Mk4 Rick

Cracking car and love the attention to detail

daveb_lives

Total girls car

If you need a hand dude give me a shout. I'm off from the 29th. Hoping the rs might be back and I can carry on removing parts before paint but otherwise in in!

McCloud 85

I was wondering how long it would take you to pick up on this! Cheers mate, greatly appreciate it! Hopefully we will have them both out again! Glad to hear its moving along.

Thanks

Paul_RS

iTrader: (4)

Great work so far! Looking forward to future updates

jammy86

No,
I've got my wallet out Work started today. Two full new sides, rear pannel, front pannel and repair to rear chassis leg!

surrey_100e

Looking good Dan
Where abouts you moved to now? still local? pm me if you like.

Martin

McCloud 85

Right some more progress.. Or not..

Started to plug weld the outer sill to the internal strengthening panel - in the early years of ownership or even early months! I had an accident with a concrete lamp post.. The car spun, bumped up the kerb and hit the post just behind the drivers door. The car was fully repaired all with ford panels by a reasonable crash repair company. However when the outer panel was fitted they didn't spot weld to the internal strengthening panel due to access so the only way to do it would have been to plug weld.. Which they also didn't do... Not the best idea but in the whole repair it is the only thing I could find that I wasn't too pleased about..



Cardboard template mate



First bit cut and in ready to be trimmed




Metal cut to fit



Begun to be tack welded in



Welded



Flatted back



Now at this point I began to become unhappy - I wasn't pleased with the patch when it was flatted back and started to see small pin holes. So tacked those in with the welder and flatted back again.

But the following day I did this




So the whole sill is now cut off - again - and this is why I wasn't happy




This in my opinion is rubbish! So I was glad I cut it off, my rule with this build is that I've gone to these lengths to do it as best as I can and this wasn't good enough.

So with a missing outer sill the work continues...

More to follow.

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

Nothing wrong with cutting it out and starting again.Keep up the good work.

Lee Grout

If your putting in this much work, Whats another day or so to do another job, but properly. If you didnt you'd be pissed every time you looked at it and wished you'd of done it in the first place. Look forward to another update.

McCloud 85

So more progress at last..

Building up the rear sill lip again:





Inner panel repair:



Welded in:



Chassis leg repair:



Sill strengthening panel prepped ready:



Floor pan repair:




Decided to press in a riv-nut for the handbrake cable to replace the self tapper screw that ford use. Had to make a hole in the inner panel to allow the threads to sit straight:




While the sill was open and just before I sealed it up I sprayed in some Dinitrol cavity wax - more will follow once all the rust repairs are complete:




At Ł215 from Ford!!!! Was the repair panel for the outer sill - typical ford only sell this panel as a replacement for the full outer sill and nothing smaller!



It then took a good hour or so to pluck up the courage to then take an angle grinder to it for the bit I needed:



Test fitted and lined up:



Tacked in:



Welding into place:



In place - this one seam took me half a day to make sure I didn't put too much heat in the panel:



Plug welded to the strengthening panel:





Decided to plug weld the sill lip as I couldn't justify spending the money on a spot welder just for this build:



Through to the back side:



Ground back and finished:



Final bit of welding on the inside:



One completed side and up the right way for a moment:




Much happier with this result, so even though it cost a fortune for the panel I am glad I spent the money, or at least that's what I keep telling myself! I appreciate to some of you it could probably have been done better than this, but hopefully it's good enough and will at least make the car solid again!

More to come..

Thanks for looking.

st220kyle

nice work and good thread!

SMILER258

Wow, that's a lot of money for a small part of the panel!! Propper dedication!

cossie legend

nice work. it wud be nice to see what the weld on the sill looks like from the inside. I done this on mine too but I feel it will rot again were the weld heated it from the inside and its hard to seal it properly to stop me worrying that I wasted my time welding it and itll be as bad in a couple of years.
How long has this type of repair lasted for others before it rusts again.
Its nice to see a nice bit of welding and proper time spent making patches

McCloud 85

This was my concern when I was fitting and lining the panel up - the main seam down the outer sill was fitted with an overlap join of about 1mm. This was so that I made sure I didn't have any blow throughs on the weld and to make sure it 'sealed' all the way along. This issue with this is you possibly make a lip on the inside which can catch water/condensation and rot. So my solution to this was to blast as much Dinitrol cavity wax into the box section as possible and where I wasn't sure drill more holes on the inside to get to the more hard to reach places. Hopefully that should make the repairs pretty rust proof... But this is still an old Ford!

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

Looking at your KA and the work your doing to it makes me realise that the work thats getting done to the saff isnt that bad.Ive been getting a ns sill remade on mine since it was rotton.

jammy86

That's my plan for those bits. Drill a hole spray in wax and then weld the hole back up.

I found the panels cheapest from fordpartsuk but you need to get them collected so if your just getting one then it might no be worth it. I was getting 3 of the 4 that make up the two sides plus two new wings so it was worth using them.

McCloud 85

Bit of an update from this weekend:

Drivers wing removed:





Some minor repair work to do before the new wings.. Though the new panels will be bolt on.

So on to the passenger side:






Cutting the rot out:



Areas treated with Dinitrol:




Repair patches going in:






Internal skins primed and rivnut fitted for the handbrake cable:



Outer sill patch at the front during trimming.. Still a way to go with this until I'm happy it looks ok. Wont be perfect but needs to be much better than this!



That's as far as I got.. Hopefully will get a bit more time on it during the week.

Thanks for looking.

daveb_lives

keep up the good work danny! my wings are going on this week and will have it back next so will catch up so you can see!

off topic totally - are you doing best of the best??

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

Looking good. Cracking work your doing.

McCloud 85

Cheers mate - and yes we are, myself, Ben and Chris Edwards are signed up as the team.. Should be good!

McCloud 85

Cheers Glenn - wish it would move along quicker!

McCloud 85

Some progress at last from this afternoon all be it only very small, progress is painfully slow at the moment but hopefully I've cleared some time over the next few weeks to move it along again.

So patch panel welded and trimmed ready to fit in:



All welded, trimmed and flatted back - painted for time being:



And that's it! Pathetic really but that took around 4-5 hours. Only another 3 areas to weld back in now on this side and then the horrible task of removing all the underseal and waxoyl...

Thanks for looking!

McCloud 85

Managed to get some time this weekend to get some more done on the car..

Small middle patch cut and trimmed:



Welded and flatted back:



Internal structure panel at the rear cut and tacked into place:



Welded, flatted where needed and painted:



Outer sill patch cut and trimmed ready to fit in, underside painted for a bit of protection like all the rest of the patches:



Tacked in:



All welded in:



Trimmed, flatted back and polished:



The finished sill:




This is a mile stone on the car really. For two years I've known I've had to get this job done and finally the car is solid again. There is still the odd small patch across the rest of the underside but the big part of the rot repair is complete.

That's it for now, hopefully get some more done during the evenings this week.

Thanks for looking.

McCloud 85

It's been a while so thought I'd post up some photos of what's been going on. Progress is painfully slow but it's moving in the right direction.

Need to remove the old underseal:







Arches:









Some minor rust repairs - now finished:





Sound deadening removed:



Finally back up the right way and on stands again - ready for the engine and box to be mounted



More to come!

stu20004x4

this thread is so inspiring for me, keep up the great work mate!

Lee Grout

How much did you end up cutting out those box sections (chassis rails?)? Were they any worse than the last couple pics? Doing good work.

LVC-Elvis

Loving this thread, good to see how much attention to detail you're taking pal.

Car should be a stunner when your done and at least you know its solid top to bottom!

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

Good little update.

boost monster

Neat and tidy fabrication work. Mental car.

wagon dec

That thing is absolutely mental I'd love if mine was like that

McCloud 85

I didn't end up cutting them back anymore. The worst parts I uncovered and when it was all cleaned up it was barely surface rust creeping under the uncut area's. So I just lifted the edge treated it, painted and then patched the section back in.

It will also get ML wax sprayed in so should be enough to stop it coming back! I hope!


Many thanks for the comments guys - gives me the drive to keep going.

McCloud 85

So more progress has been made..

Lining everything up:



Once lifted in I quickly realised this section would need to be cut but I was pretty sure by this stage all the front original fab work will go



Once in place and held there I started to mock up the mounts:






This is only roughly trimmed and tacked in place, once it all comes out I will trim and brace the mount and give it a paint

Engine side - I wanted to use the standard focus mount ( will be swapped for a vibra technics version later) as it's a relatively small mount




A very trimmed version of the standard focus metal mount plate



Chassis lip trimmed to allow access to the underside but



With that tacked in the engine and box would now hang by itself




You can see the wire I used between the turret tops to allow me to line the engine up straight in the bay - bit crude I know but did the job pretty well

Next up was the torque mount to fabricate from the original mount positions on the bottom of the car






With this in place the engine and box are rock solid as they should be - all in all pretty pleased how it turned out - just still hours to spend finishing them off!!

Thanks for looking.

xr2john

Looking good m8

uruk hai

Just looked at this thread and I am seriously impressed with amount and quality of work that you've put into that car, hats off to you fella !

McCloud 85

To most it must seem daft as it's only a Ka!!

wide ka

top work,

miss my old KA! was quick but no top end like the rs monsters

McCloud 85

What happened to it? Didn't realise you didn't have it anymore?

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

Top progress. Is the top gearbox mount a suspension arm? Its looking really well.

wide ka

broke it for parts 5 years ago, shell went to ireland to rally

kept the engine and ecu, turobed it now it runs 340bhp and is in my kit car i built for it

McCloud 85

Really like that! Always thought if I didn't keep the Ka I would put the engine in something like that. Pleased with it? Must be a hoot to drive!