Just saying hello

[dutchzcarguy]

16 hours ago, mailnome said:

good pics of the underside

SOrry, but i don't.. why?  It was one of the things why i restored this car. the underside of it is covered in a sort of black tar i really don't know exactly what it is but i think it's what we overhere call: "silolak "  a translation could be: silo-laquer.. (stuff farmers use to protect concrete/steel/wood.) 

It's on there since the 90's so why did'nt i take it off?  I believe i tell this somewhere in the topic about my 280zx and it's because when i took some off the stuff (maybe it's a (secret?) mix of special stuff i don't know but i took some off from the brakelines and they came out as NEW! from under it!  As i'm partly disabled, i have had a neck injury long ago where i almost broke my neck running up stairs and hitting a big beam.. auw.. So now i can't look up a long time, also not to long to one point and that kept me from doing the floor..  As i took out all the stuff out of the car i could see that the car had a good floor. Maybe some day i will clean it off by a firm or so.. don't know but as long it's a good floor i will keep it "oiled up" so it doesn't rust..

To the secret stuff used as undercoating can i say, maybe the last owner who i plan to visit when i'm ready with the engineroom, knows more about it.  My 280zx was inside and outside sealed with oily stuff, not normall! But that's what saved this vehicle!  I took it all off incl. the paint.  

Have you seen the wheel houses on my pics?.. just thought of that! I had them cleaned out (costs another 500€)  and must have some pics of those all cleaned out..

Mart (It comes from Martin!)  ...  Yes i also react to Dutch.. haha ) 🙂

Edited April 11, 2022 by dutchzcarguy

[mailnome]

Thanks Mart. Sorry, my last post I thought I should find your name.

Yes, the wheel housing pics look great. That is what made me hope you had the underside too. Great that it did not need done!

And I am Matt (Matthew)


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[mailnome]

Had some fun creating my panel for the floor as my first metal working project. This is actually my second (same) piece I made.

The first one I shaped was from 22 gauge and seemed flimsy though I hadn’t dimple died it. It was all I could find easily and was anxious start.

Then I was hooked up with a sheet of 18. After cutting and fitting I believe the original floor is 18 gauge also or very close to it.

I forgot to take a picture of my new favorite and handy tool to make my patterns but I bought a HF 10 In. Contour Gauge. Cheap and helpful.







Bearing race and press piece for my dimple die. I cut the hole first and centered everything up in the press the best I could. Maybe a hair to deep but I’m happy.











I need to work on the welder set up. I thought I was getting decent penetration but after I welded some more this evening I didn’t get as good welds. Then I also tried from the bottom and the welder didn’t like it. I was out of time anyway, which was good. No need to push on and get frustrated, step back and assess.


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[Racer X]

4 hours ago, mailnome said:

Had some fun creating my panel for the floor as my first metal working project. This is actually my second (same) piece I made.

The first one I shaped was from 22 gauge and seemed flimsy though I hadn’t dimple died it. It was all I could find easily and was anxious start.

Then I was hooked up with a sheet of 18. After cutting and fitting I believe the original floor is 18 gauge also or very close to it.

I forgot to take a picture of my new favorite and handy tool to make my patterns but I bought a HF 10 In. Contour Gauge. Cheap and helpful.







Bearing race and press piece for my dimple die. I cut the hole first and centered everything up in the press the best I could. Maybe a hair to deep but I’m happy.











I need to work on the welder set up. I thought I was getting decent penetration but after I welded some more this evening I didn’t get as good welds. Then I also tried from the bottom and the welder didn’t like it. I was out of time anyway, which was good. No need to push on and get frustrated, step back and assess.


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Looks like a good start. The dimpling die trick is sweet.

Welding is always easiest and best done from the top side of the join. To do welds on a surface that is normally facing down, flip the part over so the weld is “on top”. A rotisserie works well for positioning a car to do this.

Are you annealing the sheet metal before hammering and forming it?

 

 

[dutchzcarguy]

8 hours ago, mailnome said:

I was getting decent penetration but after I welded some more this evening I didn’t get as good welds.

You did a nice job on the steel sheet!  But i see (i think) not clean enough welding area.. (hence the black soot around your welds..?)  To have a good weld clean the place from all paint and stuff, you will see that the welding go's much better and... it's better for your lungs! ( use some fan or other air displacing stuff..  welding can be very poisonous

[Patcon]

Thats a good looking panel. Are you just hammer forming or something else?

[mailnome]

Looks like a good start. The dimpling die trick is sweet.

Welding is always easiest and best done from the top side of the join. To do welds on a surface that is normally facing down, flip the part over so the weld is “on top”. A rotisserie works well for positioning a car to do this.
Are you annealing the sheet metal before hammering and forming it?
 
 

A rotisserie would be nice and would make the frame rail work much easier but I’ll probably try to do without.

After a little research on welding upside down it seems it is doable but not ideal. I’ll have to try some things and see how it goes.

I have not seen or read much about annealing. I think remember coming across it and they were working with aluminum. They were talking about heating the metal between working it, I believe because it becomes hardened from the forming. I had not seen any mention annealing with steel but would love to learn more if needed.

You did a nice job on the steel sheet!  But i see (i think) not clean enough welding area.. (hence the black soot around your welds..?)  To have a good weld clean the place from all paint and stuff, you will see that the welding go's much better and... it's better for your lungs! ( use some fan or other air displacing stuff..  welding can be very poisonous

Yes, I should have cleaned up more before starting. I had planned to but then forgot once I had a chance to weld and just jumped into it. I did notice the soot in the pics and wondered if I ran out of gas. I had not


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[Patcon]

I have never heard of annealing steel when working with it. Dirty materials is definitely harder to weld properly. I have done some mig work inverted. When using shield gas you may need to turn it up some and also avoid working in windy conditions, It can cause your shielding gas to disperse

[dutchzcarguy]

19 hours ago, mailnome said:

A rotisserie would be nice and would make the frame rail work much easier but I’ll probably try to do without.

After a little research on welding upside down it seems it is doable but not ideal. I’ll have to try some things and see how it goes.

A good way to do the rails is (when your car is empty inside , you took all the interior out..) is to weld them from the inside!  first you drill holes from 1/4 inch in the old spotwelds than take off the old rails..  then you can weld the new rails from top.. from the inside and they will look also much better as you have no weld mess on the underside. (you will see that it almost looks like original.) You may want to drill some extra holes for new welds also..  (I had to drill every inch a hole from 6mm (i did even 7,5 mm) to get my old 240z through the APK (Dutch MOT!) when i made it a new floor and rails in 2000!   If I had not done that, the car would not have passed the strict inspection!) 

(Btw.. about the fan when welding.. don't put it to close to your welding ofcourse.. otherwise you need a lot of gas and you make bad welds.. just let a fan above you blow the smoke away..  What i sometimes do is take compressed air and blow away the smoke and also when you are making a lot of dust, blow it away, you need a lot of air.. Also when you have a small fire from welding it's always handy to have the compressed air within reach.)

[mailnome]

Thats a good looking panel. Are you just hammer forming or something else?

Sorry Pat, just saw this. Thanks!

Pretty much hammer forming. I did use the vice as brake in the beginning to make the wide U shape then flattened the one end back down in the vice and started beating. Ended up rounding the lower angles using a 3 way trailer ball hitch as dolly in the vice.


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[mailnome]

Thanks Dutch, ;)

That’s interesting! I had not thought about drilling out the spot welds from the top


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[dutchzcarguy]

7 hours ago, mailnome said:

drilling out the spot weld

You can also do it from the underside, just drill right through the floor, then drill some extra holes, clean up everything with a steelwire brush (on a drill) and put the new rails in place from the underside, just put some little welds from the underside and then if it is positioned right, weld the whole thing together. (Just clean it well because the stuff on that floor catches fire easely... ask me how i know... 😉 )