My new challenge - 1964 ID19F Safari

Time to get onto the last step of the outer panels. The bonnet needs a fair bit of work, stripping off all the old glue and corrosion.

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Once the old paint is stripped off the surface should come up ok, but it has a fair bit of corrosion.

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The bonnet had a decent dent in it that was filled with bog. After sanding off the bog and watching a couple of YouTube videos on how to fix aluminium dents, i was able to hammer and shrink the dent back into shape. Heat the aluminium up until the sharpie marks disappear, hammer the dent and then quench with water to shrink it. Worked a treat.

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The other panels are all repaired and the first skim of filler applied. Next is sanding, sanding and more sanding… then filling and sanding.

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I also got my seats and door cards back from the Trimmer - verdict: pretty good.

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He added a few new springs to the seats to stiffen them up a little, new foam and then installed the seat covers. I wasn’t 100% happy with the foam in the seat back, so added a bit more Dralon wadding to plump it up - happy now.

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The door cards are great. I am glad I picked the caramel colour. Really like it.

does anyone want the old red vinyl covers? They are still pretty good…

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Sven
 
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Hey Sven, just looking at the first pic of the inside of the bonnet.....
Is it missing the aluminium bracket/ doubler bits, just forward of the rear main crossmember?
Over the years I have worked through the parts books, and my collection of panels to try to identify all of the (roughly 10) versions of the early bonnet.
I regret not recording that info as a permanent document, and have now forgotten a lot of the detail.
However, I remember quite a bit, and will try to research which bonnet characteristics you should have.
Maybe this time I'll record the info so it may be referenced in the future.
 
Aluminium bracket / doubler bit?? Not sure what you mean…. The sort of triangular shaped corner pieces? I have those, but taken them off to restore them.

Michael gave me the bonnet, it’s not the original one, but I trust he gave me a ‘second nose’ one…
 
The bonnet itself didn't change between first and second noses.
However there were progressively many small changes to the frame materials and design, as well as the obvious change to 2 windscreen squirters.
 
I've had a closer look at the pic, the features that I can see, seem to indicate thats it's correct for your car.
No front crossbar, clap hands wipers.
As you were......
 
I certainly felt like Fitzee over the past two weekends - can’t say I missed the cutting, welding and grinding since finishing the chassis… but: what needs to be done needs to be done, so back onto the doors and outer panels:

Most of the bottoms of all doors are rusted - as are the bottom edges of the door skins. Some are a little better than others, so the process of fixing it is roughly the same for all four doors.

Folding the sections isn’t easy - the tapers, radii and angles are all a little different, which pushes my folding skills via a couple of steel angle to the limit. But, they all came together after all.

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I folded the door skin bottom edges over an offcut from a slightly thicker sheet, which worked very well.

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Once the seal holders were plug welded back into the recess and the whole door epoxy primed it looked pretty good.

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The sheet metal on the doors is super thin - very easy to blow holes into it, which then takes a bit of patience and practice.

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Added the drain holes to the doors. I will coat the inside of the doors after the dents are removed or filled. I will then add the seam sealer and also paint the bottom section with stone guard before the doors receive another coat of epoxy primer and then the final paint of Bleu D’Orient!

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A few more weeks of toiling and I should be close to handing the panels back to the painter…
Please tell me what sheet metal thickness did you use on the door repairs. Do you know if it was cold rolled?
I will be doing similar work on the outside skin of two doors though only for a short height.
 
Time to get onto the last step of the outer panels. The bonnet needs a fair bit of work, stripping off all the old glue and corrosion.

View attachment 135246

Once the old paint is stripped off the surface should come up ok, but it has a fair bit of corrosion.

View attachment 135247

The bonnet had a decent dent in it that was filled with bog. After sanding off the bog and watching a couple of YouTube videos on how to fix aluminium dents, i was able to hammer and shrink the dent back into shape. Heat the aluminium up until the sharpie marks disappear, hammer the dent and then quench with water to shrink it. Worked a treat.

View attachment 135248

The other panels are all repaired and the first skim of filler applied. Next is sanding, sanding and more sanding… then filling and sanding.

View attachment 135249

I also got my seats and door cards back from the Trimmer - verdict: pretty good.

View attachment 135250

He added a few new springs to the seats to stiffen them up a little, new foam and then installed the seat covers. I wasn’t 100% happy with the foam in the seat back, so added a bit more Dralon wadding to plump it up - happy now.

View attachment 135251View attachment 135252View attachment 135253View attachment 135254

The door cards are great. I am glad I picked the caramel colour. Really like it.

does anyone want the old red vinyl covers? They are still pretty good…

View attachment 135255

Sven
What youtube videos were you watching about shrinking aluminium? This is one thing I haven't been brave enough to try yet!
 
What youtube videos were you watching about shrinking aluminium? This is one thing I haven't been brave enough to try yet!
I found the video below and thought: give it a go and it worked surprisingly well. Still needs a little filler to level the dent, but not a lot…


Ramaling, I bought automotive sheets off the local metal wholesaler, pretty sure it is 1.2mm thick and cold rolled. It is not coated, so I wipe it with WD40 to stop it rusting while storing them.

The door skins are ok in thickness I found, but the inner edges where the hinges And locks are were terribly thin - maybe from stretching the metal when the sheet metal was pressed at the time… very easy to blow holes into them when chasing rust or cracks…
 
Hmmm, link not working, here a photo - google it and you find the video!

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I found the video below and thought: give it a go and it worked surprisingly well. Still needs a little filler to level the dent, but not a lot…


Ramaling, I bought automotive sheets off the local metal wholesaler, pretty sure it is 1.2mm thick and cold rolled. It is not coated, so I wipe it with WD40 to stop it rusting while storing them.

The door skins are ok in thickness I found, but the inner edges where the hinges And locks are were terribly thin - maybe from stretching the metal when the sheet metal was pressed at the time… very easy to blow holes into them when chasing rust or cracks…
Thank you for your reply.
I've been looking around on the web and most references are to door panels where they claim they are about 0.8 - 0.9mm thick. I was thinking 1.2mm would be the way to go and bought some but its really quite tough.
For example, 1.2mm needs 1.7 times the force to bend it it compared to 1.0mm. That means that seams and straight edges are a bit more difficult to achieve however you seem to have done quite well from your photos.

Regards
Rob
 
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DS door inner skin is 0.55
Door outer and rear wing are 0.80

So I would not use anything thicker than 1.0
 
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DS door inner skin is 0.55
Door outer and rear wing are 0.80

So I would not use anything thicker than 1.0
Thanks for that.
Then I better get real good at MIG welding 0.8mm - 1.0mm. I just connected the Argon and 0.6mm wire and tried it on some 1.2mm sheet. The welds are quite impressive with my WIA 190 MIG. I didn't know Argon made such a difference compared to flux cored. Its very controllable and sounds just like frying bacon.
 
Thanks for that.
Then I better get real good at MIG welding 0.8mm - 1.0mm. I just connected the Argon and 0.6mm wire and tried it on some 1.2mm sheet. The welds are quite impressive with my WIA 190 MIG. I didn't know Argon made such a difference compared to flux cored. Its very controllable and sounds just like frying bacon.

With the 0.6mm wire, you will find it bends and wraps around the wire feeder easily (at least it does in my ancient welder). Set the power as low as it'll go and tune it with the wire speed.... just do 1/2second tacks on the thinner metal (1.2 is MUCH thicker than most rusty metal on Citroens :eek: ).

Its really slow going, but you can seem weld repairs into the panels that are invisible by joining the tacks welds together.

seeya,
Shane L.
 
Thanks for that.
Then I better get real good at MIG welding 0.8mm - 1.0mm. I just connected the Argon and 0.6mm wire and tried it on some 1.2mm sheet. The welds are quite impressive with my WIA 190 MIG. I didn't know Argon made such a difference compared to flux cored. Its very controllable and sounds just like frying bacon.
You should be using Argon/CO2/O2 mix with MIG on mild steel.
Pure Argon is used with TIG.
If used with MIG It leaves a rough texture on the surface of the weld, and adversely affects the control of penetration.

For general fabrication I use 0.9 wire, and on thin sheet I use 0.8. I've never used 0.6 but I've heard that it doesn't push well, so use a short torch lead, and keep it as straight as possible.

I recently bought a cheap little MIG from Bunnings, so I can leave it setup for thin sheet. It's really just a toy MIG (takes 5kg rolls), but seems to go well.
I believe these cheap units fail if pthey are pushed too big, or to long over the recommended duty cycle.
My main MIG is 36 years old, and on its 4th or 5th torch, and had many dozens of rolls (15kg) of wire through it, over the years.
 
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This is my welding setup and an example of welds on quite a few settings. I've just discovered the argon.CO2/)2 stuff and its lots of fun. That sheet is 1.15mm. I just found out from Independant Steel Company in the Illawarra that cold formed sheet is supplied as 0.75mm, 0.95mm and 1.15mm.

On my machine the 0.6mm operates without any problems at all. If you turn the voltage up too high however it will fuse in the copper electrode which is quite fixable. My unit has a tension screw that prevents the spool from unwinding - that way the 0.6 wire doesn't get tangled. It would take me about 5 minutes to swap out the electrode and spool to use 0.8mm.
 
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This is my welding setup and an example of welds on quite a few settings. I've just discovered the argon.CO2/)2 stuff and its lots of fun. That sheet is 1.15mm. I just found out from Independant Steel Company in the Illawarra that cold formed sheet is supplied as 0.75mm, 0.95mm and 1.15mm.

On my machine the 0.6mm operates without any problems at all. If you turn the voltage up too high however it will fuse in the copper electrode which is quite fixable. My unit has a tension screw that prevents the spool from unwinding - that way the 0.6 wire doesn't get tangled. It would take me about 5 minutes to swap out the electrode and spool to use 0.8mm.
That looks right.
WIA have always been good machines.
Normally we would have the MIG around the other way on the base, so the torch lead is not going past the bottle. I guess it doesn't matter, but the control knobs are more accessible, and the bottle is out of the way behind.
As Shane said, on car panel work we would not usually be running beads as such, because the heat distortion gets out of control. It's more like doing zillions of tacks. Start with 4 tacks along the weld seam length, then with cooling time between, put 1 tack in each gap.
Let it cool, then put 1 tack in each gap.
Keep repeating this until there are no gaps, and the work is still cool.
 
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