Practically Classics Forum

thanks luxo, i was worried for a while...

Did a little on the minor last night, cut out a rusty area in the rear wheelarch /wing flange, the usual combination of rust, filler and old patches.
I left the old wing flange in place at first to give me someting to keep the alignment, The patch being tacked to the old metal then cut it out and repaired the wing 3 inches at a time butt welding new pices in.
Needs gringing down but it was getting a bit late, I will also run a bead around the inside of the corner for further strength.

Not much time to work on the cars this weekend, it's my son's birthday which means we have had the minor for a year.

Did do a couple of little jobs on the mazda, the battery has never been clamped in properly, someone had tried to wedge it in with some bits of wood and a bolt, but it was still loose. So I bought the proper clamp but also decided I would remove the battery and clean up thge area around as it seemed a bit rusty and marked withed acid stains. It was only light surface rust where the battery had been moving and worn the paint it cleaned up easily enough and it was given a coat of rust converter followed by zinc primer, then black stonechip and finaly some wax this ended up looking like this
.

Next up the battery was cleaned and re fitted on a piece of pond liner to try to protect thed floor, I don't think it is the right battery though as it has no external vent and is too tall for the clamp which had to be lengthed.
I have a old battery with a vent somewhere, I may try drilling this one to fit it as this would make sure the majority of fumes end up outside.

Land rover mot tomorrow, so on the way home tonight the idicatior switch falls to pieces!

The main rotating part split in half, a combination of lockwire, tie wraps and duct tape seems to have it working again, With gentle use hopefully it will hold out for tomorrow (I have also ordered a new one).

The tester gave the landie a pretty thorough going over and it passed with only a couple of advisories, the rear shock bushes are begining to go, seems the ones available now only last a year or so but I do have some poly ones somewhere, the other was the inside edge of one of the rear tyres has less than 2mm tread left, I will see if I can pick up a decent pair on ebay over the summer.
Next is the lotus but not due until july so I have a while, and I am pretty sure there is nothing on this which needs doing, the maxda is due in august and will need some new dampers though, I have noticed the front corner which is leaking also clonks, plan is to get a secondhand set of standard springs & dampers to replace the factory Bilsteins fitted, if we like them we will replace with new ones later.

Wasted most of saturday afternoon tring to fix the washing machine, turns out they now bond the two halves of the drum together so if your £30 bearings go you need a £200 drum assembly, result a £600 3 year old washing machine gets written off, my advice, never buy a hoover washing machine, I am now £350 down with a new bosch machine.

In frustration I set to minor with an vangle grinder, the result:
I also took a look at the door, thge intention was to repair it but a bot of poking ended up with this
After a few weeks searching on ebay I found this locally for £20 which should make life much easier.

Something good came of your washing machine drama then It looks like you have quite a bit of metal to put back in but at least it isn't completely rotten. I have sat in one that was in a breakers before for the floor pan to snap across the passenger side!

I also salvaged this from the washing machine.
Different coloured wiring is always usefull, I use the valves for garden watering systems and the stainlees. Cylinder with a element inside coul become part of an engine pre heater.

Can you use the metal from the WM casing to fill the gaps in the bodywork

Serious question as I'm sure I read somewhere about a guy using WM metal but then I wondered if it was a joke - I guess it would take a while to get the paint off as ours seems to be a hard wearing enamel finish.

Any thoughts out there (and sorry Kevin for sending your topic off in another direction )

Topaz wrote:Can you use the metal from the WM casing to fill the gaps in the bodywork

Serious question as I'm sure I read somewhere about a guy using WM metal but then I wondered if it was a joke - I guess it would take a while to get the paint off as ours seems to be a hard wearing enamel finish.

Any thoughts out there (and sorry Kevin for sending your topic off in another direction )

Yes you can and I have. OK I've used it for small patches. Part of the inner wings of the Discovery are ex Hotpoint. I also repaired the back box on a Nissan with it as well

You will need to make sure all the powder coat is off the edges before you weld up, but the way I look at it, it's already part painted! The powder coat pops off ok with an angle grinder