Rexanne - Gold s2 restoration project

[Steve-A]

I\'m using one of these:

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/135te-turbo-mig-welder/path/diy-mig-welders

Seems to be up to the job so far Seems fine with bodywork thickness metal and was fine on the thickest gauge steel I\'ve tried to weld yet, which was 3mm mild steel. The spec says it goes upto 5mm thick steel, but judging from my practices that would need very careful edge preparation in order to get enough weld penetration.

Has been a pretty steep leaning curve, but I\'m finding my way with it more and more. This online tutorial helped me lots.

Aside from the welder itself I bought some welding gauntlets and a head mounted welding mask. The mask was a must as having both hands free to hold stuff in place or steady the torch made life so much easier.

[CHC (RIP)]

Very nice work Steve. See you have been lucky with the rear valance - Goldie hasn\'t faired to well and needs a new one.

Don\'t want to be party pooper mate but have you looked underneath yet to seen how she is down below? I\'m starting Goldie underneath and working upwards - did this with JAZ and worked well.
Good luck

[captainbizzaro]

Ok cheers mate, it\'d be a handy bit of kit to have around.

[myatt1972]

Watch those fumes when welding.
http://www.brewracingframes.com/id75.htm
scary sh*t.
Keith...

[Steve-A]

I\'ve looked underneath.... theres work to do! haha.

I all honesty I don\'t think its too bad. The usual upper link mounting points are pretty gone, the rear arches and the rearmost 6" on the sills on both sides need some fairly major attention but other than that she is surprisingly solid. Most of the underside is pretty clean. Not much of it has ever been undesealed/wax oiled, which makes seeing whats metal and whats rust much easier.

I thought I\'d start with stuff thats non-structural and not especially cosmetically important, as a good way to get my eye in with car body metal work. Once I\'ve done the bumper and valance I\'ll be getting the back end up in the air, dropping all the mechanicals out and the fuel tank, then working across the floor pan from back to front.

I wanted a decent project to really get stuck into and I suspect Rexanne can be that! So in a way it doesn\'t matter how bad she is. It\'s more about the pleasure of fixing her up than anything else.


Ouch nasty story there bout those fumes. I\'ll be more careful of brake cleaner from now on thats for sure! Welding does seem generally pretty dangerous. I\'m glad its not my profession!

[CHC (RIP)]

Good luck with it then.

[syebba]

Well done Steve you\'ve done  a G8 job with welding in repairs to intricate areas around the rear hatch.
You should find welding on straight panels a doddle!
ta stu..

[Steve-A]

Cheers Stu.

Got some done yesterday but only little bits and pieces really.



Got the ariel and lights and Mazda badge back on, which makes the rear end water tight once more which is quite nice.

I also got some sticker removing solvent and cleaned off all the bits of double sided tape that had held the number plate on as well as the sticky goo left from under then spoiler. Looks like someone had tried to glue it down at some point. Still not sure what to do about it. I think I prefer the look without it, but its a pretty big obvious area to be painting and lots of work to make it look good if I want to smooth the holes over to remove it.

I also got inside the back with a damp cloth and a hoover and cleaned out all the bits of metal dust from the grinding/welding, plugged the loom back into the lights, reassembled the rear screen wash pump and bag thing and finally got down and gave the rear valance a good wash so I could get a better impression of what was rust and what was dirt.

I found a second spot that will need patching, but hopefully the rest of it will be find with wire wheel and skim of filler and some paint.

While I waited for the valance to dry I fitted a new drivers door to my mx5 to replace the rusty one. This took faaar longer than I\'d hoped and took the rest of the day So looks like thursday is the next decent day of work on Rexanne. The plan for thursday will be to get the back end up in the air and start pulling out the mechanicals, inc fuel tank, so I can get a look at the chassis condition back there and start the proper welding work.

[Steve-A]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARdOYXdO_7M

Just found a quick video I shot last week on my phone while I was running the engine up to temp.

[CHC (RIP)]

Always a gr8 feeling when you get her watertight, coming along good mate.

I was poking around the rear hatch area on Goldie yesterday and have finished up with a sunday area (holy) on the n/s which will be plated.  Unfortunately it also runs through to the rear n/s window so have to ease this off first before I can survey the damage extent.

[Steve-A]

Ouch, thats a shame. I was very lucky that this stopped short of any windows. Taking glass in and out doesn\'t look like much fun to me!

[CHC (RIP)]

Engine sounds sweet Steve - I take it she was running with choke?
Rexanne is a little lightweight on the rear end I see - doesn\'t look too serious though, nothing a bit of fabrication and welding can\'t resolve. :yes

[David Nock (RIP)]

It has been done by people but not by me. The rear triangle windows just splattered when I tried it on a scrapper.

Engine sounds good on \'the tube\' Steve. Rear arch outside looks superficial? Rear arch inside looks as expected.

Woops, post crossing with Cliff.

[Steve-A]

Yeh, I\'ve seen lots of smashed windows as people try to remove them. Hopefully I wont have to change Rexanne\'s windscreen, its got a couple of decent chips in it but no cracks.

That was running on kinda 1/4 choke or so I think. She idles pretty much as smoothly as that now I\'ve tweaked the carb too.

The rear outer arch is semi-superficial. Its rotted through on the bent over section of the lip, but only surface rust on the actual arch shape if that makes sense.

I\'ve found some money to spend on wheels, so I\'m gonna try to find some sooner, rather than later. It should work out much better aesthetically if I make the arches fit he wheels rather than trying to pick wheels and spacers to fit the arches. If the wheels are wide enough I plan to run over arches. If the wheels I end up with are not so wide I\'ll be resurrecting the stock arches, no point making that call till I\'ve found my set of wheels.

[syebba]

Wankel sounds good steve.
Would it not be better to fit arches 1st,then buy wheels to suit,so u get  correct width wheels?
ta stu..