Rexanne - Gold s2 restoration project

[Steve-A]

Been a busy day for me today.

Firstly I \'ve mocked up the wheels on the car, so I can work out what size adapters to get. The adapters can be between 20mm and 35mm, as far as I know, and because I\'ve got mixed pairs of wheels in slightly different sizes I thought I\'d try to measure out what depth would make each pair sit just right in the arches.

I think the wheels look awesome on the car, I\'m over the moon with them. I\'m still not sure which pair to have on which end of the car though. The mk2s (4 spoke) are 1/2 an inch wider than the longchamps, but the longchamps are a lower offset and the outter edge sits about 13mm wider than the mk2s.

Either I run the longchamps up front on 20mm adapters and the mk2s in the rear with 30mm adapters, so the the rim widths are staggered wider at the rear as you\'d normally do. (pic is with the mk2 spaced for 20mm adapters in the rear so imagine them sitting 1cm futher out)




OR

I run the lower offset longchamps in the rear, and forget about the 1/2 inch width difference and run 20mm adapters all round.





Either way the rear wheels are gonna sit around here:


So I think I\'m going to need arches, though only fairly subtle ones.

After messing around with that most of the morning, and still coming to no decision, I carried on with the suspension mount.

Started by marking out the rot and replacing the metal in the side plate I\'d previously drilled off.




Then drilled it so I could kinda spot weld it back into place. I then welded it on, and tagged on many more points that it originally would have had.




Whilst not especially pretty that whole rear corner feels more solid now than it felt before.

No work tomorrow, so cant decide whether to get on with the other side, or try attacking drivers side sill while I\'m on that side of the car. hmmm.....

[Ian65]

Steve,
although the radius arm mount was spot welded at the factory I think ( and the others will correct me if I\'m wrong) that any welding repairs within 300mm of a mounting point must be seam welded, irrespective of whether it was originally spot welded or not.
I believe you may need to run the torch all the way around that radius arm plate to satisfy the mot man.

[CHC (RIP)]

Good work there Steve - at this rate the welding should be done for Xmas eve but you\'ll need to take on board Ian\'s comments on continuous welding within specific area from mounting points.
Where to go next - me, I\'d stay on the same side and finish it off, saves toing and froing but then Rexanne isn\'t mine. Either way it looks as if she is in safe hands.
:Thumbs-up

[Steve-A]

Steve,
although the radius arm mount was spot welded at the factory I think ( and the others will correct me if I\'m wrong) that any welding repairs within 300mm of a mounting point must be seam welded, irrespective of whether it was originally spot welded or not.
I believe you may need to run the torch all the way around that radius arm plate to satisfy the mot man.

Ah interesting, thanks for the heads up Ian. I suppose it does no harm to run all the way round!

I think you\'re right Cliff, staying on this side of the car makes sense.

[captainbizzaro]

Mate those wheels look the nuts-think I prefer the mk2\'s on the back.

[CHC (RIP)]

Ah interesting, thanks for the heads up Ian. I suppose it does no harm to run all the way round!
 
I think you\'re right Cliff, staying on this side of the car makes sense.

When I was doing \'JAZ\' I stayed on one side. I took out all of the corroded areas at once, that way if an issue affected something else it could and was tackled simultaneously rather than having to re-do previous work etc; etc:

As Tim - think the MK2\'s are better on the rear.
You say you had a 400 mile trip for the alloys, where did you have to collect these from Steve?

[Steve-A]

Yeh that makes sense Cliff I\'ll start tomorrow by seam welding that plate then I\'ll work my way round towards the sill!

Yeh I\'ve had a bit of a think over dinner and I\'m gonna go mk2 on the back. I like the wheels equally on the back but I think the Longchamps look better up front than the mk2s do.

Was a little under 400 miles, maybe 380?, round trip, from south Worcestershire to about 4 o\'clock on the m25 and home via the centre of London. My girlfriend came along to keep me company, shared fuel cost and let us take her economy car (instead of the fuel guzzling mx7!) on the proviso she could stop and look in 1 shop, was a fair enough compromise! She spent £65 on a 2nd hand scarf :s , so has no way to comment on me throwing money at this car left right and centre

[Steve-A]

Today has not been so fruitful!

The day started hopeful, I\'d no work on so was gonna spend most of the daylight hours working on Rexanne.

Firstly I just needed to go and get some more 2 stroke oil for my mx7. Which decided today was the day its battery was gonna die. So I stole the one from Rexanne, which was the wrong size and spent a while making it fit. Then when I tried to start the mx7 for the 2nd time it flooded. :Grrr Looks like I need to spend more time on my cold start settings.....

So anyway it took most of the morning faffing to get the mx7 started, so thats half my day gone.

Have some lunch then I get out in the cold and start of Rexanne. First port of call is to seam weld that plate on. Started out well , but then my welds started to go a bit dodgy. Turns out I was out of gas.

Now I changed the gas bottle yesterday, as it had run out. The last bottle lasted me 2 months, this one less than 24 hours. :rolleyes: I think the regulator is buggered.

Will head out to try and get another tomorrow, couldn\'t really be bothered battling my way through the school traffic this afternoon!

I did manage to get 75% of the way round the plate though, so I spent a bit more time with the grinder smoothing the welds off. With a smear of seam sealer and some paint it should be good a new.




Then I thought I\'d do further investigation on the sill. Bad times...



An agressive wire brushing over some of the surrounding areas found more holes. Looks like most of the metal between the plate I\'ve just welded on and the sill is also shot, couple of holes showing through near where the inner arch meets the floor pan, few more further up the inner arch, and more of the lower sections of the sill is gone.

Tis not the end of the world, its just gonna mean more major reconstruction of that corner of the car than I originally though, and the other side looks just as bad. Ho hum.

Part of me feels I\'m making life hard for myself as prodding around from the outside it all seemed solid enough but I could see the seal sealer inside wasn\'t quite right, and having chipped that off the screwdriver went straight through the swiss cheese style metal below. But I know in my heart I\'ll sleep better as night when its one knowing I\'m not driving round a car made of seam sealer!

I also found a new picture on the american forums that inspires me, its kept me positive that it will all be worth it as I sit here covered in metal dust and desperately trying to warm up! I think its just nicely balanced as a car, the wheels sit nicely and have a nice dish without being extreme, it\'s nice and low but still driveably so and I\'m warming to those mazdatrix front lips/bumpers a lot.

[CHC (RIP)]

Bit of a minor set back there Steve :Hammerbut still repairable, so don\'t get dis-heartened by what you\'ve found. This is what I was saying yesterday about digging out all the respective areas to make sure all corroded bits are found and removed before welding in - at least then you know you are back to sound metal and it\'s all downhill from then on in mate (ie having done the hard bit now it will be easier).
From what I\'m seeing, me - I\'d cut out the bottom plate and make a new one rather than trying to patch in here and there, may need to be knocked up in stages but having done this you\'ll feel a hell of a lot happier and sleep eay at night knowing it\'s right and most importantly SAFE. Then I\'d insert an inner bulkhead before making an d fitting outer sill piece.
There was a previous post earlier this year at the same spots (both nearside & offside) - I\'ll search for it and put up the link, this should give you some ideas and a bit of a moral booster.
Hang on in there mate.
Cliff

[Ian65]

First port of call is to seam weld that plate on. Started out well , but then my welds started to go a bit dodgy. Turns out I was out of gas.

Now I changed the gas bottle yesterday, as it had run out. The last bottle lasted me 2 months, this one less than 24 hours. :rolleyes: I think the regulator is buggered.

Will head out to try and get another tomorrow, couldn\'t really be bothered battling my way through the school traffic this afternoon!

These little gas bottles as sold by halfords etc are a crap and  expensive way of getting your CO2, plus they always run out at the most inconvenient time.
Go and chat up your local pub landlord and beg a pub bottle off him. Stick a regulator on it and it\'ll last you a year even if you\'re restoring cars every weekend.
I\'ve used pub bottles for years.... !
The other thing is that once you\'ve got the pub landlord on side, he\'ll probably change it for you for a full one once it\'s empty...

it\'s a winner!

here\'s the regulator.... 30 quid ish....but it\'ll last you forever and you never need to buy gas again...

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/shop/co2-regulator.htm

[CHC (RIP)]

Bit of a minor set back there Steve :Hammerbut still repairable, so don\'t get dis-heartened by what you\'ve found. This is what I was saying yesterday about digging out all the respective areas to make sure all corroded bits are found and removed before welding in - at least then you know you are back to sound metal and it\'s all downhill from then on in mate (ie having done the hard bit now it will be easier).
From what I\'m seeing, me - I\'d cut out the bottom plate and make a new one rather than trying to patch in here and there, may need to be knocked up in stages but having done this you\'ll feel a hell of a lot happier and sleep eay at night knowing it\'s right and most importantly SAFE. Then I\'d insert an inner bulkhead before making an d fitting outer sill piece.
There was a previous post earlier this year at the same spots (both nearside & offside) - I\'ll search for it and put up the link, this should give you some ideas and a bit of a moral booster.
Hang on in there mate.
Cliff

 
Here you go Steve - try this thread - post 22 I think
 

http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63026
 
Cliff
:Thumbs-up

[Steve-A]

I\'d cut out the bottom plate and make a new one rather than trying to patch in here and there, may need to be knocked up in stages but having done this you\'ll feel a hell of a lot happier and sleep eay at night knowing it\'s right and most importantly SAFE. Then I\'d insert an inner bulkhead before making an d fitting outer sill piece.

This is exactly my plan. I\'ll try to disassemble the sections as best I can then rebuild the original structure. No point trying to patch bits better to just start again in fresh metal!

Thanks for the thread link too, thats pretty much what I had in my head for rebuilding.

I\'m not too down hearted, just needed to grumble a bit! Get it off my chest. I knew the sill was that bad, what I didn\'t know was that I was going to have to do the floor section between the lower suspension link and inner wheel arch, that was the slightly annoying bit.

Ian, interesting stuff about the pub gas, though I presume its straight co2? My first little gas bottle lasted me 2 months which for £13 didn\'t seem too bad to me, and was straight co2. The one I bought yesterday, for the little I got to use it, was a co2 and argon mix as suggested by various places as better for welding thinner sheet steel and I have to say to say in my very amateur opinion it did seem to result in a cleaner more controllable weld than the straight co2. Either way works been cancelled for tomorrow, so first thing I\'m gonna hot foot it to machine mart with my regulator and 12 month guarantee and see what I can sort out! I\'ll probably just get another small gas bottle and that will keep me going for a little while and mean I can get on and make use of the un-expected day to work on the car.

Thanks again for all your input and help guys, I couldn\'t do it without you

[Steve-A]

Got an hour or two in today, and made some nice progress.

I have to say though, looking through that thread you linked to Cliff, my progress seems pretty damn pedestrian!

I started off by running down to machine mart where they said there was nothing wrong with my regulator, then handed me the new one they were comparing it to and put mine down besides the packet the new one came from? Dunno if the bloke meant to do it or not but wasn\'t gonna argue!

Then I finished off going round the seams on the upper link, took a while as I had to cut back some of the crappy welds I\'d made while I was running out of gas and not realising.

Then I got busy with the grinder and started to cut out the rot on the sill.



I will need to go another 3" or 4" along the bottom though. Although the outer sill is now solid, some of the inner strengthening is rotten, I guess from water ingress due to the gaping hole near the back!

Im gonna have to do some careful disassembly again I think. In the picture below you can see the piece that creates the rear most section of inside of the sill (the bit that looks like swiss cheese!) is totally gone. The next piece of floor to sill metal (lowest section pictured) is solid and fine but because this overlaps the rotten section for a bit I think that gonna have to have a few inches cut out too.



I kept on scraping and chipping away at it, and cut out what needed cutting away from the floor next to the wheel arch, the new holes i found yesterday.



I decided thats where I\'d start, so made a plate up and welded it in. I was pleased with this as its probably my quickest and neatest plate welding to date



Fingers crossed I\'m working the rest of the week, so will carry on with the sill on the weekend.

[CHC (RIP)]

If you read through the post Steve, the guy that did the job was/is a pro used to this kind of work and he was helped by the owner - so not suprisingly you are a little slower but \'the hare & the tortoise\' comes to mind.  Nevertheless you are doing a sterling job here so keep it up.

I think you\'ll find the guy in the shop cleaned your regulator up and you are the one who is mistaken - best not go back there for a while just to make sure.

[Steve-A]

Got a little work done today

First I saw Ross and collected the other wing, which is now safely in my garage.



I then did a little more cutting away at the sill and its ready to start putting the fresh metal in. Ross got a great action shot, but then we got distracted by coffee and computer games, and didn\'t get shots of the finished cutting.



I had some bad news that the large project I was about to start for my main client, has been postponed till January so I\'ve very few days work till then Bad news for money but good news to time spent welding! Expect more updates monday