Exams over
so on with the trailer! Managed to get a total of 11 hours in the garage on saturday and today, got quite alot done.
Firstly, after preping I painted the subframe with nice black underseal. Much better..
I haven't painted the radius arms yet, I plan to get the subby back on and then remove the radius arms, brakes etc.
Next I welded the boot floor back to the shell
Before : -
After : -
Thats all the welding on the rear half done, the remaining holes will be fibre glassed over, that the beauty of trailers - no rules! The rear half is now strong in all the important places. Im not going to bother grinding down any of the welds as I plan to fit a ice flat plywood floor so all the welding will be hidden. However I am filling all the holes as I dont want to be towing a puddle around!
So on with some fibre glassing - The rear valence is shot, but I don't want to replace it for two reasons, a) can't afford it what with it being xmas b) There's not alot to weld it to! One side was particularly bad, no way to bridge the gap so I used two balloons to fill the gap and fibre glassed over them, like paper mache, and suprisingly it worked although obviously will have to do further filling and sanding to get the right shape.
So for now thats the rear half done, I will finish it off later.
Next I made a good straight cut on the front half. Then I pushed the two halves together and found a problem, the front is wider then the rear. So I had to weld a plate in to attach them and later I will have to do some more filling to make it nice and smooth, hopefully it won't be too obvious. If people can do it for a shorty im sure I can! Anyway the good news is that the front is now attached to the back and it starting to take shape!
Next I rolled it onto its (lack of) roof and set about welding the floor pans together. Unfortunately there was yet more rust in the footwells so I have made panels to fit both sides and will make a panel to go over the middle section from whats left of the floor pan. Then it should be solid and not fall in half when im towing!
Passenger side before -
During -
and after -
The driver side was alot worse, and somewher in its life someone has tried to badly repair it
Once removed I was left with -
And thats how it now sits, on saturday I hope to finish off welding the floor together followed by either re-attaching the subframe or starting on the fillering or both.
I also now have a list of needs: -
1) Bonnet (but if push comes to shove I have one with rust holes which I could use)
2) Boot lid (decided against the fibreglass one)
3) Lots of box section to make the hitch
4) Tow hitch
5) Wire for lighting and plug
6) Reflective triangles
7) Tow bar for my mini
8) 2 Weller wheels (I suspect these will be the hardest items to come by - will add photos another time)
9) Front and rear bumpers (preferably black but I can spray paint if needed)
10) Exhaust backbox (even a rusty one it won't matter)
So if anyone has any of the above which they wish to either give or sell to me please let me know, I am near Gatwick Airport but go to uni in Guildford so happy to collect from the surrounding areas. Im happy to use damaged items so long as they are not too beyond repair.
Lots of work still to do, 40 days to go....
Edited by onlymelloyd, 16 November 2009 - 07:39 PM.
