8 replies to this topic

[samforsey12345]

RUY

 

Made this thread today as a rough draft, will update with pictures soon and any following progress..

 

First things first Ruy was stored over the winter – We put up a tent 6x3m so fairly large, this needed reinforcing with a roll of duct tape to keep the weather off. I have the summer off as I'm a uni student, so am working part time and hoping to complete this project.

 

 

Plans for car; remove as much rust as possible – on a budget so sheet metal replacement instead of repair panels where possible. Have a sort of donor car – ex autograss class 1 mini, very bent but some useful panels still intact. Car is ministacey's on here – she wants a minimalistic approach, stripped out interior, simple exterior with a slight tendency for keeping the weight down. Rear coilovers and beam for simplicities sake and less rust traps. Strip car to bare metal (or at least underside sections) and respray the car. Possible S brake kit, it’s a stage 1 ish 998 and plans are for it to be PINK.

 

Stripped car to bare shell in tent and fitted it to roll jig – I had to unfortunately cut a whole through the rear seat back however had to be done, so reinforced it with a sheet of 2mm sheet steel and 4 bolts. Being able to roll the car through 360degrees is a god-send.

The first tasks I undertook were to clear off all the underseal of the underside of the car, to do this I used a heat gun and scraper and made fairly light work of it. Acetone to remove the remainders and to clean it up.

I then began cutting off any rusty parts which were going to be replaced and just general investigation – front end was to removed, rear valence removed +battery box removed as the boot floor is a patchwork quilt and very holey.

 

Areas which need addressing to my knowledge having done investigations are;

RIGHT SIDE:

*Right side bulkhead crossmember section

*Right side damper mount and crossmember closing section

 

 

LEFT SIDE:

*Inner arch left side – section where door hinges bolt through and top sections under front scuttle ends

BOTH SIDES/ OTHER:

*Rear quarter panels near front of rear arch at the bottom (for lack of appropriate term!) +closing panels

*Boot floor

*Heel board end sections

*Where floor meets heel board across shell needs cutting out and replacing

*Inner sills need looking at.

*Front floor pans both sides

*Rear boot top shelf

*Little bits and bobs on inner wings

*Both scuttle ends

*Rear face where it meets boot floor has bodge repair on either side – repair goes internally so was filled with filler.

 

 

 

WHERE I’M AT NOW:

Current I’m attacking the right hand inner arch and wing, front floor pan, cross member, scuttle. 

 

Edited by samforsey12345, 18 June 2015 - 10:09 PM.

[samforsey12345]

I've updated the first post with some pictures, I'm having some issues with the size and order of them however am just about to leave for London 2 Brighton so will have to amend it at a later date!

 

Anyone going have fun, I'm taking my poo brown estate..

Edited by samforsey12345, 18 June 2015 - 10:08 PM.

[samforsey12345]

Well much work and progress has been made! That hasn't lent itself well to keeping this thread up to date.

 

 

I've been looking into image sizing - it seems medium thumbnail is more appropriate for this forum.

 

*The inner wings at the front needed a few repairs;

 

 

*I've repaired the inner arch on the near side; having to also create some repair panels for the interior side of the A post. 

 

*Next was the floor pans on each side and relevant repairs;

 

annd floor pan fitted

 

Nearside;

 

 

 

*This mini was fitted with wide sills; the floor seems relatively new, however upon releasing the sills the quantity of rust beneath... well.. I'll let this picture do the talking;

 

This relatively good floor had its life reduced greatly by the fitment of the wide sills.

 

 

*The heelboard repair was something I wasn't looking forward to; there are many ways to get this wrong.

I ensured I kept the distance between the captive nuts 51.5 inches apart, as well as measuring forward to the front subframe mounting positions and keeping those distances equal.

This picture shows how I reinforced the captive nut section

 

Fingers crossed these position of the captive nuts has remained as measured and appropriate for the rear assembly. 

 

*After the heelboard repair panels were welded in and the rear sections of the floor were repaired, I rewelded the sills after wire wheeling and preparing in weld through primer;

This sill will need a small amount of filler; where I bent it up to gain access to the jacking point I was unable to bend it back without the original bend being moved.

 

 

*The engine was stripped of paint - we bought paint stripper from Frost auto repairs; it's called strip gel and it works wonders; 

 

 

*The engine has been painted - this is the... colour of the car to be. ministacey loves it!

Edited by samforsey12345, 18 June 2015 - 09:57 PM.

[steah]

Okay that engine is just plain awesome, good luck with the resto!

[samforsey12345]

*Boot floor malarky - inc. rear arch assembly from donor car, these were cut to size and paint stripped. Took a good while but these aren't cheap new.

 

*After those two pieces were tack welded in place, I removed the old rear arch tub and fitted the refreshed one. I then welded in the rearmost section having repaired the rear panel of the car.

 

 

The car will be bumperless - this makes it slightly easier to repair as I don't have to remake a "lip", and also means welding the new boot floor repair panels in a lot easier as I can simply tack them in from the inside.

 

*I then braved creating my own rear quarter repair panel - the first one I bent the wrong way by accident! oops - I'll just use that one on the other side. I had to cut two slits during the bend to allow it to make the shape of the closing panel.

 

 

I actually fully welded the closing panel to the repair section today but didn't take any photos.

 

The plan for the rear floor having removed all the rust is to rearrange it slightly; I'm hoping to move the battery box and make it a better fit - allowing the spare wheel to be moved slightly to the right for a more snug fit of the rear silencer.

*This picture shows the battery in the oversized box

 

 

This is what occurs when I try and wield an unwieldy angle grinder - I've never liked this one inparticular; it's really heavy and too powerful (1kw) for any application needed here..

Edited by samforsey12345, 18 June 2015 - 10:10 PM.

[samforsey12345]

Hi guys

 

This project has been progressing nicely throughout summer; I planned on doing a big update in conjunction with the welding being finished and the floor being painted and finished.

 

I have however hit the largest yet one step forward, two step back moments to date.

 

The good news is that all the welding is done, and I will put my photos up in due course, however the more pressing matter is that the painting job which I spec'd up on the floor has gone very poorly.

 

Starting from the beginning of prepping up the underside of the car -

I wire wheeled almost the entirety of the underside of car, removing old flaky bits of primer only leaving well adhere'd, good sections. I removed most if not all of the surface rust during that process, and then using 120grit sand paper I sanded the entire underside of the car.

 

Before any painting, I've been damping down the dusty floor to reduce dust problems.

 

Next I put 2 coats of etch primer on, allowing 5-10mins between coat. All is well. I wanted to put my next layer of paint on shortly after, however in small cavities/welds/usual sections where paint collects, it wasn't dry. When it was deemed dry enough, I used 3m polyeurethane seam sealer but postponed the next layer of paint for a couple of days.

Here's a pic of dad doind some spraying, we took it in turns as the fumes were rampant!

 

Come Monday I sprayed my first coat of Epoxy two part paint on the car, and left this over night. I then went over any sections which were thin, and generally built up the thickness. I went to extents of using a paint brush and a tooth brush to get into areas where it was near impossible to with the gun and then left it until yesterday (2 days later).

I have to say, it was looking rather promising...

 

Yesterday I put a coat of Tetrosoyl Stonechip over the epoxy, with immediate slight wrinkles about 20 mins after application. This morning I was able to peel large sections of paint off, to what appears to be a nicely etched metal beneath.

This is a bit of a disaster really, I will upload photos later, however the coating is very weak. In areas where it hasn't fully peeled off, it is very soft. I can get back to bare metal with my finger nails... This is not a desirable, durable finish that I was after. The massive amount of solvent which they apparently use in the stonechip has also caused the seam sealer to go back to a non-dry state, it is simply uncured and thin.

The following images are fairly disturbing to me haha, what a load of paint/time/effort that has gone to waste.

This whole section just peeled off, the seam sealer which was perfectly set before is now moist and made a right mess... but just peeled off with ease.

 

Now I've decided to post this to ask for advice - what would you guys do and what do you think the cause was? The theory of my actions were to use the etch primer to remove any remaining surface rust, the epoxy to seal the etch primer and create a hard durable finish, and the stonechip to provide a soft layer to prevent stone chips. This plan has obviously failed quite amazingly so am wondering where to go from here.

 

I did read the etch primers data sheet before painting, and it does specify not to use an epoxy primer over it, however I did not use a primer, I used an epoxy top coat, which should act as a sealer to prevent moisture getting into the porous primer? or am i wrong?

In the data sheet it also specified that each coat of etch primer could be up to 0.5mm thick, is this an erroneous number? meaning that you could build upto 1mm of primer, the thickness of the metal. My two coats certainly didn't add up to this number, which seems way off the mark. Do they mean 0.05mm?

 

Simply googling tetrosyl stonechip brings up many disappointing stories of wrinkling and peeling off, so could this be as simple as the stone chip causing all my problems due to its massively high content of solvent (I was high as a kite whislt spraying it!!)?

Edited by samforsey12345, 07 August 2015 - 02:34 PM.

[Daz1968]

I had problems with tetrosyl over zinc 182 primer, upol gravitex has less solvent content but I would think it has been applied to thick and the solvent has attacked underlying paint. I am very tempted by upol raptor tinted to my body colour on my next project, it really is disappointing when this type of thing happens as you have to get it all off and start again.

[Steve220]

Is it the result of putting coats on too soon? As I worry about this sort of thing when trying on my car in the future.

[sonikk4]

Sounds like the reaction i had. Basically the paint had not flashed off and once the Gravitex went on it split.

 

Back to bare metal again, then etch primed and left to flash off. You should be able to use Epoxy primer followed by Stonechip though.