Adventures in Welding

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impstress2003
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Re: Adventures in Welding

Post by impstress2003 »

Next I started to trial fit the panel and work on getting the edges cut down to size. If I got a £1 for every time this went on/off during this work I would not need a mortgage!

Photos shown in case anyone else is looking to fit one and wants to see what the panel covers/how it fits.
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impstress2003
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Re: Adventures in Welding

Post by impstress2003 »

Next up I joggled the edges to create a 1mm rebate for the new panel to sit into. I always joggle in way that means any condensation will run off the joint rather than welling up inside it.
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Re: Adventures in Welding

Post by impstress2003 »

Next up I started cutting back the panel to fit. I left a lot of metal on it under the bird bath as I needed to give a lot of thought to how I was going to get all of this to tie together. The repair panel was frustratingly 35mm too short to reach the bottom of the inner wing, so I knew I needed to make a fillet to cover it, but more of that later...
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impstress2003
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Re: Adventures in Welding

Post by impstress2003 »

Next up I seam welded all of my repairs to the inner wing. As these welds are not visible when the wing is on, I was not planning to clean them down with the flap disc, but I reasoned that if I didn't there would be high spots under the heater hoses and over time they might chafe through, so I cleaned up the welds before painting with the cold galv spray:
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impstress2003
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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At this point, things got very faffy as I basically spent a lot of time offering up the panel, cleaning, painting, tweaking, etc.. so I stopped taking a lot of pictures until the panel was ready to fit.

To make the rear most section fit, I had to make a fillet to go beneath the repair section I had fitted under the lights. Once again, this is a compound curve, so I made the repair section on the shrinker stretcher. I butt welded it into place, then cleaned the welds back with a flap disc. I was incredibly pleased with this as once it was cleaned up you could basically have painted it with no filler! I only took one picture though, which was after I had welded it into place and cleaned up the welds. I also cut the drain slot in the original location:
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Re: Adventures in Welding

Post by impstress2003 »

Found another picture of it! :D
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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So, after what seemed like never ending adjustments the panel was ready to fit. I didn't photo the fillet I welded to the birdbath, I just wanted to get it finished by that point. With the panel ready to fit I cleaned back to bare steel all of the areas that would be welded, and painted them in zinc-based weld through primer, to make sure there was some rust protection in all of the seams:
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impstress2003
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Next up I clamped the panel into place to make it ready for welding. To help with setting the position of the panel I used five self tappers along the top joggled edge. I used the punch side of the joggler to punch the edges of the panel as necessary, and drilled the holes on the sill rail. Note that below the lights the panels are going to be butt welded, because I couldn't joggle here, and wanted to minimise the opportunities for trapping water.
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impstress2003
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Panel pulled into position and tacked down ready for final welding:
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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This year, I haven't got much welding done on Archie, mainly this is because of two illnesses/injuries which really did stop me in my tracks. The first was two burst eardrums which I suffered at a concert in February, this got infected (not sure which came first in practise) and caused a lot of hearing problems - no way I could use power tools/hammers etc, and this is only just coming right. In the meantime I also tore my right rotator cuff which has led to 8 weeks of physio and it's still on going.

So I've been reduced to "light duties". Which has included rebuilding an engine ... but I didn't take any pictures of that.

I did take some pictures today though as I reassembled the waterpump assembly for Archie, so I thought I would post up to prove that it's not stopped progressing.

To start with, a full kit of parts that I had collected and cleaned/inspected over the past few weeks. None of these parts have been used together before, these were all salvaged from various scrap pumps/assemblies. I could go into it, but basically what we have here are the serviceable parts from four waterpump assemblies that I stripped to make one good one. The pulley I bought at national and the steel rear bracket was given to me by a friend. The rebuild kit was from Malcolm.

The kit:
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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First things first, everything must be cleaned and inspected.

Check inside the castings that the faces the seals fit onto are smooth and free from corrosion:
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Step 1 of reassembly. Fit the inner circlip into the waterpump body. This retains the back bearing in position. I covered it with a layer of grease and put a little grease into the groove to try to stop it corroding into the aluminium.

When putting the clip into position ensure it is fully home in the waterpump body and fully located in the groove:
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Step 2, insert the back bearing. I cover them in a thin film of grease and add the same inside the pump, again to prevent corrosion. I used a soft mallet and a socket which fitted exactly onto the bearing race to drift it into position. Make sure the bearing is fully located against the inner circlip already fitted:
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Next up, fit the outer circlip.

This pump casting has a small chip missing from it but I don't think this will affect it in operation.
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Next up, drop the domed washer into the body so that when the shaft is fitted into the bearing it will fit on the shaft as shown below. I don't have a picture of it inside the waterpump body. It fits between the bearing and the seal:
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Next up, fit the back seal into the pump body. I covered this in black rubber grease - a film on both the seal and the pump body prior to fitting. With this I was able to push the seal into place almost all the way home with my thumbs. I then used a 32mm socket in the vice to press the seal the rest of the way home:
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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To help the seals bed in and ensure a good seal, I cleaned up the sealing faces on the impeller - this step is really important:
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Next up, fit the impeller into the rear half of the pump.

In these pictures I have pushed the impeller in by hand but it is not fully located. The slot for the woodruff key is not fully exposed and the bearing has not yet reached its locating ridge on the shaft:
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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To push the impeller fully home I put a nut on the pulley end of the shaft, rested the pump body across the jaws of the vice, and used a mallet to hit the shaft home.

The nut on the pulley end was to protect the threads and ensure they did not suffer any damage:
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impstress2003
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Next up I fitted the front case half and inserted the bearing.

I greased the bearing and the pump casing to make it easier to fit and hopefully prevent rust.

I also greased the gasket between the pump halves. I'm not sure if this is normally recommended but I do this to make it easier to get the pump halves apart again in future. They have a bad habit of corroding solid otherwise!

Once again, the domed washer was fitted behind the bearing.

When drifting the socket home, I used a deep 9/16 socket. I also put a nut on the opposite end of the impeller shaft, again to protect the threads.
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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I then fitted the rear fan drive plate.

To do this, first the woodruff key is inserted into the slot on the shaft, I smeared some grease on it to stop it corroding into place (they can be a nightmare to remove sometimes). I used pipe grips to ensure it was fully seated in the shaft.

To tighten the nut I put two of the fan drive bolts in and wedged a screwdriver across them. Not the approved technique but it does make it easy to tighten the nut!
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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At this stage, you should have something like this...
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Next up I prepared the brackets to fit.

After powder coating, the dynamo strap thread needed to be tapped to clean out all the coating.

These pictures are shown to illustrate how this assembly goes together.

On the dynamo strap bottom bolt there is an extra washer shown on the spacer tube side. This is shown in the manual but in practise should not be used as it forces the brackets too far apart.

For this waterpump, I have tried to mitigate one of the biggest problems with servicing a waterpump. I have bought a set of stainless bolts to fit through the pump body. This should stop all of the corrosion that so often makes the pumps impossible to get apart, especially at the roadside!

Note that on those four bolts, the two long bolts both have a thick spacer. These fit behind the steel supporting bracket and are essential to ensure that the fan housing is not fitted at an angle (which will cause it to rub. I've seen a lot of pumps with these missing in the past). There are two very thin washers on the two short bolts which again go between the pump and the fan housing.
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Next up, I fitted the brackets to the pump.

To aid assembly I temporarily fitted the two short bolts to the back of the pump, then fitted the two long bolts - also temporary - back to front to keep everything in position.

Note that the spacers are on the back of the steel bracket, and note the location of the thin washers on the short bolts.
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Fitting the fan housing to the pump.

Note all the bolts now come through from the fan side towards the pulley.

The bolts are greased to prevent them seizing, but they are stainless so shouldn't give trouble.
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Next up, fitting the pulley. Again, the woodruff key must be fitted first. The key was smeared with grease and pressed into place with grips. The pulley was fitted and tightened, again using a lever through two bolts at the rear.

I will stress that you mustn't lever against the plastic blades to tighten anything, they will just break!
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Next up, fitting the hose and the dynamo strap.

The dynamo bolt was coated in copper grease to prevent corrosion, and a very thin film of rubber grease was put onto the pump stub to protect it from corrosion:
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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The finished assembly!

Ready to join the rebuilt engine and ancillaries:

Just noticed that I've gone over two pages again today - there are a lot of new pictures on the previous page too.
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Finally got time to get on with the welding for the first time since January!

Not much but it's a start, hoping to build up some momentum again...

Opted to seam weld it, I built up in 1/2" runs and joined them together to minimise distortion.

Next time I dismantle a pump I'll get some pictures. :)

Building up welds between tacks:
IMG_5607.JPG
Seam welded, needs attention from the flap wheel:
IMG_5608.JPG
IMG_5609.JPG
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Re: Adventures in Welding

Post by John Simister »

The Nun wrote:Its certainly a lot easier now to repair an IMP in the proper manner so it looks correct than it was only a year or so ago thats a fact.
Trying to make near enough sections fit right is a very costly and time consuming job, (and patching in can even overtake the cost of the newly available complete panels now on the market if done by a body shop).
Very true, as I discovered to my considerable cost.

This was a fairly early stage in the repair, btw. It was all properly seam-welded after this initial tacking. Notice the straightness of the rear corner's bottom edge, which needed to be plumped-out a bit.
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Hi John, yes, I formed the rest of the lower rear wing under the back lights myself using the shrinker/stretcher. It took some fettling but I'm pleased with the result! :D The club spares panels don't cover this section so I had to make this.

I've always used either club spares lower half wings or expressed panels for the precise reason that John Simister called out - the hand made lower rear corners serve a purpose but you can easily spot them when fitted, and with the amount of effort they take to fit it is always best to start with the best possible panel you can get. The hand made ones just don't have the convex double curve. If you think about it though, for what is charged you can't reasonably expect over an hour of labour to have gone into them - it's no wonder you can spend 4-5 hours of your own time to adjust a panel like this to fit something like.

In one of my pictures it looks a bit like the bird bath repair I made is overhanging the rear transom - it's not. When I bolted in the rear transom to line up the wing/engine cover/repair section, I trapped a piece of scrap steel into this joint to replicate the thickness of steel which will be added back in when I put the lower return onto the outer wing below the transom bolts. You can just see this piece of scrap sticking out. When I've fitted the return I will refit the transom and get another picture to show the line-up of all the repair sections/panels/transom.

Even with the club spares panel I did quite a bit of work. I had to make a fillet to go under the back lights - it's always rotten there. I also had to extend the bottom lip of the rear wing to cover the inner wing. Only about 1-1.5" wide, but essential none the less. This was butt welded on and flap disc'd smooth - but before I fitted this strip I used the shrinker to pull the panel into shape here and reduce some of the bagginess from the edge of the original pressing. Fitting the fillet strip after this disguised this work well. I also had to use the shrinker down the b-post seam to give the panel sufficient radius. I also used the shrinker on the arch lip in a few places to give the panel proper shape. I also very carefully increased the angle of the first swage by hand, using grips to make it match the profile of the door - I had to do this along the whole length of the panel.

I've almost finished welding this on now - I've had a couple more hours on it over the past week or so. The top seam is completely welded, the b-post plug welds are done, the sill-rail plug welds are done, and the wheel arch plug welds are done (one or two at the lower rear of the arch need a bit of further work). I just have to weld the outer wing onto the inner wing along the bottom of the bird bath, then I can finally say this panel is fitted.

In the picture looking into the inner wing tub you can see my next piece of work. The seam between the inner and outer halves of the inner wheel tub is puffed up/swollen with rust. Where the panels overlap water/salt has been trapped and it's tried to rot its way out - so I expect I will have to cut out a narrow strip around the perimeter of this seam and let in a new section. It will probably only be 1/2" wide. Then I'll finally be able to say the welding is finished on the inner wing tub! Then... I will have to make the small return on the outer wing which fits around the rear transom bolts. Then I can say the welding on the n/s/r quarter will be finished!

Pictures below...
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Re: Adventures in Welding

Post by ImpManiac »

Lovely work, Simon! :D

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Re: Adventures in Welding

Post by Dave ' Linwood ' Lane »

top work right there :D
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Thanks for the kind words. At last I have finished welding the near side rear outer wing!

The bird bath to inner wing bottom edge has been stitched on rather than plug welded. I have also sorted the last of the plug welds on the arch lip, and made/fitted the return section which goes in the joint with the transom. All I have to do now is flap disc down the welds and fill/sand etc. But that can wait! Next work will be the joint between the inner and outer halves of the inner wing tub. Unfortunately I can already see that the seam has gone through so this will need cutting out and replacing.
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Re: Adventures in Welding

Post by 617sqn »

A nice selection of spare engines showing too :D

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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Got started tonight on the seam around the centre of the near side rear inner wing tub. As planned I cut back the overlap. Before cutting I could see the seam was quite swollen and clearly full of rust. Once I trimmed off the 1/4 or so of overlapping metal there was loose rust everywhere! I took the knot brush to it and the holes started to grow. It's paper thin so I'm cutting out about a foot and a half and replacing it:
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Cut out... new section tacked in, starting to seam it at the bottom. All butt welded.
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Re: Adventures in Welding

Post by 617sqn »

:lol: snigger.....

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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Done! Near side rear inner tub finished!
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Next, the rear shelf needs to be completely replaced. It is peppered with holes all over.

I may not start this for a few weeks!

I dropped screwdrivers through some of the holes to illustrate the problem, but it is completely peppered with pin holes.

:-(
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Re: Adventures in Welding

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Yes, I have a shelf which I cut from a scrap imp 13 years ago, it's not mint but it is significantly better and there are no holes in it! Unfortunately I only had a short time to cut it out in an unpowered yard so I bolster chiselled it out by hand. So I need to make good the edges of the panel before fitting.

Coincidentally it looks almost the same colour as the car! :)
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Re: Adventures in Welding

Post by tiker »

You will have to watch out for movement of the rear windscreen as the bit your replacing fits as a 3part spot weld of the engine lid channel and it's very weak and floppy once you cut part of it out , Iam surprised this part is not rotted out too still it's a very big job good luck
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