Whoever had my mini before the previous owner was the person who started this restoration - They seem to have finished nearly the entirety of the nearside of the car. I suppose that's a good thing seeing as the only thing attaching the front and rear of the car on the offside at the moment is the door step... What they hadn't done, however, was check the door gaps (the door skin was rubbing against the A-panel), or start on the front of the car. So I took that off to reveal...
...more rust! What a surprise!
Anyway, I started working on the shell properly today! First job for me was to brace the offside door frame so that the shell wouldn't become warped once i had the new panels in.
I know it's not warped at the moment because both sides of the car are equal lengths (from front hub to rear hub), and it's not rhomboidal because the hubs are equal diagonally too. Lucky me!
Anyway, here is some 3mm 3/4" x 3/4" box section I welded into the shell. I figured that I'd put the connections where I did because a) they seemed like solid points metal-wise and b) they are what I imagine to be the crumpliest crumple zones (does that make sense?) I know what I mean, anyway...
A-post all primer'd up!
And box-section ready to weld in...
http://s1371.photobu...html?sort=3&o=1
Like snotty ****!
I'm using a gasless setup at the moment, if that'll help anyone to give me tips?
I actually blew through the B-post a little bit on the last one... I tried to put more heat into the box section than the panel, but obviously on this weld I didn't quite make it work:
Anyway, other than primering up everything I worked on, I haven't really done much else today. Welding takes ages!
Hopefully I'll be at Mini Fest tomorrow to get a couple of panels