Renault Estafette Van, Mk2 Cortina GT

I’ve not updated I’m a while. Well I have, but since we’ve had the new look desktop, I’ve lost a few reports that I’ve written. Even when I switched back to the old desktop I’ve still written and lost updates 😩. I’ll update in a few episodes so if my phone decides to eat it, I’ll not cry too
much.

Bank Holiday Monday(I think)

Lots of rally cars get the door and window apertures seem welded or brazed. I asked both of my brothers if they thought it was worth doing and they both said no. But on my Escort, in some places the spots welds are about 2” apart.


So to combat this, I borrowed my brother’s spot welder again to fill the gaps.








Those paying attention will remember when I boxed the fuel filler pipe back in some moths ago, I made a speed blister to seal off the bottom of it, where it rides over the rear coilover mounting. I later realised I hadn’t made it tall enough to allow me to get an Allen key in to tighten the nut up. So it got dismantled.



A new top hat made



And the side refitted


Look I can now fit an Allen key in.

Some other day in the past.

The bottom of the front wings were a bit shabby with redundant holes and slits


A bit welded on


Ground back and in primer


Other side


Welded


Ground and I’m primer


When the front wings had fiberglass wheel arches, they were bonded and riveted on. The rivet holes were still there so these got welded - no photo.

The passenger door has trim holes on the inside that were no longer needed


Welded



And ground



Those photos are upside down as it was easier to turn the car upside down than it was to drag the welder around the other side

I also seam welded the seams either side of the diff tunnel but no completed photo apparently.



I then threw a seat in and placed the navigator’s foot rest where it needs to go. I had to use my wallet to hold it down.



As I’ve fitted a bl00dy great big gearbox tunnel, it needs to be spaced up a bit to clear. So I made some spacers


Bolted the foot rest in



And welded the nuts underneath



And that’s it



ALL THE WELDING IS DONE!!! Well I say done. I might find a few other little jobs, but that’s it for everything I can see at the moment

Cool!

Back on the road in a fortnight then?

So no update for a few weeks. Work, rally spectating, family stuff and an avoidance of starting paint prep is all to blame. I can not explain to you how much I’ve been dreading this.
So I started with this


I first want to give the bottom another coat of epoxy as lots of it is only covered in tin primer. So I’ve been sanding with 80 grit and scotch padding everything to give it a key.

I then realised I’d missed a bit of seam welding on the rear of the inner sills, so I did that.





Far more interesting than sanding. I then went round with the power file filing down some (a lot) of unsightly welds that someone had left (me). No pics of that.

I then needed to take the wings off to do the underside of the inner wings. This meant taking the doors off. Whilst sitting down undoing bolts, I noticed this line below where the pedal box sits



A closer look revealed light through it. The bulkhead has cracked all along where the standard pedal box / bulkhead strengthener sits.


So the crack got welded up and I decided to stitch weld the strengthener to the bulkhead in some misguided attempt to stop it doing it again






So this is how the car sits now



Virtually exactly the same as when I started this morning. Minus doors and wings, of course.


As is quite evident, I had not finished the welding

Congratulations on getting the truck in paint Mr Couper. And what a scoop for my little build thread!

I’m so bored of sanding after just a few hours. You must be a hero doing 6months of it

I don’t even want to do that much.

Isn’t it amazing people choose to do this for a living?

That's a good milestone to reach, Phil, nice one.

My goal today was to get the inside of the car painted in epoxy. Started by giving all the panels that I could, a going over with the DA sander. Then I noticed a bit of rust in the heel board 😡. How come I didn’t see this before? Got rid of the rust with the power file and made a bit to fill the gap






Then I found another frilly bit


That had a bit made to fill it too. Then I found another bit! That got the same treatment, but no photo. No photo of them all welded up either for some reason.

So with those bits sorted I continued the sanding and scotch padding. God this painting lark is boring.

The rear parcel shelf (the bit behind the aluminum bulkhead) had not been blasted for some reason. It still had several coats of paint on it that were starting to flake. I took this back to bare metal with the power file then the DA.









I then hovered the car out, blew everywhere with the blow jet, spun the car round and round, hovered again, then blow jet and then another Hoover for good measure to try and get rid of all the bits that want to jump in the paint as soon as I start painting. I also gave it a wipe down with this



Then it was time for paint. Everything got a good coat of epoxy, using another 1.2 litres.















Rear strut brace got a coat too



I kept a bit of paint back as I wanted to pour it into the fresh air intake in the front scuttle panel. If you were paying attention, you’ll remember I removed the heater bowl last year to repair the grot. After welding it back on, I wanted to make sure that the weld seam was coated in epoxy to help stop it rotting out again.

Epoxy poured in on both sides here



The excess came it out of the top hole here


And ended up here


If only I’d thought to put a pot there beforehand.

So that’s the inside primered. Amazingly, no runs either! But still some cr4p managed to jump in the paint. Just the boot, inner wing tops, and inside of front wings left.