Mk1 GTI Blue G60 Conversion

Been following this from tthe start. Nice work!

Just a little tip for those little pinholes and stuff like the edge of the scuttle etc.

Get yourself a piece of copper plate. (flatened out 22mm pipe is suffice.) Clamp or hold the copper behind the pin hole and mig the hole. (keep the gap between copper and steal to minimum. The weld will fill the hole but won't stick to the copper and the copper helps take the heat away to lessen the chance of blowing a bigger hole. Grind to clean up to a flush finish on both sides. Might take a couple of goes but will be better and quicker than cutting out and making a patch.

Hope i'm not telling you how to suck eggs!

Nice tip Graham, had forgotten that you could do that!

Jimi, Again great work, how are you getting the welds so smoothed back - what grades of pads and tools are you using ?

Cero said

Jimi, Again great work, how are you getting the welds so smoothed back - what grades of pads and tools are you using ?

Thanks! At the moment I am sanding the welds as much as I can with a sanding disk on a 4" grinder. Not sure of the grade but it is quite course. Before it goes to paint I will be going over all my welds with a 50mm sander with fine grade grits. 

Top welding skills Jimi. Coming along nicely.

Thanks for the tip yomp, any advice is very much appreciated

Cheers also smudger

Time for a long awaited update!

Hit a few snags when removing my rear panel, I'll let the pics do the talking. 

Welcome to my backend blues 

After rear panel was removed and also the overlaped lower corner, this was the scene that I was faced with 





Basically there was no solid metal to attach a rear panel to. I didnt want to replace the whole rear quarter as I had already done a fair bit of work to it, fuel filler etc.

So it was the waiting game, contacting people who were breaking cars to see if they would cut me off the part I needed. Anyway after contacting a few people spkmk1 came to my rescue. Cheers mate

This was the part that arrived



Next the bad bits were cut off the car.



The repair piece was cut, fettled and tacked into position. I left the piece of rear panel attached to retain rigidity.



Lower corner cut out



Rear quarter welded and lower corner tacked into place.



Picture of the new good metal that the rear panel can be attached to.



Inside corner repaired



Rear panel tacked into position.



Next up, I need to reattach the boot floor to the rear panel as I had cut some away that was rusted.



Repair piece made, welded in then primered





Attached to spare wheel well.



Finished and primered!



Thanks for looking 

Wow damn fine work on that rear quarter chap, hat off to you

Amazing job. There is so much quality fabrication going on at the moment on mk1 projects, it's great to see!

Hey Jimi, fair play to you for tackling that so well,  Turned out really good!!

Andy.

Hairyarse said

Wow damn fine work on that rear quarter chap, hat off to you

pazwaa said

Amazing job. There is so much quality fabrication going on at the moment on mk1 projects, it's great to see!

Melteddrummer said

Hey Jimi, fair play to you for tackling that so well,  Turned out really good!!

Andy.

Cheers guys  

Nice work mate.

Really good job, enjoying seeing it all coming together, well done Jimi  

smudger1980 said

Nice work mate.

Cero said

Really good job, enjoying seeing it all coming together, well done Jimi  

Thanks  

Not too much more welding to do now.

Now that the bodywork is just about finished I decided to build some new seat mounts so that I could install a pair of lotus elise seats that I have had for 10+ years, they have never been in a car as yet!

First job was to remove the original runners and the center mount.

I decided to use some channel and box section to level up the slope on the original front mounting point, then use rectangular box for the rear mounts.





This is what I ended up with.





Next I angled the front of the box section and welded end plates on to make it look a little less like box section lol! Coat of grey primer aswell.



Seats installed! 





Positive point - they are very light in weight

Negative - they will make for a very hard ride

Nice welds and loving the seats

Hope you're not planning on doing any long distance driving …  

Dubbuds said

Nice welds and loving the seats

Thanks

Cero said

Hope you're not planning on doing any long distance driving …  

I have never been one to travel in comfort, will have to use a cushion for long journeys.  

Another good instalment Jimi, I love the look of those seats mate

Melteddrummer said

Another good instalment Jimi, I love the look of those seats mate

Cheers Andy, felt a bit sorry for the seats, so thought I would put them to good use