1983 Mini City

[ctwomey]

Great work Colin! Nice to see the improvising for the spot weld arms.

[colinf1]

Small tear on the rear panel seam repaired this morning, tricky piece to shape with curves both ways and lip curved too.



Cut as little as possible out and welded in patch, took it real slow with the grinding to get it to blend as much as possible.



Zinc primed to protect it...

[colinf1]

A bit more done today, mainly prepping for the inner wing.

Finished off welding the drivers side rear quarter panel, this now just needs a skim of filler to blend in the joint.

Cut out a small section of rust on the bulkhead seam, new piece welded in.



Also made a small section for the inner A-post panel with the hole for the door strap that was chopped out by accident.



Prepped all the mating surfaces for the inner wing, all cleaned and weld-thru primer on.

Should be able to get most of the inner wing done with longer arms on spot welder, just around the dash shelf and along the toe-board/floor will need plug welding!

[ctwomey]

Nice work Colin, seems like you are mastering that welder of yours.

[colinf1]

Cheers, its getting better but definetly not perfect yet! My plug welds still need some refinement, but think my biggest issue at the moment is light, or lack of...need to get a portable spotlamp.

The spot welder certainly makes a big difference to the time it takes per panel, I'm hoping this doesnt backfire on me when I go to do the inner wing!

Are you making any progress on yours ctwomey??

[ctwomey]

Yea plug welding can be tricky. I was plug welding the drivers side valence closing panel to the boot floor and that is hard because you have to turn the heat right up because the steel in the closing bracket panel is about 1.65mm but the boot floor is only 0.9mm. If the heat is too low then the plug weld doesn’t penetrate. If you miss place the weld or if the two metals are not touching tightly it just melts the boot floor.

[ctwomey]

I use a Draper 7W rechargeable LED. You need good light to setup the weld accurately through the mask.

[colinf1]

Inner wing is now fully attached to the car, apart from along toe board and floor which I'll do when new floor pan goes in.

Longer arms in spot welder didnt have enough clamping force to pull panels together in parts, so had to revert to mostly plug welds with spot welds done on A-post, cross-member end and the seam along the toe-board.



Welds ground back and plenty of zinc primer forced into all joins. Now I should be able to get front end and scuttle panel sorted!

[colinf1]

Prep'd the bulkhead this morning, getting in where the sandblaster couldnt with the scuttle in place. Some pitting along the crossmember which I addressed by adding some welds, also added some extra weld to the engine steady bracket.



Gave it a coat of rust convertor, just waiting for that to react then get it zinc primed ready for welding on the scuttle.

[colinf1]

Bulkhead now zinc primed and some top coat applied, just to seal it from any corrosion until its painted properly...

[colinf1]

Midweek welding! Got my scuttle panel on, fully welded! Bit of filler needed on passenger side as the piece that I welded back in (that I accidently cut off many,many months ago) was a shade too low. Drivers side looks fine, minimal filler needed this side.



Spot welder worked good, bit tricky around vents in top dash rail, and very heavy to be holding for a long time but worked quite well. Next up will be wings and front panel and it should start looking like a mini again!

[colinf1]

Starting to look like a mini again...



A really frustrating hour at it last night, couldnt get the wings to sit anywhere near to being close with inner wing and front panel, came really close to calling it quits on it...

But went back to it this evening, armed with several hammers, self tappers and lots of reading on here about having to get rather physical with magnum wings. Some bashing and snipping later I had it on in an ok position, took it back off to prep the edges, back on and spot welded along the inner wing edge first, then managed to get a few spots along the return fold to scuttle to keep it in place, then onto front panel edge. It involved lots of lifting the spot welder while sat awkwardly in the wheel arch, lots of vice grips and lots of swearing!

Have roughly a 5mm gap along bonnet edge hopefully I can get similar on passenger side...

[colinf1]

Front end is on!



Scuttle needed to be pulled outwards slighly on drivers side to make the A-panel line up. Passenger side was a right pig to get on. The lip where it meets A-panel was tiny, like 6mm, so hard to get it spot welded. Every panel needed brute force to get it to fit, and lots ansd lots of vice grips to hold it in place.

Its on now and gaps dont look too bad, both bonnets I have are a bit out of shape, so might try pick up a better one.