Clive - Singer Chamois Sport

[MattorMatty]

Taking a slight tangent from welding up the floors/sills, at National I picked up a body crossmember as Clive is missing one as it previously had a Honda bike engine mated to the Imp gearbox via an adaptor (Ahead of its time) so just had some box steel bolted across. In the normal fashion the crossmember had a slightly rotten corner.





So the crossmember got cleaned back to bare metal and the outer skin trimmed to remove the rust, the rust had spread slightly to the inner metal work as well so that was cut out and replaced before a new bit of outer was welded into place, also the Hillman badge holes welded up and redrilled for a Singer badge and then followed by a skim of filler over the repair and over a few shallow dents.



And then sprayed in a colour I'm considering for the car, as I want an off the shelf colour near to the original for ease of touching up in the future plus it will be a handy mojo booster when looking at never ending rust. And it was a good test of my spraying skills as I haven't sprayed anything in 2 years so at least I know how to improve the paint finish for when i eventually get round to it.



This photo is better representive of the colour a maroon/dark red.



Matt

[The Nun]

Come up all right hasnt it
Signal Red?

Lawn looks pretty good too, better than mine at the moment anyway, it must have rained where you are.

[MattorMatty]

It has turned out alright for a trail piece, the exact colour is Ral 3032 Pearl Ruby Red as I'm trying to get a close match to the original Claret Metallic (the colour in real life is darker than in the photos) And the lawn; nope we have had bother all rain just its get fed and watered regularly does mean it needs cutting every other day though.

Matt

[philgsmith]

Looks nice Matt.. whole project is priogressing with some really nice work mate.

Hope to catch up again soon.. was nice seeing you and dad in Holland.

Phil

[ImpManiac]

You have a real talent, Matt. Great work!

IM

[MattorMatty]

Thanks Phil, it was good to meet you, Lesley and of course Hilda, hopefully have another catch up in '17.

Thanks Paul, I wouldn't go that far but hopefully when it finally makes it to a National it can stand up to judgement.

Right with the nearside sill and floor solid again better have a look at the offside which I knew from the early stage this is the worst side. Beginning with the A-post.





MMM much plating goodness, I wonder what is behind it?!



Ahhh like everything on this Imp; not a lot (which did cause a slight mojo drop in this project as you can properly tell with the lack of updates on this thread, but in this photo you can see progress on the sill which I'll get onto later).

With a project this rotten some days you feel you don't make any progress, so its nice now and again to complete something from start to finish in one garage session. So in this case Clive had its brake lines running inside the car so the previous owner had drilled a hole in the front wheel tub for the solid to flex hose connector which is no longer needed as I'll return the pipe work back to standard.





Opened the hole up to a easier to work with square and then trimmed a piece of metal to sit nicely in place.



And then MIG'ed into place and cleaned back so by the time its stone chipped you'll never know.



Doesn't that look better! As long as you ignore the A-Post, bottom of the wheel tub, complete sill, floor, outer wheel arch ... yeah basically everything else.

Matt

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

cant even see its been repaired - excellent job

[impstress2003]

Good skills Matt!

Keep going, I'll race you to national in Archie..

[MattorMatty]

cant even see its been repaired - excellent job

Thanks Dave!

Good skills Matt!

Keep going, I'll race you to national in Archie..

Thanks Si, but its safe to say that Archie will make it to National before Clive will.

[MattorMatty]

Cutting off the outer wheel arch to show the full extent of the rot in the A-Post ... yeah it's looking a little bit sorry for itself.



Made a new door hinge box thing whilst I had something to go by for reference as you can see when the plate was taking off that wasn't much left of the original. (Can you spot my mistake that I bent the bottom side return the wrong way which I only noticed a couple of days later looking at that photo)



With what was left of the door hinge box removed, a slight repair was needed to the back edge of the A-Post. I could of left it as it only had a slight frilly edge but whilst I'm here I might as well do it.

And then I get carried away and I only took photos of the finished A-Post.





Still need to clean up some of the welds here but pleased that it's done as it was something I was putting off.

Matt

[colimp66]

A very neat job executed there Matt.
You aren't the only one to ever bend the piece you are making the wrong way Glad you noticed it before welding it in as that would have been a lot more frustrating for anyone to do.

Keep up the good work.
Cheers
Col.

[ImpManiac]

Really great work, Matt! As above, you cannot see those repairs. Very neat indeed!

Keep up the brilliant work.

IM

[tiker]

A very neat job executed there Matt.
You aren't the only one to ever bend the piece you are making the wrong way l.

Me too completely finished from the cardboard template then realised it was the wrong hand, worst part other side was solid
Keep up the good work

[The Nun]

A very neat job executed there Matt.
You aren't the only one to ever bend the piece you are making the wrong way l.

Me too completely finished from the cardboard template then realised it was the wrong hand, worst part other side was solid
Keep up the good work

You could have sold it on e bay for a fortune, rare good condition unavailable repair panel

[colin rooney]

Nice bit of work there matt and great to see people like you and colin with the pest doing things as they should be

col

[MattorMatty]

A very neat job executed there Matt.
You aren't the only one to ever bend the piece you are making the wrong way Glad you noticed it before welding it in as that would have been a lot more frustrating for anyone to do.

Keep up the good work.
Cheers
Col.

Thanks Colin! Was slightly annoying as it was tricky folding the lip upwards and then had to undo it. Its all part of learning.

Really great work, Matt! As above, you cannot see those repairs. Very neat indeed!

Keep up the brilliant work.

IM

Thanks Paul!

A very neat job executed there Matt.
You aren't the only one to ever bend the piece you are making the wrong way l.

Me too completely finished from the cardboard template then realised it was the wrong hand, worst part other side was solid
Keep up the good work

HaHa thanks, at least I'm not the only one. I'm sure I'll do it again on this project with the amount of work still to do.

Nice bit of work there matt and great to see people like you and colin with the pest doing things as they should be

col

Thanks Colin, its all a big learning curve but taking my time. Plus I've learnt a lot over the years reading threads on this great forum.

Matt

[MattorMatty]

Firstly I hope you all had a good Christmas and looking forward to another year of Imping.

I'm backing this thread up a little bit as I realised I didn't show the O/S sill and floor before I took the angle grinder to it.



I think you can understand why I'm putting new floor panels and sills on.
It has seen better days to put it politely!





Should an Imp floor panel be 4 layers thick?
It took a while but all the spot welds were drilled out and what remained of the sill was removed. Better start making some panels I guess.



Take a piece of flat steel add a little bit of folding with a dash stretching it becomes an inner sill lip repair panel.



Annoyingly I didn't get a proper photo of welded in place but you can see it in the before photo of the A-Post.



Matt

[rhydian_mason]

Very tidy work indeed. Another superb restoration by the looks of it.

[ImpManiac]

^^ What Rhydian said! Superb work, as ever, Matt! Do you use a stretcher/shrinker or do you just pound the heck out of the metal with a hammer?

IM

[MattorMatty]

Very tidy work indeed. Another superb restoration by the looks of it.

Thanks Rhydian! Be another Imp saved when done as it was last on the road in 1994.

^^ What Rhydian said! Superb work, as ever, Matt! Do you use a stretcher/shrinker or do you just pound the heck out of the metal with a hammer?

IM

Thanks IM, all the stretching so far has been done by hitting it with a hammer but I've recently purchased a shrinker/stretcher so that has made panel fabrication a lot easier.

Matt

[impmann]

Frightening thought... but this:



Would be good enough for an MOT pass, as its all seam welded and there are no holes on show. Yet it has the strength of a wet tea bag.

[John Simister]

Ah, the long-lost prototype Imp with the experimental monoside construction. You can see how they were trying out alternative ideas in the R&D department, with a view to reducing the number of pressings and speeding production. Amazing find.

[MattorMatty]

Frightening thought... but this:
Would be good enough for an MOT pass, as its all seam welded and there are no holes on show. Yet it has the strength of a wet tea bag.

Completely agree with you Tim, all I would have to done to MOT this was bleed the brakes, change the front tyres and put an engine in.



Here's a heater sill I made earlier.

And welded into place; in total 112 plug welds.





I clearly got carried away with fitting the floor panel as I have no photos of removing the old or welding in the new.



You can tell the 309 is a distant relative to the Imp. Made to measure!



So with the floor fitted into place better clamp the outer sill on and have look at the door gaps.
Door loosely sitting in its hole which as its not the original door the gaps aren't too bad. Will have a play about with the gaps when the car is back into it's wheels.



The outer sill got welded on and the end of floor/sill saga is finally near with only a small repair to do on the gear linkage tunnel and to clean back the welds. Only started on the sills on the 10 Nov 2015

Matt

[impstress2003]

Nice work Matt, it's awesome looking at all that new steel when it's welded down

[Lars Hagermark]

Nice!!!

[ImpManiac]

Lovely work! Your welds look to be of superb quality. Very consistent. I shall be aiming for that level of quality on mine.

IM

[MattorMatty]

Nice work Matt, it's awesome looking at all that new steel when it's welded down

Nice!!!

Thanks Si and Lars!

Lovely work! Your welds look to be of superb quality. Very consistent. I shall be aiming for that level of quality on mine.

IM

Thanks IM, my plug welds have certainly improved as they use to be my weakness. Nothing like a bit of practise.

I had a quick play over the weekend turning a plastic storage container into a little blasting cabinet, its all a bit rough and ready but I just want to make sure the idea will work before investing time into it.



Engine mount the test piece.



Old rubber bush removed



And blasted. Well it works! Needs some fine tuning like a lid that actually seals and the gloves moving up a touch. I used soda which may be too fine for grubby stuff but once I sort out the issues I'll have a go with glass beads and hopefully that improve the finish.

Matt

[ImpManiac]

Awesome! I like the idea of a cheap, DIY blasting cabinet. I don't have space for a floor standing one anyway. Any pictures of the cabinet?

IM

[ImpManiac]

IM

[MattorMatty]

Matt

Your door gaps are going to be better than when they left the factory !

Not sure why you pulled that bush out though, it has thousands of miles left in it

John

Thanks John, hopefully with a bit of tweaking they'll be respectable.

Any pictures of the cabinet?

Here you go IM, I quickly put it together so its a bit rough just to test the idea out, but now I know it works I'll spend some time on it. It needs a better lid (one that actually seals) with a glass window mounted in it. Hopefully when the new lid is fitted the air outlet pipe works as intended with the abrasive particles being too heavy and dropping back into the cabinet if not I'll look at a filter or rigging up some sort of dust extractor.
Cabinet itself has cost £12 (Storage box £9, the gloves from Screwfix £2.80 and the pipe I already had) and then you've got the cost of the blasting gun and abrasive. And best of all when not in use it all fits nicely in the box.

Matt

[The Nun]

Hey Ive seen one of those things down the lab when theyre experimenting with the plague virus.

[ImpManiac]

That is neat and ingenious, Matt. However, when the time comes for me to get a blast cabinet, I might look into one of the self-build units you can buy, or the plans to make your own.

My hat is off to you, though, sir!

IM

[bks974c]

Firstly I hope you all had a good Christmas and looking forward to another year of Imping.

I'm backing this thread up a little bit as I realised I didn't show the O/S sill and floor before I took the angle grinder to it.



I think you can understand why I'm putting new floor panels and sills on.
It has seen better days to put it politely!





Should an Imp floor panel be 4 layers thick?
It took a while but all the spot welds were drilled out and what remained of the sill was removed. Better start making some panels I guess.



Take a piece of flat steel add a little bit of folding with a dash stretching it becomes an inner sill lip repair panel.



Annoyingly I didn't get a proper photo of welded in place but you can see it in the before photo of the A-Post.



Matt

This is certainly a challenge, normally just rust to contend with but without many of the regular reference points for alignment its triple work.

Excellent work.

Scott

[moose]

i am not wanting to put a downer on your blast cabinet but when you mention the costs to include gun etc i had a look at the cost of the cabinet i use for small items now £110 on a vat free night at machine mart they have come down in price a lot. secondhand they are very cheap http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SANDBLASTING- ... Sw2gxYqAEm

i can recommend them for small reasonably clean parts, you need a good compressor to keep up with them and you need a filter drier regulator to go in the air line otherwise the media gets clumpy with the damp air and the hose will not pick it up especially if you have too much media in the base of the cabinet. keep us posted on the final design and finished product and the media you choose for the finish.

[MattorMatty]

Thanks guys for the advice and suggestions, I'll have a look at getting a more suitable cabinet. I got a pressure fed pot one which is designed for aluminium oxide so hopefully last a little while and a large compressor with a water trap plumbed into the system.

Thanks Scott, certainly is a nice little challenge.

Matt

[MattorMatty]

Long time with no update but progress on Clive is still plodding along with the floor and sills all done the attention of the angle grinder and welder turned to the bottom of the front panel. When I got Clive he had a bib spoiler attached.



When removed showed it was filled with expanding foam and most likely fitted to hide the fact there was little metal left.



Once all the expanding foam and filler had been cleaned off it showed some lovely optional extra ventilation.



Well maybe the underside will be in better condition ...





Maybe not.



After a few measurement were noted down; the angle grinder got warmed up. Let the cutting begin! Luckily the chassis legs are rust free which was a nice surprise considering the condition of the surrounding metal.

Matt

[ImpManiac]

Yuck! Why do people do these things? (Rhetorical question.) It certainly looks like you have got your work cut out on this project.

Where are the wheel arches from? They look wider than normal Imp arches but not as wide as the Bevan-style arches. I quite like them, actually.

IM

[tiker]

What a mess
But with your skills I have no doubt she'll be looking good as new in no time

[MattorMatty]

Thanks IM! The wheel arches were homemade, fibreglass skin popped riveted to the body and then filler on the outside to blend them in and more filler in the wheel arches to seal them up. Funnily enough they weighed quite a lot when I pulled them off with all that filler used.

Thanks Gary! Slowly but surely it'll get there. I'm looking to forward to getting to the stage you are at, so close to some colour.

Matt

[MattorMatty]

Small update and I'll like to apologies for a lack of photos coming up and what photos there is aren't the best but space is a bit limited as you've most likely have already worked out. Most of the work done in this update was done whilst sitting under a shelf, the joys of a single garage.

So cutting out the plates and rot left quite a nice hole on the front valance and surrounding floor as seen in the last update. John Ross; you did have to cut more out of George than I had to out of Clive. As the old plates ran from the corners to under the front suspension plate fearing the worst I drilled out the spot welds so I could cut off the old plates but lucky it was all solid under there so not sure why it was plated up but at least only the corners needed attention instead of the whole length of the valance floor.



Do you think lunchtime was called whilst this was being spot welded? As one corner wasn't even welded.

Made a new corner and even remembered to drill the drain holes which makes a change.



Same again on the otherside which I haven't got a photo for and you guys have to use your imagination on how they fit as no photo yet, I'll take one when its next rolled over and add on to a future update.

So with all the floor nice and solid again better make the valance itself. Took me two attempts as the first go I cut it roughly to shape but then couldn't roll the bottom curve along the length as there wasn't enough metal to handle in the middle section. So second attempt I left it as a rectangle and then rolled the bottom (which I did by tacking the ends to a piece of tube and then start to form it around the tube and kept moving it up until the panel was rolled enough) and then trimmed to shape followed by a quick visit the shrinker to give the slight curve.





Needs a skim a filler to blend in but at least not a can of expanding foam this time.

Matt

[ImpManiac]

Lovely work, Matty! You're improving your skills all the time.

Needs a skim a filler to blend in but at least not a can of expanding foam this time.

Best avoided...

IM

[MattorMatty]

Update time!
Time for the first wheel arch panel to go on. The old arch had a new panel 'welded' on however it was slid behind the original rusty one and then 'welded' and seam sealed on, so the whole lot had to go.



New panel held in place for a little mojo boost.



Here you can see the previous repair to the arch, note the pop-rivets!



The old arch was cut out and the new panel was trimmed to fit the hole so inner arches how hard are they to make? ... Turns out very. Read stories about the fit of the inner arches available and not wanting to spend £80 a corner on something that's not going to fit so out came the grinder. I wanted to make each section as big as possible but trying to get all the curves correct was a bit of a nightmare as I got one correct and fitting nicely and the next pass through the shrinker for the next curve would throw the first curve out. Got there in the end, had to make each section smaller than I hoped.
All welded up and a couple of coats of Por-15.



The repair panel didn't quite cover all the rust on the front corner below the indicator, I do have the correct panel for this corner that was left over from the welding was done on EXF but I didn't want to cut up a £50 panel for such a small piece. So made the small piece with a return flange to be welded to the flange on the front panel.



All welded up and cleaned back.



The outer panel welded in to place, it will need a skim of filler but no where near the amount that came off.



A quick skim of filler and some paint to protect the new metal until paint prep later on.



Matt

[impstress2003]

Awesome work matt, making your own inner arches is very satisfying!

[ImpManiac]

As Simon said, well done! That looks really good.

IM

[MattorMatty]

As Simon said, well done! That looks really good.

IM

Awesome work matt, making your own inner arches is very satisfying!

Thanks guys! The comments are certainly appreciated in helping to keep the mojo up when faced with rust repairs.

Moving to the nearside rear wheel arch there are three areas of concern/previous patches/rust.
1- End of sill area which extends up in the seam of the two wheel arch sections.
2- Spring cone and surrounding area.
3- Random hole.

Area number 3 first seeing as its the smallest hole.





Its always a good sign when you start cutting a plate off and rust falls down ...



What a nice hole, I'd guess this was caused by a leaky rear side window as the parcel shelf area above is also completely rotten as well.



So the main section was cut out and replaced, I made it oversized initially and then used the stretcher to put the curve into the metal and then trimmed down to size and welded into place. Did take two attempts as on the first one I cut the angle on the top join wrong and when cut correctly it made the piece too small for the hole!

Moving on to the second piece which overlaps the first, was surprising tricky to do as the right hand edge is flat (ok, yes it has a slight curve to it so not exactly flat) but the left hand edge has a step so the little piece has to go from the step to flat in around inch and a half. I tried making it one piece with a curved transition from step to flat like it had from the factory but couldn't get it to fit, so I made it in two pieces in the same way i did with the exhaust heat shield ie welding the step into the flat.



Sorry I got carried away and didn't take a photo of the area before painting it with Por's, by the time the wheel arch is filled with dirt you hopefully wont by able to tell its been repaired.

Matt

[MattorMatty]

John,

I know what you mean about POR15 I've used it for a few years and never had a problem with it, until I painted the underside of spare wheel well area and that just flaked off and had to clean it off and redo it.

Matt

[ImpManiac]

Lovely work, Matt! Your car is coming along a treat.

IM

[yoeddynz]

I'll be using some Por 15 on my Imp. I know from using it plenty of times in the past that it sticks really well to cleaned off dust and flake free rusty surfaces.
But what about on rusty items that is ever so slightly oily ? example- my trailing arms. Is there any advice on what I could clean such things with- I am guessing petrol followed by meths and bake it off in the sun so its nice and dry.

[The Nun]

I'll be using some Por 15 on my Imp. I know from using it plenty of times in the past that it sticks really well to cleaned off dust and flake free rusty surfaces.
But what about on rusty items that is ever so slightly oily ? example- my trailing arms. Is there any advice on what I could clean such things with- I am guessing petrol followed by meths and bake it off in the sun so its nice and dry.

Brake cleaner is excellent for removing oil and grease and it dries very fast too, you can buy it in 5 litre cans for only £15 as well works out far cheaper than buying in the small tins too.

[yoeddynz]

Ahhh yes. Good idea. Our local Repco (NZ Halfords) always does specials on 5 large spray cans of brake cleaner. I'll use that. Then bake it super dry in the sun.