The Fake Jaguar Thread

[Ulu]

I had to dig deeper

And deeper

And deeper until I discovered solid metal, between the rust.

This whole length was rust on rust, continuously welded between the 20 ga floor/patch, and 1/8” flatbar.

This required two grinders, a drill, air chisel, nippers, and prybar to get this far.

I am going to place this all back together with real metal and the Tig welder.

I’m really glad that I dug into this because upon really close examination I realized that this is something (as a great wag one said) “Something, up with which, I will not put.”

 

[Ulu]

So the new flat bar on the bottom of this mess was at the bottom of the car.

On top of it you can see a sliver of rusted away tunnel bottom. On top of that you can see a healthy sliver of rusted away tunnel top.

Plopped on that like a cherry on top is a spot weld and flake of 22 gauge floor pan, which pulled apart when I air-chiseled it.

Being the Fourth of July, I really let loose with the air chisel, 90psi, and on that tin floor pan it sounds like a big machine gun going off in the backyard. (If you think that was plenty of torture for my poor neighbors, well the ones who like me understand what I’m doing, and the ones who don’t like me don’t matter.)

Anyhow I chiseled up this twisted morsel.

The arrow shows you where it was. The skinny arrow shows the next piece to be removed.

With some very careful grinding I cut loose the welds around that chunk of barstock.

Then I chiseled it loose.

Underneath was beautiful solid clean metal. Yay!!!

So now I have to clean up all those lumps and welding scars. Roughing up with the 4” grinder.

Smoothing out the lumps carefully with the 3 inch air die grinder and the 1” Dremel.

Eventually I started sweating on the work a lot, even with a fan. So it was time to go in for lunch.

As you can see, we don’t give up just because it gets to 100.

 

[Ulu]

I have to apologize to @Wildcat And tropical islanders everywhere, for making fun of people who weld in flip-flops. I cropped this view from one of the photographs above.

Look at those filthy toes. I’d been out there grinding and chiseling for hours. I was wearing a pair of flip-flops, and my thrashed Dickies that you see in the photos above, but otherwise I went exposed on a day like this.

And I did take a hot spark here and there, but I did not flinch, because I didn’t want to screw up the virgin metal while I was grinding.

OK . . . that was virgin metal in ‘73. Now it looks like any common ore. ;-(

 

[Ulu]

Hottest day ever in Clovis.

Still 90 at midnight.

I went in when it hit 110, but I’m still cleaning and chiseling.

It will be a PITA to fix, but I can’t live with this.

I cut another patch from the old tunnel. This metal is nice. Factory paint inside still good.

The outside has 3 lumpy coats of black plus carpet glue and body sealer.

This is just big enough for the bottom patch. More will be needed where those nuts were.

 

[Ulu]

I set up an extra fan today, because it has been very hot, and I needed to get this bicycle stand out of my garage for a while.

More work with the muffler chisel today, and the slitter. I decided I had to peel this patch completely off. Look at the huge gaps.

This was doomed, because there was too much rust underneath it that had never been removed before it was welded on.

I split that entire patch in two, along the bend, and I pried it down far enough to get the muffler chisel in there.

Yeah there was rust in there. On both sides and plenty of it.

Several pages ago you saw me spend a lot of time cleaning that patch up and making it pretty. I really wish I had not bothered now, lol. All of that remaining patch, rust, and lumpy welding will eventually have to come off; but some of it can be done after I flip the car over, which will be much more convenient.

Also it will be under the carpet so a bit of lumpiness in the floor is totally excusable, while a bunch of rust is not.

I split the floor open a couple more inches, to make it convenient for me to reshape the tunnel a little bit. The pedals never fit exactly straight because of the old patch job.

All of that ragged stuff will disappear under my grinder.

I started making a pattern for the new patch, from cardboard snd tape.

It was 88F when I started working outside at 8AM. I quit when it got to 108F, just before noon.

 

[ifitsfreeitsforme]

those temperatures. wow.

 

[Ulu]

It was only 108 at noon, but I needed to quit. I’ve been up 10 hours and it’s only noon. I don’t start any noisy grinding until 8AM, but I can irrigate, change aquarium water, and do quiet things like layout work and cleanup.

I never clean up the shop when it’s this hot. I wait for first light.

Now, it’s time to shower and cook. I put in some time with the grinder and sawzall today.

I decided to hack it all out and avoid hours of grinding.

Much was revealed.

That will take some big patches. I lay out the first one.