1986 Toyota MR2 - an uncontrollable evacuation of the bowels

Your welding it fast you must have a date set to get it finished by
Have you found the Happy face on any parts yet its all over my j a p corolla wagon but not the Irish one. Something knew to look for

Good shout on that paint, useful to know. I get so paranoid about fires starting in cavities that I've got a bottle of pub gas that I plumb into any voids I'm welding over. Having watched a transit catch fire and nearly take the entire workshop with it, I get a bit twitchy!

Today I 'as mostly been listening to Clannad's 'Banba', London Grammar's 'If You Wait' (their only album as far as I know) and The Best of Fleetwood Mac (who've had so many albums they've probably got a best of the best).
Well, I got bored with Heart on the radio. And there is only so much of Steve Wright in the Afternoon that a chap can take before he has to commit suicide. I can get as far as "Hello and welcome to the show…" before reaching for a knife. Better than many people I think you'll agree.

You probably haven't noticed but there is a divot in the inner wing. I thought it was a dint caused by somebody jacking the car in the wrong place but it looked wrong for that. It was too precisely formed to be an accident. It looked pressed into the panel.
Sitting in bed last night I suddenly realised what it was for. The dint in the panel that is - not er, whatever else you might er, be thinking about in bed.




It's the relief for the side skirt mounting bolt. So it needs to be there. Which means I need to bash it in.
I chiselled a piece from a handy lump of wood to use as a former.




Sort of like this.




Trouble is, no amount of bashing was going to make it deep enough. This was about all I could get.




I need a better plan. Which will probably involve cutting it out and welding something in.

Lets do the arch edge instead.




Bit of metal cut from the pattern with some scratch marks that should be the fold line.
Lets bash the folds over then.




Hmmm.




That's gone reasonably well. Lots of time to mank it up yet.




I need to curve it under the car next. If it was after Christmas and Santa had brought me a set of shrinkers I could use them now. But it's not and he hasn't so I'm going to have to cut and weld instead. Something like this.




Somethings going terribly wrong with my metal bashing...




…It seems to be working!
Even project manager Portia was impressed.




I know she doesn't look impressed but, take it from me, she was. She'd probably seen the complete mess I made of the front wing patch and was surprised.

Anyway…




It looks like it might fit. Still plenty to do to it though. I can still resign it to the scrap pile - trust me.

James

the way I do it is to use spare wheels

bigger trolley jack & axle stands.

Oh I want that garage............

I put 2" blocks of wood under my axle stands just to gain the extra bit

Mark

cant you put the ramps on a couple of breeze/concrete blocks and lengthen the run up with pieces of planking?

pair of 3 tonne axle stands from machine mart are beer money, pretty high at full reach, designed for 1.5 tonne each so are wide and stable with only high hunrdres of kilos on them.

also have 2 foot lengths of reclaimed 50+ year old railway sleeper which stack up nice, have enough mass to them not to be wobbly

What I really like about this forum is the enthusiasm and ideas that people share. You ask a question and people post their thoughts. Brilliant. Thank you all.

Still not sure how to do it. I have realised that I actually own some sleepers. They were the base for a shed and, one day they will be the base for another shed. But in the intervening time they could be handy.
Another idea I spotted a year ago was this... Imagine jacking the car up and putting the wheels on 4 legged stools. You then stick the jack under the stool base and lift it again. Magically the legs extend and you pop pins in like an axle stand.

Unfortunately I can't find them again. Might have to build something over winter. Whatever I do, you've given me some things to think about so thanks for that.


Right... I concluded that the first bit to go on the car should be the arch edge - remember this is just the inner wing so far.
So I shaped the profile and tacked it to make sure it looked ok.




Looks good I reckon so I zipped it up and ground it back. Then I scored round it on the car and used that as the cut line.
After a bit of chopping and fettling it fits.




Well then… Tack it in I guess.




Are you looking at this and feeling vaguely impressed that it fits? Well I'm looking at this in complete and utter astonishment.
When I welded it in I blew a few holes.




Not surprising about the holes. The original panel was a bit thin in places after cleaning the rust off.
So I ground it back a bit to find the extent of the holes…




...and did another pass in those areas.
Probably should try joddling the overlap rather than butt welding. But then again I just looked up a tool and they are £40 or £50. I'll butt weld - it's good practice!

Just as I was finishing off it started to rain so I lobbed etch primer on until it was dripping off the bottom of the car and called it a day.
Anyway, er, well, er, here it is…







I don't much like blowing my own trumpet… And pride comes before a fall and all that… But, for once, to hell with it.
I'm bloody chuffed with that.

James