Practically Classics Forum

It looks like you are making good progress. I know what you mean about confidence when you start. the first bit I did on mine was about the size of a matchbox but the more you do, the better you get, the easier you find it and the more willing you become to do more.
you'll get there and soon enough you will have a solid wedge to show off and the best bit is you will know you did it yourself.

From the information and advice given I can say now with certainty that most of the time I'm moving the torch too fast. I also probably have the power and wire feed up a little too high so I'll give those a tweak. Have to admit to doing no welding at all today, I'm burned out from working all day at the unit and then all night at my desk on artwork, neither of which I'm getting as far with as I'd like. So, because I was so utterly exhausted today I called it quits at about 2pm and decided to let myself recover rather than risk injuring myself with power tools.

I did get some progress done. Drilled out the spotwelds holding the strengthening bar on and the couple of tack welds on one edge of it, I'm wondering if the floor has been done before, but if it has I can't easily find the patches, bit of an odd one that.


Lifted it out to get better access to the hole floor pan underneath it and chopped that out. Also found a little bit more on the other side of the jacking point that needed chopping out. Got a bit brutal with the flapwheel and grinder disc to get rid of as much rust as possible before giving it all a blitz with the weld-through primer. I'm happy that this is all back to the best metal it can be and is ready to take some new metal, I'm even going to try and copy the original floor pressing shapes.


I got as far as cutting out a panel for the inner sill repair from the old bonnet I've got and putting it in place with magnets. Then I realised it'd be easier to weld from outside the car so I need to go over this side of the original inner sill to make sure it's properly weld friendly before starting on that.



The other thing I achieved was making the hole for the new telltale in the purple dash insert so that's now ready for filling, sanding and painting. The black plastics for the dash have received a little bit of chrome too, but there's more to complete there so I'll share pictures of that when I get the dash back in one piece and ready to go in the car.

Today has been a day of obstacles.

Yes, I did get some welding done and yes, I got a couple of patches cut out and mostly put in place. But I also found out that the Princess is evicted from the unit tomorrow rather than Sunday for reasons I don't really understand so my time to work on her was shortened rather a lot.

For the inner sill I needed the power at 4 and the wire speed at 3 but for the floor pan I had to turn it down to 2 for power and nearly 2 for wire speed. Seemed a bit counter intuitive as the floor pan metal both for the patch and the original material is a good bit more solid and not-rusty than the inner sill I was sorting out.


After a very shaky start where nothing I achieved on the scrap could be achieved on the car, I worked my way through the pigeon poo and started to get some reasonable welds. I kept going with a bit of zigzagging and did some pretty ugly welding, but it wouldn't come off with hammer, hands or pliers so I deemed it solid enough and it was making that lovely sizzle as I got the settings right and did some work from the inside.


I tried to grind it back a bit but then realised it was pretty pointless as this bit just isn't visible at all. The cabin side is much tidier anyway. So because she's going to have to head outside I blatted some primer and then some top coat (not shown) on to keep the weather out.


Didn't take very long to do the welding bit so I had enough time to make a patch for the floor, shaped to match the pressing of the floor pan as much as possible. I wanted to use the tin snips to cut this patch out, it would've been easier, but they had been borrowed so I had to use the air-nibbler which I'm not getting on with particularly well and had to have someone else help cut out that last bit of the panel. Reasonable fit, but not perfect, happily a good enough match for me to at least fill most of the hole in the floor.


Started welding this in and it went LOVELY and then, for no obvious reason, the welding all went to ****. Took me a while to realise the gas bottle was empty. That put paid to any further progress and now I'm in the uncomfortable position of having to put an unfinished car outside until we can get the gas bottle recharged. All I could do was slap some primer on and hope it'll be okay for a bit, there's nothing else I can do. There may be a cover I can borrow, but that's about it.


Still, it felt like progress and I was enjoying it, particularly when I was managing to lay some neat and tidy welds. The floor is far easier to work on than that inner sill, I can actually see what I'm doing. To the left of this image is some of the first welds I was laying down, to the right the ones that were all bacon-sizzle and quick. The nicer welds also didn't have any of that nasty looking burn.


And this is the floor repair just about when the gas ran out.

Just a comment on your welding - the bit of red metal you welded in, it looks to me like you haven't cleaned off enough paint. If there's paint close to the weld, it will burn, and the resulting smoke and fumes from the melting paint will b*gger up the effect of the gas and make the weld really poor and splattery - it's almost impossible to get a "sizzle" if the gas is contaminated by fumes. You need to clean all around the weld right back to bright shiny steel at least an inch or more from where you're going to be welding.

Hope that helps!

P.S. - but yes, that advice isn't much help when the gas runs out anyway - I feel your pain!

Cheers

Noted, I was being a bit lazy on the clean back in part because it was late and I was pushed for time, probably didn't help matters and could explain why the inner sill welded a bit better than the floor as I cleaned that back a lot further. How to weld is steadily coming back to me, every now and then I remember a certain way of moving the torch and mask to get a comfortable position for a good weld... but I'm a long way off how good I used to be. At least I've got plenty to practice on with this car!

I'm going to work down the driver's side and complete it as that's the worst side of the car. Then I'll do the passenger side and try and stop myself from re-doing the driver's side. This is a daily driver, not a show winner, I don't need to be performing perfect invisible welds on every bit I put in, though I will of course aim for that.

I could give you more practice with the SD3 if you were closer lol

Xantia has been off the road since just after I moved up here because of the craziness of insurance. It's due for new tax and insurance on the 1st of October and while I've been ferreting away at jobs that needed doing, like welding the rear arch, it seems a shame not to treat her to *something* in preparation for many miles of winter service.

I've already priced up brakes, clutch, glow plugs, &c. and that's a lot of money. It'll all get done, of course, but I wanted to find something a bit better than all that boring everyday stuff so I hopped on eBay and what should I find but something I've been after since I first got the car...





Mk1 GRILLE! I'm super excited about this and really hope it arrives safely, I've only *just* bought it. Yes it's the wrong colour, but it looks in good order and it's an easy swap to make. That gives me the debadged nose end I've been after to match the debadged rear. I need to get some paint to tidy up the repaired arch anyway so I can do them both together.

If anyone out there has a pair of clear side repeaters they'd like to swap for some orange ones, do shout. Saxo, 106 and Xantia all have the same side repeater lens so finding a pair isn't difficult, or particularly expensive, but I used some of my glowplug budget for that grille.

Other thing she'll be getting are the Fido Dido stickers I got before moving house, I just haven't figured out where exactly I'm putting those yet.

I have to ask: Is a "Fido Dido" some sort of buzzing toy for a dog?

have you been watching terrys youtube videos again john

Always had a soft spot for the princess & it's nice to see how much work you put into your cars