Project Rusty.

Me too

dieseldog69 said:

I just remembered that the mounting bracket has a captive nut on the back of it, can't think why I hadn't remembered that earlier

I will say though that you could cut the bottom off the bumper edge to enable you to grind off the M10 bolt heads that hold the bumper to the mounting bracket if they don't come loose?

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Hi Dieseldog69, I've worked out how to sever the bolts which hold the back bumper on. I got a flexible hacksaw blade and one of those handles which clamp on one end, and sawed away at it. Because it's flexible you can bend the blade in to cut the head of the bolt off. Naturally, when you've done that you're left with a thin flange of metal holding everything together, but a wood chisel cleared enough of that away for the washer to be prised off.
It's a beggar doing it, and if I were renovating the vehicle, I'd take your advice to cut the bumper off with an angle grinder and replace it with another, but because I'm aiming to restore the vehicle, I want to keep as many original parts as I can.

Kiwi Jim said:

Hi Dieseldog69, I've worked out how to sever the bolts which hold the back bumper on. I got a flexible hacksaw blade and one of those handles which clamp on one end, and sawed away at it. Because it's flexible you can bend the blade in to cut the head of the bolt off. Naturally, when you've done that you're left with a thin flange of metal holding everything together, but a wood chisel cleared enough of that away for the washer to be prised off.
It's a beggar doing it, and if I were renovating the vehicle, I'd take your advice to cut the bumper off with an angle grinder and replace it with another, but because I'm aiming to restore the vehicle, I want to keep as many original parts as I can.

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Good on you, I was under no illusions of what was going to happen to my Discovery, driven hard and all too often abused off road, I could have gone down the concourse restoration road but I would never have been able to have driven it as hard as I have over the years.

I love to see either good original vehicles or nicely restored ones, all too often they're just bodged to keep them on the road

dieseldog69 said:

I love to see either good original vehicles or nicely restored ones,

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Me too.

dieseldog69 said:

all too often they're just bodged to keep them on the road

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+1 - You should have seen SWMBO's 3 door cills - FOUR bl@@dy patches, all "welded" ( ) on top of each other, on both sides ( at the front ) = what a mess . And then the "welder" who had done these "repairs", had caused a world shortage of underseal, the flipping halfwit - took longer to clean it off so I could fix it properly, than it did to fix it properly - actually killed one heat gun in the process .....

I should put a thread up really .....

Disco1BFG said:

Me too.



+1 - You should have seen SWMBO's 3 door cills - FOUR bl@@dy patches, all "welded" ( ) on top of each other, on both sides ( at the front ) = what a mess . And then the "welder" who had done these "repairs", had caused a world shortage of underseal, the flipping halfwit - took longer to clean it off so I could fix it properly, than it did to fix it properly - actually killed one heat gun in the process .....

I should put a thread up really .....

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Och that's nothing, the twunt who was welding up mine before I bought it set fire to the sound deadening foam under the dash and burnt out the wiring loom when he tried to weld up the inner wings

Not to mention the use of an old washing machine to plate it up, I know steel is steel but considering that whole new inner wings can be had for not too much money it seems silly not to do it right if you're planning on keeping it long term

Yes, yes,yes, most def need a thread.

So with too much to do Saturday in terms of actually getting proper industrial consumables for my MIG welder and working in the morning I managed to get bugger all done apart from figuring out that I need to weld in some packing plates to properly fit the body mounts to the sills, looks like some 2mm seam welded on will give me a nice tight gap to ensure 100% fully welded and good penetration

Went to Machine Mart with my welding torch in bits as I mutilated it trying to replace the shroud and found the spare tips that I was so certain were the right fit, weren't after all Came away with a box of 0.6mm a box of 0.8mm and a single 0.9mm tip to suit some fluxcore wire I picked up a half dozen years ago and then I had to replace the swan neck and fitting, managed to mangle mine up pretty good while attempting to pull the old shroud off and we were on a roll, got me a couple of male airline fittings to fit on my schutz gun so I can get the inner wing done as soon as it is welded up and the inner arch mud shield plate has been welded on, but yeah, I'm getting ahead of myself again

But oh what glorious weather we have been granted this fine and pleasant Sunday NOT!!!!!

I kid you not, howling winds and pizzing rain has pretty much seen me stay in the warm and dry today, took the puppies for a gallop on the beach and got soaked, gave up and spent the afternoon doing a few jobs indoors.

A few weeks ago I set about upgrading my stick welder, the poor decrepit thing that it is has served me well and I felt compelled to make it a bit more modern, these are the upgrades so far.

For those that are interested, all the parts arrived and as the weather was rubbish and I refuse to go out and get soaked to the skin, I decided to get it all sorted.

Take 1 stick welder.






Dismantle the casing and remove the old cables.



The new female fittings have a small lug on the insulator them to stop them turning when you fit the cables.



Fit the females and crimp some terminals on the solid ally cables off the transformer and connect them all up.





I cut the cables to give me 1X 2mtr for the earth and 1X 4mtr for the electrode holder and these are the new earth clamp and electrode holder.





I fitted a terminal on the earth lead first.



And snugged it up on the earth clamp stud.



Then fitted the male connector on the other end, this is the same for both the earth clamp and the electrode holder so won't bore you with two of the same piccies LOL



Measure the insulation that needs stripped back.



Fit the copper wrap around that will protect the cable as the allen bolt is tightened down.



Tighten it all snuggly.


Slide over the insulating rubber boot and job jobbed.



Then fit the cable on the new electrode holder.
Measure and cut back the insulation to fit inside the holder.



Slide in the copper clamping strip.



Tighten it all down, slide on the cover that doubles as the handle and job jobbed.



Fit the male spigot on the cable end and voila, all done.





I found the time to test it out and I'm now having to alter all my settings as the new heavier cables are much more efficient and giving the full power to the rod and a far superior earthing with the new clamp





So today with the pizzing rain and howling winds I decided I had time to get the axial fan fitted to give the little welder some cooling and prolong the duty cycles a little

Opened up the casing and decided that the back of the casing was the best place to fit it.



Drill three mounting holes.



Mount it on the casing, used a few washers to space the fan away from the casing a little just in case I get a bit too ham fisted when packing it away LOL



All that was left was to give it some juice and good to go.



Really happy with it and it should be much better when I am running 2.5mm and 3.2mm rods on heavier stuff

I will have to risk upsetting the neighbours and get out there in the drier evenings so I can crack on and get the sills done and the boot floor side panels, will keep it all posted as I get stuff done.

nicely done. I need to upgrade the earth clam on mine with one of those ribbon ones. Looks like that ****er got some guts now! You off the fags and on the smoke machine now?

resto_d1 said:

nicely done. I need to upgrade the earth clam on mine with one of those ribbon ones. Looks like that ****er got some guts now! You off the fags and on the smoke machine now?

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Have cut down my smoking so much that i have not yet finished the 30g of baccy I bought last Tuesday the smoke machine is charged and ready for duty, i was only telling MHM on Friday about my smoke machine purchase, ideally I want to be smoke free within a year but one step at a time lolz.

you'll do it within a year easy. Its only when your on the beers that you crave fags. I always boost my juice with a bit of menthol for added throat hit lol.

I was reading on mig welding.co.uk that most upgrade their earth clamps. mines a bit like a cheap jump lead.

A bit of picture goodness to liven this place up.

Been a bit busy with the box section and after finally getting the welder all set up and tuned in I got out there and made a start getting it all nailed back together.

During the trial fitment I noticed that there was a gap of around 2mm between the body mounts and the sill so thought I ought to pack that out first and get a decent fit up.





Both padding plates welded on and I thought I should paint it prior to fitting as I won't be able to get in there again to do it again later on.



Now time for the fit up and start tacking it all up.







And I rebuilt the A post bottom while I was at it, a bit of CAD and I made the templates that I used to mark and then cut out of the sheet of 2mm plate, start with the side plates.



Then cap it off with another templated cover panel and seam weld it all up.





Cue flappy disc and a bit of gentle tickling and it looks quite good now.

Ran out of time as I have my 6 O'Clock rule I keep to and it was getting dark too but I did slap some primer on it to keep any surface rust at bay while I get the rest of it up to speed.











Still not yet cut the floor out but I have time enough, few bits to do to get the sill finished but over all I'm quite pleased with it.

More to follow in a few days, or when I can get home early enough to do some work without pizzing off the neighbours.

tidy. Primer is nice isn't it! Glad to see some of my runs actually look like yours too lol.

resto_d1 said:

tidy. Primer is nice isn't it! Glad to see some of my runs actually look like yours too lol.

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It's a super nice little welder and I'm happy enough with the welds but need a good few more hours on the hot snot gun to hone my craft again

I was more surprised by the way the 0.8mm wire just effortlessly punched through that 2mm plate like it wasn't there when I was doing the bottom of the door post, 1mm gap to get full penetration on both pieces and it blew straight through until I upped the wire speed by a 1/8th turn on the dial

I'm dying to get back out there to attack it again but the neighbours had a house viewing tonight when I got back and they had asked very nicely that I didn't do anything to put them off

I like the primer, it goes on easy and I am going to seam seal the joints over the primer and then give it a second coat of primer then top coat.

Been working on a design for my rock sliders but I'm crap at drawing so it looks like some type of Da Vinci fine art or something from my playschool days time is on my side, got 5 weeks til the baby is due

@resto_d1 Saw this and thought of you

I don't get it lol.
Text me your rough sketches and I'll cad up for you if you like. If it's not too mad I'll even 3d it

Yeah .8 bangs straight through 2. You can find a real sweet spot. My problem comes at 3mm though. I have to slow it right down and gap perfectly. My mate says he will wire in me a 16a supply but I'm not sure it's needed unless I do more 3mm stuff. 3 max is perfect on 3mm but it just blows my fuses!

resto_d1 said:

Yeah .8 bangs straight through 2. You can find a real sweet spot. My problem comes at 3mm though. I have to slow it right down and gap perfectly. My mate says he will wire in me a 16a supply but I'm not sure it's needed unless I do more 3mm stuff. 3 max is perfect on 3mm but it just blows my fuses!

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I was only on 60A and it was super, 3mm is still only 60A for me with a nice gap and going above that is onto the 90A & 120A settings and often multi pass process, I did a farm trailer with it's 5mm chassis on 90A using root and multi pass filler, worked out really well, the floor plating out is only 1.5mm and I'm on 40A for that with high wire feed to stop me blowing through, but by golly does it need fast travel speed and I am going to have to practice that a bit more LOL

You should go for the blue 16A feed straight out of your consumer unit to your drive, although I'd be tempted to go for 20A and enjoy the unrestricted current flow

Let me try and perfect my chicken scratch drawings and I'll post them up for you to giggle at

That's what he was gunna do mate. Then I just reel it up and back in cupboard when done. Unfortunately there's no such cable on his sites so I'd have to buy lol. Did that pic remind you of me because of the ugly welding or the fact I was worried about so much welding in one place lol

resto_d1 said:

Did that pic remind you of me because of the ugly welding or the fact I was worried about so much welding in one place lol

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Both

In my efforts to support my local stores I went out and about to get some sundries, couple of spools of 0.8mm wire and a few odds and sods, and look what else I found there.



Needed a new earth clamp for the MIG and thought I might as well use another DIN set up and enable me to remove it should I want to.

Look at the beautiful copper strapping inside the clamp.



Much higher quality than the slightly smaller clamp I was going to go with

@resto_d1 This is for sure the earth clamp you should be looking to upgrade to.