1973 Volvo 164RS - At last!! - It's painted!!

Hi, some more progress today:

This is the C-pillar repair piece I made, will be welded later after rust killing.


I finished off the front of the sill (subject to a check when to door is refitted). Some light panel-beating was required to get a bump out of the edge of the original part of the sill. May have been there from new, or could have been heat distortion from the welding work. I have deliberately not filled the spots welds on the part of the sill I retained... hoping to get a more original look by keeping these.




I cleaned up the spare wheel well and put bridging filler in the gaps










I painted some areas in the wheelarch that will be inaccessible after the new inner arch is welded in place.


Here are two parts I made for the new inner wheelarch, the third section is already fitted but the photo did not save


Here's a really nasty area. This is the bottom of the rear wing, next to the spare wheel well. There is a horrible earlier repair, plus some distortion which I have created by moving the wheelarch outwards. There was another old repair at the corner which I had to cut out, hence the filling piece I made. I might find out whether a repair section is available for this. If not there will be some filler sculpture needed (having first cut out all the rust of course).


While I had a front wing temporarily fitted, I test fitted a front wheel to assess what clearance problems I might encounter. Actually, it will be OK. It won't take full steering lock and full bump suspension travel at the same time... but that combination is only ever going to happen during a crash!


Finally a request for help. Again today my camera has not saved at least half the photos I took (i.e. the flash went off). My technical knowledge of the thing only just covers putting in new batteries. Are there any digital camera experts reading this who could advise? (It is an Olympus C-360 zoom).

Thanks

John

Looking good, as usual ;D
As for your camera are the pics your loosing ones taken in quick succession or just before you turn it off? My old one did similar caused by trying to do stuff while it was still writing the previous to the card (flashy light still flashing) otherwise try formatting your memory card there will be an option to do so somewhere in the camera menus.. just make sure there is nothing on it you need as you WILL loose it all!
Keep it up

Hi,

Some more work...

C-pillar

Damage to sill edge filled, and seam sealer in the gaps


The weld marks show where the inner wing piece is joined in


I tapped down the welded area and used a thin skim of filler to get the C-pillar shape back. As you can see, I'm not very good at applying just a thin skim... slapped loads on there!






Sanded and primed the inner C-pillar, where the welding had damaged the paint and seam sealer




Outer wing

Test fit of wheels. At the front of the arch, the minimum clearance is 3mm at both sides of the car. This is with the suspension at full bump both sides; there is much more clearance if just one side is at full bump. I will roll the arch outwards a little in this area to get about 6mm minimum clearance which will be fine to run with.

The new right arch has about 12mm min clearance at its rear edge, so I can bring that back in a little when I fit the lower wing repair section.




Here is a first application of filler over the join of my repair panel, and to reshape the upper part of the wing which is not deep enough here (i.e. the outer surface is not far enough from the window). It was fitted incorrectly when the previous accident damage was repaired.

This is just rough work at this stage (I had some mixed filler left over and decided to start here rather than waste it). The detail correction will be done with the door fitted, to get the shape right.





Inner wheelarch

The next section of the inner arch is welded in


Gaps at the outer edges filled/reinforced with bridging filler


Primed (seam sealer will be applied around the edges after the primer is dry).


Showing the top of the same panel. The main section of the inner wheelarch will join it just below the door lock and run the full width to meet the outer wing. I have decided not to fit that part yet; I'll do that after the outer wheelarches are finished on both sides of the car because it would be more difficult to make fine adjustments if the main inner arch was welded in place.


Repair patch welded in where rust was cut out at the rear of the inner wheelarch







Floor

Doing some more underseal removal around the jacking point - no more rust found!



A and B pillars

Seam sealer applied around the base of the B-pillar


Minor repairs to both pillars where the bracing bars were welded on before the old sill was removed.





And that's it for this weekend.

This would be a good time to thank my friend Ellis, who does the honours with the welder for me. Unfortunately, I can't do the welding myself because I have epilepsy. Although it's fine most of the time with the pills I take, certain frequencies of flashing light are really not good for me... welding would be a problem. So I get everything ready, make the panels, etc, and Ellis puts them in for me - it's very much appreciated of course!

Cheers for now

John

Lovely work mate, i'm loving this build ;D

This is absolute textbook stuff I am loving it!!!! Unbelievable workmanship. I have taken my hat off, chucked it on the floor and stamped on it in admiration.

No its ruined unfortunately, but I didnt like it that much as it felt all scratchy on my head! So no great loss!

Just read this from the start........i am suitably impressed.



I look forward to seeing updates

Hi,

Some more bodywork...

The rear door gap was uneven and wrong near the top as a result of an old repair. This is with the door fitted correctly. It looked worse in the flesh than it does in the photos so I decided to fix it.




I cut out a narrow piece and hammered the wing edge back...

...then welded it with the wing edge in the correct position


Bridging filler on both sides of the weld


Using bridging filler, I made a sanding block shaped correctly for the waistline moulding



Various stages of filling to get the shape of the wing right




The top piece of the wing is difficult to get right because it starts convex at the door shut and changes to concave under the C-pillar




The 164 has Volvo company. Steve's 244 has come in...


...to have new spare wheel wells and lower wing repair sections fitted



That's it for today.

John & Steve

Nice trick there for altering the door gap!