Build Thread '83 T-top Coupe - Cliff Notes Edition

Soooo, It’s fully welded in. Some welds were easy and turned out decent
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and then there’s the pinch weld:nonono:.
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I knew going in it would be a pita and I wasn’t disappointed. I went along the bottom of the seam and placed tack welds down the entire edge of the seam. Like 18 bagillion spot welds. I figured this would stop the crap from coming out of the seam and make for maybe a prettier weld. As usual, I figured wrong. I persevered and did the whole seam though. It’s ugly as hell, but it can be ground down nice and pretty fairly easy

Once I dress those welds I’ll be able to see areas that might need some touch up welds.

It’s disappointing in a way not being able to figure this pinch weld area out. But it’s great to have it over with.

So, here’s what’s coming. Tomorrow night I’ll be dressing those welds. I’m not sure if it’ll all be done tomorrow night or not. Right now I’m planning for two nights of clean up. Then paint Friday and on to the rear end for the weekend.
 
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Ok, all I got done tonight was the pinch weld area. This much just about had me worn down to the nub.
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It still needs some evening out with a grinder wheel. That’ll be tomorrow night.
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It needs about another fifteen minutes of work. All this will be smoothed when I get to the bodywork stage on the body. Tomorrow I’ll get all the welds on the sfc side smoothed as well as the finishing of the pinch weld area.

So far it looks like I’ll be dropping the IRS this weekend. I need to go buy some things (partially tools) to go on with this step.:taco:

First is an extra jack. I’ve been wanting a larger one than my little bitty sucker I have now. I’ll need two to safely crawl under Booger to unhook the IRS. Then I’ll need some decent storage containers for the odds and ends I take off the IRS frame.

I‘ll be stripping it down completely so I can have an easier time fitting it up as I do the new uca area support, and then the hard tail. I’ll get it powder coated after the hard tail is done.

This is on page 295 of the full thread! Seems to be a lot of bull:poo: going on over there!
 
So, super genius here woke up with an idea.....it kind of worked.

So this puts me somewhere slightly above idiot and quite a ways below genius. Definitely not moron though.
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I would have hit genius had I done this idea prior to ever dressing the welds in the first place. So, the idea is to measure down 1” below the top edge of the pinch weld and run a piece of 3/4” tape along the seam and grind a hard line all the way down the seam (The reason for 1” is that it allows for about 1/8” of weld below the actual pinch seam). Make it where you can still see the separate connecting pieces, the pinch weld and the support. I would love for it to be smooth metal the whole way down, but reality of welding the seam and getting clean welds isn‘t possible for me. Plus this side’s pinch seam was hammered crap when I got it out of the SY.

So pictures. First one, before super brain came along.
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Next with the line ground along the seam. Keep in mind this would be more visible had I started this before having done the initial grind. It doesn’t look real straight, but that’s mostly an optical illusion due to the different slants of the weld. The seam area will easily cover with a thin layer of mud and look uber cool.
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I got a bit into the sfc side. That was fun. It cuts fairly easy, it’s just that the carbide bit leaves :poo: ton loads of little super duper sharp shards of metal. I had to stop because I didn’t have back up charged batteries...... :nonono: damned nube.
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So, the lessons learned from this side will be put to use someday when I go back to the other side. I still need to finish the pinch weld area on that side.

This means I’ll still be grinding tomorrow. NBD though. Even if it took into saturday morning, I’d still have lots of time to change up how the car is setting and get the IRS out.

BTW Chris @Hoytster ? You’re right about that clearance between the IRS and the uca mount being tight! I hadn’t looked at that before. I’ll do a crap load of measuring with and without the IRS frame in before ever welding.
 
Ok, I finally got the IRS dropped, yay! That last bolt on the front left was the only one that required me to be fully under Booger again. I’ll get it stripped down tomorrow.
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Now, here’s the next area of modification. The upper control arm mounts. You’ll notice five different areas of concern for me. First in green are the dumbo ear mounts that normally clear the IRS by the narrowest amount, and I mean narrow, like 1/4” separation. They’ll be gone. Got to go back to hf and get a few spot weld cutter bits.
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Then comes the other three that I want to keep and maybe slightly modify. In yellow is the backing plate that’s welded to the floor pan. I think it’ll stay.

The other two in red are the support plates for the rear seat belts. I need to maintain them. Though they may be slightly modified and trimmed at the top so the 2x2 tubing will fit. Then I’ll weld the trimmed part to the new tube.

Here it is higher up in the air than it’s been in a long time.
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This final picture just seems to excite me, lol! I’ll be playing under there for a bit. I’m looking forward to making that trans tunnel all green.
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I didn’t get much done this weekend, but I’m set for the next stage tomorrow!

Tomorrow’s plans are to just strip down the IRS and stop by hf to get the spot weld cutters.

This IRS is going to be costly, I’ve already added up $2500 in modifications for it. That’s OK though, it’ll be totally bitchi’ when it’s done.
 
To start off, the chrome socket did just fine. :nice: Plus the impact did just great, no problem taking off the castle nut on the half shaft.
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Here’s something peculiar, look at the banjo bolt holding the brake line to the caliper. It was like this on both sides. I couldn’t get it off in a timely, so I clipped the hose and pulled the calipers off.
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Here it is nekked.:eek: It does weigh around 50-60lbs. Feels like a feather after moving it so much with it assembled.
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Here’s a pile of parts early.
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And a pile of parts finished up.
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It‘s time to go buy those spot weld cutters now. I forgot to get them before because I’m stupid.....:scratch: Tomorrow night I’ll be up Booger’s rear to my elbows.
 
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So out to the garage I go.......I have a mental problem I’ve decided.....I’ll cover that one towards the end of this post..... :nonono:

Anyways, What the goal for the day was to remove the right rear uca mount. Sounds like that would be easy, right? Let’s GET OUT THERE AND DO IIIIIIIIIIIT! Yep, let’s get right out there and do it........:nonono:

First, here’s a picture of the clearance between the irs frame and the uca mount, I’m not sure if there’s an eight of an inch free space there or not. There is clearance though, so why remove it? Because it’s ugly and unwanted, just like I was as a child:cry::cry::cry:.
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Now to drift back towards the car...Here’s that brace looking all innocent and heck, “just pull me out of here real quick like Dave....”
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So first off, I slap some old speaker magnets around the area to help avoid the metal shavings battle.
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Back to the beginning of the post, my problem. I start off with wanting to remove these brackets whole, Idk why, It started with Doby and continues here. After using the old spot weld cutter for the first four welds (there are 21 on this side) I realized that maybe I wouldn’t be removing this bracket in one piece. This is some seriously thick metal the brackets are made out of. Yet I persisted in my delusion and went after the tougher to get to spot welds on the inner part of it. So ten spot welds cut and it took me an hour and a half and my hands hurt.
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Now that I rid myself of removing these pieces whole, tomorrow I will pick up some cut off wheels and grinding wheels for my die grinder. This rat bastard bracket WILL be off there tomorrow night and it can be in tiny little pieces for all I care!

Why not tonight you might ask? It started raining and half my body was sticking out of the garage as I worked on this.
 
There it is, the right side brace.
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There it was.
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Now that I have the one side out it really allows me to look at the backing plate. I’m starting to think I don’t need to weld in a cross brace bar at all. That backing plate is just as thick as the braces are.
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Sure, it’s not as strong as a tube, yet.....If I weld it in more completely to the subframe on each side, wouldn’t that be enough? The torsional forces in this area won’t be anything like they were with the sra.

I am kind of reticent to remove that backing plate, it is also the backing plate for the rear seat belts.

One of my buddies is lending me his good 1/2” belt sander tomorrow. I’ll be using that to make the removal of the left brace MUCH easier.

Once I have that one out I’ll lay under Booger and throw my brain at the issue the best I can.
 
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Okie dokie, I tried everything on this bracket and only ended up cutting nine welds....... :nonono:
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The 1/2” belt sander was working great, but overheated after four welds.

The Blair cutters work WAY better than hf cutters! This wore me out though. Laying on my back and holding the drill over my head against that little spring loaded center bit gets really, really tiring.

My grinding wheel worked great too, it’s just noisy as hell.

I had to stop to get cleaned up so I can watch the debate tonight.

I don’t know what the difference is about this side, but it seems quite a bit more difficult than the other side. This is easily the most physically challenging part of working on Booger so far.

Tomorrow night I’ll get the other 14 spot welds on this side.
 
I got it removed:nice:. What a son of a gun, geez! I don’t know why the left side was so much more difficult.

Take a look without the brackets. I’m now at the stage to clean up the areas where the spot welds were and figure if I’ll put a support brace up there. I’m not sure I need to weld in an extra brace here. I could just clean all the welds up, weld the edges of the backing plate to the subframes, and paint the area green, kind of make it look like it was factory-ish. What do y’all think?
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Here’s the offending brackets preparing for their new lives at the city dump.
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This one is for John. The pneumatic one is a blue point that I’ve had for a little over 25 years. The electric is from Hf. The collet for the grinding wheels is on the electric, obviously.
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So I dressed the old spot welds tonight and just laid there for awhile looking at what will be next and how it might overlap what i’m doing now. Here’s the big shot of the spot welds cleaned up, they don’t look very smooth, but they don’t catch my finger.
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I‘ll stitch weld along the backing plate and the frame rail.
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I will also remove the bump stops and probably weld the shock mount a bit more thoroughly than the few spot welds from the factory. Maybe even stitch weld along the spring perch too. It’s staying for the frame rail support it provides.
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I need to bring home some sand from work to do a little sand blasting in the more difficult to clean areas that I’ll weld.
 
Whew! I got the right bump stop off. These brackets are wearing me out!
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Only one left, it’ll be a little tougher to remove since that side is about 1/8” from the wall of the garage. I’m beginning to believe I’ll have to finally build my little Booger cart soon to make life easier. Anyhow, heres the right side stop.
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Here‘s a before and after picture just to show the room this opens up. It’ll be easy to stitch weld around the shock tower bracket with that out of the way. Before:
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After:
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One more after picture at a little different angle.
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Anywho, tomorrow night I go after the left bracket.
 
Alright, this bracket was going to be a pita. I knew that going in and I was determined I was going to win.........:scratch:

This was by far the easiest of the four. I borrowed my friends cordless 1/2” belt sander again and crawled under Booger’s rear end ready to have a long haul.

This was the tightest area i’ve worked in so far. My head was off my creeper and leaning against the wall so I could see the spot welds I needed to cut. It was almost too easy, lol. I was worried a bit when it fell off.

Enough chit chat, the bracket off.
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Where it was cleaned up a little. I’ll stitch weld all around the shock brace bracket, maybe even around the old spring perch (though I’m not sure if I’ll do that or not).
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That went so quick I cleaned up around the left uca mount area a little. I show this picture because I’ll stitch weld all along where the backing plate meets the subframe.
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Here’s the fantastic four dingleberries picked off Booger’s butt.
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Tomorrow night begins the clean up for welding. I’ll need to use a scraper to clean the various areas that got coated with the undercoating from the wheel tub at the factory. Then sand blasting and I might even break out the dremel tool to clean up some of those tough areas.

Hopefully I’ll get the welding done by this weekend.
 
I started tonight by using a screw driver to scrape out the bigger globs of undercoating that were around the areas I want to weld. Then I went to town with my little sand blaster. Fact is, I made a nice little mess that probably took longer to clean up than it did to sand blast. I love this little blaster, as long as you allow your air pressure to build up sufficiently, you’re golden for cleaning metal.
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Heres the right side around the shock tower bracket. I intend to weld all around the tabs.
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This one is looking up into the brace where it attaches to the subframe, I’ll weld all that too.
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Here’s on the other side of the frame rails. Nice and clean down deep, perfect for welding.
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Big lesson for tonight? When you’re underneath a vehicle, it’s better to wait until you’re not before trying to sit up. It can really hurt and you can bleed a lot from a small cut to the forehead. Not that I did this of course.........I just thought it would be an important reminder to y’all......Oh, and sand blasting media stops bleeding pretty quick.......I’m just guessing here because how would I factually know......of course........:nonono:
 
Okie dokie, mild wind today, time to get the welding done.

I started with the right side shock bracket (the easiest to get to). I welded the front tab, not too bad so far.
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Then I got the back. The inner area was important for me to weld, it had a rather large gap that required me to put a root weld down deep and then cover with another bead. Started to get a little ugly here. I also got the upper part of the bracket.
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THEN came the uca backing plate. It needed a root weld all the way down. Then I tried to do two neat passes over the root to finish up, you can see just how neat I was:bang:. Right, then left side.
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The left side upper needed a bit more attention than the right. I ground pretty deep into the subframe there when I removed the uca bracket.
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Then came the real fun part, the right side shock brace......I was welding somewhat blind here and it shows. All of this was with the torch directly over my face. I draped a welding blanket over my body to save myself some pain.
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Now you can see why my name isn’t davedametalwelder. Dave is a car painter. The welds are solid and are really frustrating to me. Oh well, a couple days grinding ahead.

Then? Hard tail for the IRS. I believe I’ll actually be able to use my tig for that.
 
Got my new 1/2” belt sander in today.
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The tip is steel, unlike the rubber tip on the hf one I’ve used in the past. Hopefully this means it’ll last longer.
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I should have my sanding belts tomorrow.

The weather has changed for the weekend, it’ll be in the mid forty‘s on Saturday now. I’ll still work on Booger with that.
 
So I actually got out! What a freaking beautiful day:nice:.

I mostly got the right subframe dressed. I want to follow up with my die grinder and two inch grinding discs to prep it for a small wipe of bondo. There a couple small areas there I want to address first.
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I used my new 1/2” belt sander with 36 grit belts, it did really well. I like this sander much more than the hf version. I also cleaned up a bit with my dewalt 5” grinder and flap wheel.
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I was going to stop there, but I couldn’t help wanting to dress a bit of the left frame rail. I just did a quick bit on it. It’ll probably take another half hour to full hour to finish that side.
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We’re supposed to have really nice weather the next two days, so I’ll get a bit done. Maybe even a wipe of mud to smooth it all out.

THEN, Thursday we’re supposed to get snow.:nonono:

I must admit I had help. My old trustworthy friend.
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