Rusted out inner wings <Picture heavy>

Vanny · Post by **Vanny** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 7:30 pm

Get the full picture on the BX Project

I'll try taking some of the more boring bits out, so if you check on The BX Projectyou can find more pics and details.

=======================================

I know a lot of people have problems with there inner wings rusting out, a bit or a poor design in terms of weatehr proofing in my mind, and for many it turns into a rather expensive job. I firmly believe the hobbyist can do 90% of the job themselves with basic tools.

So now it's my turn to tackle the job, i thought i would try and add a bit of detail to what is required and maybe give the reader the chance to save money by tackling most (or more) of the job themselves.

=======================================

In order to fit the last few bits of the AC system onto the car, it seems sensible to tackle as many jobs as possible before the expense of gassing up.One problem I know needs tackling is the usual rusted out inner wing, i thought before the start of the Brazilian GP i would take the front end apart and see whats what.

Well its mixed, not as bad as it could have been but worse than i had hoped;

First remove the air box, and the mounting plate, i did find the air box is smashed just below the AFM as well;

Then remove the bumper. The bail of green wire is for replacing the wiring to the headlights.

This is what i'm looking to resolve the slight bubbling of the metal in the corner of the inner wing;

The outer wing has never been removed before so the bolts where stuck pretty fast. As it is in its original position i thought i would measure and mark up exactly where the wing started. 20mm from the inner wing lip apparently;

Then remove the two bolts behind the front door, i had to use a UJ adapter to get them out as i can't fully open the door in the garage.

The dreaded spring clip, useless rusted away piece of rotten metal. In this case the tab from the inner wing failed, i simply cut the rest of the tab off, ground down the sides of the bolt, and used mole grips to twist and shatter the spring clip. I will have to make up a new bracket and weld it to the inner wing, but as the original tab is so weak i'm happy to do this.

More of a note for others, to disconnect the wing from the side skirt you need to remove the black plastic rivet at the bottom of the arch. You can see it in this picture pushed back into the hole;

A bit of scrapping and grinding and i have a rather large hole, smeg;

Bit of a close up of a panel under the inner wing, bit of a structural point me thinks, might not be a quick fix!

And finally the inner wing after a spot of grinding etc

Now, things to point out. I've found a reasonably quick way to remove the inner wing stone guard in large panels (set fire to it!!), so i'm almost tempted to remove the whole lot and replace it. Underneath the stone chip is painted and the stone ship is coming off without damaging the paint so definitely a possibility.

There is a lot of rust around the strut mount on the underside, it looks to be surface rust and none too worrying BUT i will take the strut out and have a damn good look. As i need to do the front arm bushes as well, i think i will set about removing the whole hub etc and perhaps change other parts at the same time.

Well plenty to do over the winter, rather jumping in with both feet, but hopefully i can get it down over the winter and have the car fit and ready by Easter.

MULLEY · Post by **MULLEY** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 7:43 pm

Excellent piccies Vanny, look forward to seeing how you get on.

Vanny · Post by **Vanny** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 6:59 pm

Just for you Mulley as it seems every other viewer has little to say on the topic;

Back from Rotterdam with the missus (didn't see a single BX!) and I've pulled a bit more off the car ready for some serious surgery tomorrow which will hopefully see the front slam panel being removed. Once its out I'll get some pics as to WHY it is being removed!

First things first, pulled back all of the wiring from the front, removed the radiator top panel, fans, headlight brackets (one is stuck because of some modification!);

You'll notice something peculiar about the water though, its green, bit weird, but not too worrying as its had two sets of glycol in it and i think one was very green;

More for reference than anything, this is the rad that's coming out. Its from a Mk2 309 1.9 DTurbo, brand new two years ago for £200!! Needs flushing but otherwise excellent condition. I'll be putting a proper valver panel back which i have (unchecked) but dont yet have decent hoses for!)

Then cleaned up both sides of the original slam panel and marked up the spot welds so a) i know where they are and b) so i know where the where so to speak;

And that's it ready for the chop tomorrow. Also cleaned down the bench ready for taking bits of choppy choppy and to refurb the welder (new tip, new sleeve, possibly a new spindle bracket etc etc);

I'll be going for a zinc rich primer and galv repair panels which will more than likely be 2mm. The new slam panel is primed and i am debating if i will finish it in black or red. Ideally I'd like some super hard enamel type paint if only to resist the beating it tends to take! There's also a few bits of the crash attenuation panel at the front that need a bit of seeing to. I can see a fair bit of spray painting coming up

Linegeist · Post by **Linegeist** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 7:05 pm

Vanny wrote:Just for you Mulley as it seems every other viewer has little to say on the topic.................

Sorry about that Vanny ...... I've been too busy reading your turgid prose!

Top stuff sir! Very useful info!! I've sneaky suspicion it's going to come in useful sometime soon.

Vanny · Post by **Vanny** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 8:13 pm

No problem. Im just surprised that with a fair few viewers, many of whom will have done the job or wont be far away, that there haven't been a stream of questions or pointers as there has been on BXProject.

This is meant to be semi instructional/semi educating so feel free to ask questions or criticise, hopefully it might show those on a budget how to cut costs/do it them selves. And dispel the myth that its hard to do

MULLEY · Post by **MULLEY** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 8:56 pm

Always useuful to see this type of work, it'll come in handy when i hire you Vanny

Linegeist · Post by **Linegeist** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 9:10 pm

MULLEY wrote:Always useuful to see this type of work, it'll come in handy when i hire you Vanny

I had no idea you dabbled in vanny-hire!

(Oh, I kill me, I really do....)

Vanny · Post by **Vanny** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 2:58 pm

Well having taken on Doc's advice I nipped out this morning and bought a 6mm spot weld cutter. Very very well worth the money! The general gist is to drill through just one side of the spot weld (about 1.8mm), then the two panels will fall apart. I'm not that good with a drill and the 6mm bit is slightly small for the hole so I punched through just three times, which out of 30+ welds, first time, and through such slim material, I'm more than happy with the result. Once drilled I separated the panels using a special chisel. Special in that it was bought with the intention of cutting up cars, otherwise its just a wood chisel!

I should add that i also took various measurements between the panels that would remain so that i can jig them into place and get a perfect match later!

Action shot anyone?

Simply repeat 30 or so times (dropping the other wing in the process) and slip the new panel in. The new panel is a little twisted so will need some fettling, but i suspect this will become pretty easy as i start tacking the bugger in place! Anyways, it will look something like this;

That's as far as i have got for today as i set about recommissioning the welder, its not been used for a year and travelled over 200 miles.

The slam panel is being replaced because of a bit of a bodge performed some years ago, basically the flanges that go down either side of the radiator where cut clean out of the car to allow a Xantia rad and inter cooler to fit in when the car was originally converted to a TD engine. Not a huge problem as this was reinforced, with a 4mm plate!!!

There are more pictures of the offending slam panel on the BXProject

demag · Post by **demag** » Sun Nov 01, 2009 8:56 pm

Very interesting post Vanny. I have this job to do myself. The poor old Bx has hardly moved since I bought it as we've had a very traumatic year so far. Just got back from Corfu where me and the missus were hospitalised for the best part of three weeks. Was hoping things would get better but an hour ago the central heating popped a fuse and I found the three way valve has leaked water into the actuator and shorted it out. Ah well such is life.

Mike E (uk) · Post by **Mike E (uk)** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 12:09 am

Good stuff Vanny.

Watching with interest as I expect to do the inner wing job on mine when the house is finished.

Mike

Linegeist · Post by **Linegeist** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 8:55 am

This is top stuff Vanny. I'm archiving it off to disk as you post it, for future reference (and in case Gauleiter Gordon decides the Internet is also bad for us, and snatches that away too, along with all the other freedoms he's killed off.).

So, superb thread guv'.

Vanny · Post by **Vanny** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 5:27 pm

I'll probably tidy it all up and make it downloadable in the future.

For the time being i'm waiting to collect the shiney new tin to weld in, hopefully Thursday, possibly Sunday.

Vanny · Post by **Vanny** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 4:50 pm

Today has been mostly about cutting out repair patches and cutting the rot out of the car. So first things first, out with the cardboard and pencils, trace the arch onto a sheet, cut this line out, transfer the shape to the new galv panels, and cut the shape into the galv;

Obviously its not the arch void (shown above) that i need, but the other side. Some handy work with a craft knife, some more cardboard, back out with the grinder and i had a repair patch. Just for reference i'm using 2mm galv panels, and i'm making cuts with a 1mm cutting disc.

Anyways this is the repair sections for the outside of the inner wing, comprises a flat plate and a new lip;

I offered these pieces up to the car then tacked them together. Then i dropped the lot, on a hammer, cracked the tacks and they fell apart, bum. But there was enough weld to be able to match them up and re tack them on the bench (which is what you can see below).

Now that i had a repair patch with a lip that is true to the original i could start cutting out the rot. This is the top side of the wheel arch hole;

I also tackled the hole in the inner wing panel above the strut. The same repair panel will cover this, but i was concerned about the structural integrity underneath.

I finished off the day by making templates for the arch patch to go on the inside. I'm getting good at this cardboard stuff. Hopefully the NS will be a bit quicker, then i can weld the front slam panel back in. I'm happy that the car will be back on the road come Easter, tis not as hard as it looks all this welding stuff!

Vanny · Post by **Vanny** » Mon Feb 08, 2010 6:26 pm

Thanks to the weather and a return to work, progress has been a little on the sluggish side. However this last weekend has seen a huge jump in progress.

Phil made up a repair patch in the 20mm thick galve sheet,okay not 20mm, but far too thick to be anything but structural! This involved a lot of bashy bashy. I must point out that the original intention of underlapping (ie the patch on the underside) didn't go to plan as a result of the steel thickness, instead the patch was overlapped. Not really a problem and as the ABS pump and various other bits will sit on top of the panel, it wont really matter.

So a bit of weldy weldy;

Followed by a little grindy grindy;

Gave three complete patches.

I feel that I must comment on the welding. While I had considered that my welding skills where a bit poor it turns out the welder is doing me no favours at all. No one could easily lay a decent weld with the Cosmo 170 MIG i have, a quick scan of Mig-Welding forums and you will find i am far from the only person with this issue. By cheap, buy thrice! I'm quite relieved that it wasn't just me.

This is the main patch on the wheel arch;

The rough edges will be covered in sikaflex and painted so will look a lot neater and be seriously well sealed. The patch should out live the car by 20 to 30 years!

This is the patch that i made up and have covered its fabrication previously;

The edges here have little finishing to them. I need to check that the wheel arch liner fits, but i can't see any point in reducing the thickness of the welds in an area that hopefully won't see the light of day again! Its probably neater than the pictures gives it credit, and with the wonderful 'pulsing' wire speed from the welder, its a very good job!

Finally while cleaning up this area, things went a bit swiss cheese culminating in a bit of a hole under the washer bottle for the rear. So we made up patch 3;

This is the raw patch, no cleaning or grinding yet.

So, that's some of the holes filled up!

Next welding job will be to spot in the front slam panel (after adding a mount for the outer wing). Shouldn't be too big a problem and much of the prep has already been done. Following that the front N/S suspension will be taken off the car and partially overhauled (new bottom arm with new bushes, new calipers pads and discs, general clean up) and the wheel arch will be stripped back, repainted, and stone chipped within an inch of its life. I know there are a few potential holes in the wheel arch, and some very scabby paint forward of the wheel arch (where the horn lives) so these will be attacked as well.

Big thanks to Doc, Liam and Phil for the assistance and instruction given.

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Mon Feb 08, 2010 9:17 pm

Brilliant work Vanny.

I am sure you are aware, welding galvanized sheet produces very toxic fumes.

If you are using 2mm thick sheet, then please grind off the zink surface from both sides of the welded edge back to the mild steel.

You will get a much better weld, and reduce the effects of inhaling the fumes.

Good luck