after clearcoat.

I never get why people say to flat after basecoat before clearcoat.

You just shove it all on in one go.

Basecoat, leave it to dry a little (not too much) then put the clearcoat strait on

Unless its waterbased, then it HAS to dry completely before you put clearcoat on. but again, can be done all at once if you have an oven.

Its cellulose, does that make any differance?

Have done a bit of work this week!

Firstly, the TIG welder from r-tech turned up

Great peice of kit, much better than the clarke stuff which is just a DC MMA welder with a scratch start TIG torch.

What plant did you get? I looked at these briefly as i noticed their AC/DC sets wern't a forune compared with Kempii, ESAB etc. Could have done with AC the other day.. annoying.

How you getting on with the TIG on bodywork?

Its the 200DC unit, the lowest priced unit they do. Really is impressive for the price, the same if not better quailty welds that a £2800 peice of kit we have hear at work.

Tig on bodywork has been pretty easy to be honest. The most important thing is getting the metal as clean as possible!

Few pics of the weekends progress!

Welding is nearly finished, then its on to stripping off the paint where its getting smoothed and then paint!

Mate, don't do it unless you've got bags of paitence, determination, welding skills , paitence, time, determination, paitence.

Paitence also helps alot.

Seriously though, its been a right ball ache. Not so much the welding, but there seemed to be loads of random shaped bits of sheet metal that didn't do anything. All the seam sealer has to be taken out before welding because its highly flammable and toxic. You'll have to get the engine bay looking like the above pics to do it properly too, my first idea was to only take out what i needed to, but everything has to come out

Lol what have you actually done to your car? Get a build thread up. It doesn't have to be owt special, just something showing what you've done!!

Its a full engine out, steering assembly and brake system out job dude. Then there's all the shit and dust that you create so you might wanna think about doing something with the heater. Then you've got fill and spray it all!

It will be worth it in the end. I'm just being gay

You can't blame me though, there's so much gayness on here at the moment, i'm starting to soak it up

Its the 200DC unit, the lowest priced unit they do. Really is impressive for the price, the same if not better quailty welds that a £2800 peice of kit we have hear at work.

Tig on bodywork has been pretty easy to be honest. The most important thing is getting the metal as clean as possible!

Checked out the spec and i must say its pretty good. You can burn 100 candles all day long with that! Got pulse as well! I managed to get a secondhand kemppi 200 amp master tig for £800, but still had to buy a decent harness, which was almost £200 for an 8m, so you got yourself a bargain.

Yeah TIG isn't fond of dirty steel or water!

I always seem to end up welding box in shitty food factories then discover its full of water which comes flying though the weld pool boiling away. Leaving you a hole and water running out of it! Joys!

Best thing about it is no spatter every where! Had to tack some exhaust up on my golf the other day. I'd just fitted the new powdercoated rear beam and ended up squirting mig all over it, just cba with getting in there with the TIG for a few tacks..

Progress looks good by the way!

Edited 3 May, 201214 yr by randombadger69

I did a mixture of drilling out spot welds, angle grinding, and tin snips to get it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT97NJ8s4tg...eature=youtu.be

My might daily showing an AFH who's man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT97NJ8s4tg...eature=youtu.be

My might daily showing an AFH who's man.

shhhhhh

To do list:

Continue stripping down for re-spray - Rear bumper, clusters, windows out

Remove front headlight/grill mount for powder-coating

Remove subframe for powder-coating

Finish welding on engine bay

Grind down and strip paint and Fill areas for smoothing

De-grease engine bay

Prep bodywork

Re-spray

Send off parts for powder-coating (ARB, Subframe, front suspension parts)

Re-fit the above

Remove rear beam + fuel tank for powder-coating

Re-underseal underneath

Re-fit beam and fuel tank

Finish building engine

Re-fit engine

Plenty more to do that that aswell

Few pics of some updates;

new bottom arms and rose jointed wishbone...

Wishbone half finished...

solidworks model of what they'll look like once complete...

Look like mini bottom arms. Threads small though :-/ Doesent look over thick man!

Get some mini ones and make a new centre and spacer shims.

There an additional to the existing system dude, the threads are way over specced allready!

Stage3 subframes get rid of the ARB to make way for the extra triangulated wishbones, leaving the front end abit soft.

Stage2 only stiffens up the chassis, so you still only have the TCA to keep things ridgid. These will be mounted on the subframe on one end, and then the TCA (about half way down) , leaving me with fully triangulated wishbones (nice and stiff), and allowing me to keep the front ARB.

Best of both worlds, stage 4 subframe

They'll be mounted here;

Obviously there wont be the stage 3 arms instead of the ARB. But arms where the red line is, and the original ARB in its usual place.

Means the ARB isn't the component keeping the suspension legs in place, but the original TCA and new triangulating wishbone.

Don't quite get what you mean there dude.

The additional arm just creates a trainulated wishbone, the original bottom arm still keeps its swinging motion (as it does with the stage 3) because its rose jointed at each end, and the mounts i'm machining hold the additional arm perpendicular to the arc movement of the original arm so only assist in sideways lateral movement.

Then the ARB obviously holds things stiff in terms off up/down...

Like so;

but with it running low and stiff it would travel less anyway, hes probs took it into concideration already lol

No bitching in this thread!

I think i know what your getting at, slightly, but there's no irregular movement when comparing it with the standard set-up, its just the extra arm stops the TCA from getting pulled about etc, which is upto the ARB in the normal set-up.

Try it man :) if it doesn't work or has issued its a lesson learnt :) at least you're doing something different

You do realise with that setup you won't be able to get any castor adjustment... one of the main reason for the stage 3 frame!

Unless you're modifying the stock ARB?

Also- I'm sure you're aware of this, the stage 2 frame longits are made from far smaller material than the stage 3, as they're not load bearing. Food for thought.

Mm kinda seems he'd have to adjust castor with his new rose jointed arms then shorten ARB to suit?

Correct- which can be done, but requires some machining of the ARB, and then spacing with washers.

Try it man :) if it doesn't work or has issued its a lesson learnt :) at least you're doing something different

Nick!, better get used to reading through some 86-86c threads aye

Its gonna work, and work well. Need to get my head round what else needs to become adjustable and go from there. I'm thinking adjustable ARB mounts for one.

You do realise with that setup you won't be able to get any castor adjustment... one of the main reason for the stage 3 frame!

Unless you're modifying the stock ARB?

Also- I'm sure you're aware of this, the stage 2 frame longits are made from far smaller material than the stage 3, as they're not load bearing. Food for thought.

You do realise i haven't listed the rest of the associated parts yet?

Don't forget how small of a load the frame will see, The mounts spread the load out further still, along the section of the frame. Its an addition to an already FEA calculated design,

Plus, the diameter of CDS used on these frames is already overkill.