My S14 Reshell/rufurb/rebuild. Major project so will take a long time.

[spice_weazle]

I would love to have a look at this shell from 2 perspectives. 1 being where the rust has developed and 2, to see what an awesome job your doing

Keep up the good work, it's impressive SX's live on!

Tbh It has suprised me where the rust has developed in places that I thought it wouldnt but hasnt devloped on some places that you would think it would. If nothing else at least this project is showing people potential problem areas of on the S14 shell.

I know the finish isnt as a good as a pro bodyshop but to say Ive never done any thing like this Im pretty happy with the way things are going. Most of the rough bits will be able to be smoothed/blended with a little filler and it should be straighter than what my red S14 is at the moment.

[spice_weazle]

Another update.

Ive been getting ready to have a go at making a new arche setcion today.

I started by making a former out of 12mm MDF board. I started by drawing around the arch from the inside onto the board.



I then gave it to the wood yard next door to cut it out on thier bandsaw.



I then sanded a radius on both sides(so I can make one arch and then flip the former over to make the arch for the other side) to form the radius on the bend.



Next I cut a clamping plate out of 3mm m/s. I marked around the former and then cut the m/s plate about 10mm bigger than the former to give me some space.





The clamp plate will be drilled so that I can clamp the strip that will become the arch to the wood by screwing the 2 bits together.




Thats the theory anyway.

I then cut a strip of 18g m/s to roughly the size of the finished piece that Im after. That is as far as I have got. Tomorrow Ill have ago at the lip onto the strip to begin forming the new arch section.




Hopefully it will work. Then the hard bit of getting it to match the curves of the body begins.

[spice_weazle]

Todays update.

I had a go at making the beginings of an arch. I clamped the strip I had cut onto the former and knocked the lip over with a hide mallet. Im very happy with the result and I should be able to make the arch section pretty easily. The only thing is made the drivers side arch, not the passenger side.

Here some pics any way to show how it turned out.


The strip clamped on.



The lip formed.




I then turned the former over and sanded the excess of to give me a lip of 12mm.



This is what I ended up with.







Thats all I got done today.


I have been considering turning to the dark side recently......................and putting the s14a front end on rather than the Zenki front end on from my red car. Im still undecided but it may be the only way foward if I want the look(kit) I want. We shall see.

[karl elwell]

I have been considering turning to the dark side recently......................and putting the s14a front end on rather than the Zenki front end on from my red car. Im still undecided but it may be the only way foward if I want the look(kit) I want. We shall see.

Do it, do it now

[spice_weazle]

Do it, do it now

I have the front wings off the car but its the price of some lights thats putting me off at the moment, £200+ for lights I think thats quite shocking TBH.

[BBB]

I had a go at making the beginings of an arch. I clamped the strip I had cut onto the former and knocked the lip over with a hide mallet. Im very happy with the result and I should be able to make the arch section pretty easily. .

That looks really good. Are you planning to tack this directly onto the body now? Would you be able to make more of these?

Watching with interest

[spice_weazle]

That looks really good. Are you planning to tack this directly onto the body now? Would you be able to make more of these?

Watching with interest

These are to replace the original arch/lip. Im going to cut the original one out, clean up or repair any rust on the inner arch and then weld these on. Thats the plan. I have made some small flared sections that Im going to splice into the new arch section before I weld it on. Thats the Idea anyway. I still need to slice the lip so that I can 'tuck' the bottom part in down near the sill and it still needs abit of . Basicaly Im try to replicate the original arch as best I can. It wont be an excact copy though.

Yep can make more if it all works out. I keep any templates, formers or drawings of anything Ive done because you never know if Ill need them again sometime.

[BBB]

Yep can make more if it all works out. I keep any templates, formers or drawings of anything Ive done because you never know if Ill need them again sometime.

Then I'm watching with even greater interest than I've been doing up to now Keep up the great work.

[spice_weazle]

Latest update.

Firstly it looks like Ill be sticking with the Zenki front end. Sorry Karl. Im happy about that though, I have always prefered the s14 over the s14a.


Right, Ive now made a 'blank' section to fit the right side of the car.
Same as before, cut the strip of m/s, clamp it in the former and .
Today I place it over the arch to check the shape and its spot in the flat. I then sliced the lip in a few places to allow me to bend the arch to match the curves of the RQP and Its looking good IMO.

Heres some pics of how it is after todays work.

Firstly gripped on before any extra shaping.



and then after some shaping.









Its not far off now and its mainly the bottom bits that need to be finshed.

Thats it for today.

[spice_weazle]

A little update.

Ive finished forming the new arch section and have tacked on the flare. all that I need to do now is cut the new section out where the flare is and then its time to start cutting.

Here the latest pics.

First without the flare







and with the flare tacked on.











Im not going to fully weld the flare until I have at least tacked the arch section in place, that way it is less likely to distort.

The way Im thinking of doing this repair is firstly mark around the new piece to give me a cut line. Next is to cut the old piece out, then cut the inner arch out. I will then weld the outer section in place and then make a new inner section to match the new outer. Weld it all up and repair the hole I cut earlier and that will hopefully be one side of the car finished as far as cutting rust out.

[spice_weazle]

Update.

Ive been busy with the angle grinder again today. I cut the old arch section out. Before that though I got as far as I can with the new piece before its welded on. I put some tacks on the flare and then cut the lip off around the flare and etch primed it. The lip will prob need to be blended in a bit more but Ill do that onve its welded on the car.

Here's a few pics of that.







I then clamped the new section over the arch and scribed around it to give me my cut line. I drilled the spot welds on the lip and then cut the whole piece off. The rust is mainly where the inner and outer lip was joined and in places the inner arch lip was very thin.

Spot welds drilled.



The lips seperated.



Then the cutting began.



Which left me with this.



The top part of the wing has pulled in slightly but it will easily come back into position when the new piece is tack in.

I then gripped on the new piece to check fitment and all is good. Whilst it was in place I marked out where the inner lip needs to cut off for the flared section and also marked where the inner lip needs to replaced,





No I need to clean and treat the rust and make some small section for the inner lip parts that need to be replaced. Its all going well IMO.

[schumi84]

Fantastic work going on here Spice, really impressive fabrication.

Keep up the good work

[spice_weazle]

Fantastic work going on here Spice, really impressive fabrication.

Keep up the good work

Nice one, cheers. I may actually finish it one day.

[Aj82]

Looking good mate.


Cheers Aj

[spice_weazle]

Looking good mate.


Cheers Aj

[spice_weazle]

Update for the end of last weeks work.

I cut out the rusty parts of the inner arch and have made up some new pieces to go on.










After what seemed like ages of bending and shaping I was happy with the new pieces and welded them in.









and then cleaned up the welds.






I just need to wire brush and prep the area so I can weld on the new outer section. I then need to sort the hole I cut out earlier in the arch and clean up any rust in the arch. Ive given myself a deadline of the end of September to get the arch finished because I want to start on the other sill.

[spice_weazle]

Latest update.

Firstly, Ive treated the welds on the new inner arch sections with HYDRATE 80, they now look like this.





I have also started to clean the rust up at the rear lower edge of the arch and also started to remove the old sealant out of the joints in the arch.

I started by drilling a few spot welds to allow me to open up the joint and then I spread it open with a screw driver to alow me to wire brush as must rust as I could.





I dont have any pics post wire brushng but its come up ok, I was a pain in the ass trying to get into the rear section inside the shell. It basically meant I had to stand in the boot, If the car was sat normally I would of been lying in it, and trying to poke my head in the area where the std jack goes and fit a drill in there too. Not easy I managed to do it though.

To help clean the rust away I have slapped a load of DEOX-GEL on and hopefully that will remove it all.

So I left it like this today.






Thats all for now.

[spice_weazle]

Been really busy so not updated this really last week.

I have been nibbling away at it though so heres an update of where Ive got too.

The DEOX-GEL did its job as usual and cleared the rust from the seam at the bottom rear of the arch.





As usual, treated with HYDRATE 80 and coated with ELECTROX before being welded up.











I then prepped for welding the new arch section in. I wire brushed off the paint upto about 5mm from the edge of my cut line and sprayed with ETCH WELD. I then started to tack the new section in place.





Here is what the flare will roughly look like once its finished. I must say Im happy with it, nice and subtle.





That is as far as Ive got so far.

To finish off this update a little teaser of how Im going to fit my intercooler. Ive started stripping my red s14 and took the cooler off last week so thought Id place it where I want to put it to see how it looks.








Thats it for today.

[spice_weazle]

Latest update.

To start with Ive got loads of tacks on the new arch section so now just need to join them up. Its looks like this at the moment.





Ive also welded up the slots cut in the lip that allowed me to bend the arch into shape and Ive fully welded up the inner arch to the new section too.













Thats it for now.

[spice_weazle]

Update.

Ive got the arch welded up and roughly cleaned up. Im not going to fully clean it yet and Ill give the reason why after a few pics.













The reason why Ive only roughly cleaned it so far is because the panel has distorted slightly with all the welding. Here is a few pics showing the distorted areas.







I want to try and straighten the panel as much as I can before I finish the cleaning. In my experiance if I pull the low areas out it should lower some of the high points. To do it I made this.



Its a slide hammer. The ones you buy generally have a screw on the end and you drill a hole in the panel, screw the hammer in and pull the panel out a little at a time. I dont want to be drilling loads of holes though, thats why I made my own, plus its free. What Ive done is drilled and tapped a hole in the end and Im going to weld lots of little m4 studs on the low parts. I can then screw the hammer onto them and pull them out. once its a little straighter I can just take the studs off and finish cleaning the welds up. Thats the theory any way.