return.


this is a good idea of how misleading it can be. the inside of this door showed no outward signs of rust. it has a little bit in the fold that was easily taken care of with a wire wheel, and all the steel seemed stong. in reality, there mustve been 0.1mm of steel there. paper thin. and wouldnt have lasted a year without breaking out:


so anyway i had a bit of a dig inside to get rid of as much crap as i could sprayed a tiny amount of rust converter in the areas i dont need to weld, the spent some time fitting and shaping the patch. this bit is CRITICAL to get right on the first shot. you get this bit wrong, you have to deal with a wobble/highspot/warp. the patch needs to slot in perfectly. i use a magnet to hold the patch in place to get the first spot on, but you cant leave it there with the TIG because for some reason, the magnet pulls all the argon away towards it and completely burns your weld. so you get it in. get the magnet on. zap a corner.


just like this:


boom, forst corner done. let it chill for a bit to let the metal cool down. you cant move on till its only warm to the touch, otherwise when you zap the other areas, you may have had a bit of expansion, so when it cools it shrinks at a different rate and pulls the panel into a weird shape. the best thing about TIG is that is really cool man... lol, as in, one little zap doesnt require anywhere NEAR as much heat as the MIG. so doing a little spot like this takes about 30 seconds to cool.

right so next i got a bit carried away. i took a stab at the top LHS corner, but as there was still rust and a bit of rust converter, it fked up my weld pool. in this shot you can see the crater in the middle of the weld. thats where stuff got in that wasnt steel and had an argument. hot steel doesnt pool well with things that dont heat up and cool down at the same rate as it, so it spits it out. and when youre using the TIG it spits it out at the closest thing: the electrode. so after i exploded that corner i had to go and re-sharpen my electrode, then i did a small bead on the bottom edge:


once it chilled for a bit, ran a bead over the top, you can see the contaminates are still in the top LHS corner, cos' i had another shot at the hole and it spat the dummy at me again. this time though, because i went from right to left, ending in the ****-pool, i had run a nice bead before i had to re-sharpen the electrode, so while i was sharpening it had plenty of time to cool down:


i thought this side edge was gonna be harder than what it was, cos there was still rust and converter between the two pieces of steel, but it flowed quite nicely so i could move on:


bottom edge:


now at this point i really had to take a step back, because the side went too smoothly, i went straight into the bottom edge. its a habbit of mine and something i need to address. so by the time i had gotten to the edge of the bottom, i had on my hands a fair ol' serving of warpage. im not sure if you can make it out in the pic, but there are 2 creases in the bottom edge where the steel is trying to pull away on itself... anyway, itll grind flat, its not serious. but its good to always remember to let it chill.


right hand side done:


then had a final shot at that contaminated area. managed to fill without too much fuss.


now a few things about the TIG, its really great. for this kinda work im using regular plain argon, 1.6mm 2%lanthinated electrodes, a 10mm gas lense and 1.6mm mild steel filler rod. i picked up this welder brand new on ebay for 800 bucks... so really it isnt all that expensive, compared with MIG that cost 1800 bucks and the consumables are about the same price.

the BITCH thing about the TIG is the foot pedal which is SUPERAMAZINGLYAWESOME is a prick when you need to sit on the floor. in that case i use my knee:


i have descovered that if you use the torches button, you can set the AMPs to a much much lower setting, so you dont get as bad a "burn" as you see in my welds. thats where theyre all black and discoloured. on jobs like stainless steel where you want the nice blues and reds you need good control over temp and this TIG sadly is on/off with the foot pedal, but i really like how if youre having trouble starting a weldpool you just stomp the pedal and the power is there.

anyway, food for thought. hope you guys enjoyed the read. in other impala news i got some filler work done on the 1/4:



annnnd descovered some damage i had caused by chopping my wheel arches to fit the 295's:


both of which are problems for another day.

night yall

 

sorry mate. it aint pretty:


but its all solid metal. think im just gonna fill it.

 

it looks worse than what it is for 3 reasons:

a) burned all the paint so looks like heaps of rust bubbles, but its actually just bubbled paint
b) i ripped this side off with a pair of pliers rather than cutting it nice and straight, so kinda twisted it up a bit.,, kinda
c) sprayed etch on it soon as it'd cooled. wouldnt want it to rust now would we?

 

thats nothing to brag about...

 

*sigh* yeah i know just another job to add to the list.

 

the GTR possibly has a bit of corrosion underneath that ill need to take care of, but its pretty common on 32's. the car is not from hokkaido so shouldnt be all-out salt damage, hokkaido is a snowy area of japan, they salt the roads to de-ice them and it rots the underside of cars. we avoid importing snow cars whereever possible.

im just praying that the stock exhaust system isnt rusted out because theyre next to impossible to find.

any aftermarket components are getting removed and stock bits fitted i.e.

V-spec wheels
nismo strut assemblies
factory metal airbox
ditch the stupid turbo timer and put the clock back on the dash
ditch the aftermarket boost guage (above the radio) i have an OEM guage panel here off a stagea that should work.
ditch the gear knob

and anything else i find. no doubt the clutch fork will need to be replaced, all the fluids etc. UGH and i need to fix that fkn bubble in the dash. the rear C pillar trims are no doubt falling to pieces too, they all explode if you ever try to move them.

just want it to be a nice clean original GTR. im not into fancy shmancy jap spec stuff. just love them original.

 

oook so 2 hours of sanding, tried various different settings on the gun, used a 1.7mm gun, but cant get it to flow with no thinner. in the end thinner was used, then the paint went in the bin. new brand of paint will be decided by ryder, but im set on this shade:

 

my new plan of attack for the boot:


that right there is some glad wrap, some scissors, a chevy 12 bolt diff center, 3 starter motors (2 in a box, one in the open) and some brake shoes off an SV21 camry.

ths right here:


is some sikaflex, 16,346 layers of reo fill, and some fibreglass "bandage" and resin.


it started to get a bit sweaty, all the resin in the tin had gone off, but after lifting the glad wrap, this **** was still sticky but hard so i decided to let it breathe out a bit.

hooooopefully this will have killed my high-spot and i can move on to removing the unnecessary reo-fill tomorrow with the 9" sanding disc.


stay tuned

 

lol ryder haz doubts:

 

no offence man, but there isnt gonna be much left after im done with the electric sander

 

just so there is no pissing and moaning:


p.s. its 8pm now. i started at 8am. who's ready to ask me if ive done some work today??????