Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

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cavalier1990
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by cavalier1990 »

ilovedmymantas wrote:Good progress there :thumb
Hopefully not too much welding left now
Thanks Mate, there is still a good bit to do - drivers sill & back panel, although most of the little fiddly bits are more or less done.
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by cavalier1990 »

Wee update today. RNS piece of sill removed via drilling out the spot welds and the crossmember under the front floor on NS has been welded on. I ran out of sealant so have just gave it a lick of primer just now round the welds to stop it rusting.

Here's progress pics:

Sill half removed. Here I still had to drill out the spot welds on the downward facing part of the sill. This is spot welded along the inner sill strengthener bit that you can see in the pic.
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This is it now removed:
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This is the sill repair panel sitting in place. Still got a good bit of work to do before I can weld it on though:
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And this is the new outrigger in place:
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Robsey
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by Robsey »

Excellent work as usual.

My inner and outer sills were so bad, the car was flexing on it's stands.
Yours looks remarkably solid.
Which I am sure you are really please to discover.
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by cavalier1990 »

Robsey wrote:Excellent work as usual.

My inner and outer sills were so bad, the car was flexing on it's stands.
Yours looks remarkably solid.
Which I am sure you are really please to discover.
Yes Robsey, It was a relief that I still have bits to weld back on to. I am noticing differences in the body finish with this one compared to other cavs, the inner sills are literally swimming in wax, that may have gone some way to preserving the innards. With the dippy having being built in Germany rather than Luton, they must have sprayed a good bit more in there. Something to be said for Germany build quality I suppose.

Having said that I think the Senators were built there too and they don't seem to have this sort of wax protection added.

What you were saying about flexing on the stands, Mine seems to be doing this too. I think it is mainly because I have the whole driver's side sill off. When I open drivers door you can feel it is hitting the catch abnormally. If I jack back or front up a little it changes this, it either gets slightly better but passenger side gets worse or vice versa. I was trying to get the car sitting equally on the stands with little success. I could get all doors to close smooth except always one of them. I was packing little plates of metal under what I thought was the offending side but it just changed the whole thing.

It will be to do with the unevenness of the garage floor, so I have to try packing the axle stands slightly higher one one or two sides to try and effectively adjust out the floor unevenness passing through to the car chassis.

Andrew
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by cavalier1990 »

Another bit of faffing about tonight to get the rear sill repair panel to fit nice and snug. For a start I had to flange the ends so it would slip under the original sill and wheelarch area.

This is a bit of a pain as the panel edges have all those steps in them so you have to cut notches out the steps as the tool will not flange that. Good thing is though that those notches are hidden under the old panel anyway.

So as per my usual I took a little bit more off the original sill and that has left me a wee bit short but I'm not getting ocd about it because both ends still fit fine it's just a little over and it seems to fit quite well. Once I weld it and fill it, it will look nice and original. Now maybe getting a bit ocd about it!

So another bunch of pics of tonight's escapades:

This was the trickiest section where the wheelarch is below the door catch area. It's got a bend at an angle and is a bit fiddly to flange this area & at the same time retain the bend in the panel. I did have to cut a bit out, maybe a bit too much where the tightest bend is in the panel. Keen eyed maybe able to spot it..
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This was the front join and was a bit easier as it is basically straght and all I had to do was cut out a little piece at each step, flange the bit left and it was more or less done.
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Now we have it in place
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And a check with the door shut. Looking quite neat already.
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There is however some more work to be done inside the sill. The mounting points along the downward facing part need cleaned a bit, and straightened up. Also have to tack in a wee repair to the inner box section behind the wheelarch and replace a long straight bit along the inner sill, which was a bit rusty. I just cut straight along about 7 inches just above where the spot welds are.
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by cavalier1990 »

Little update today. I've got round to drilling out the spot welds holding the remaining bits of the OS sill. I was originally going to weld around these but I thought why because it's going to make cutting a new sill around all these bits a total pain in the butt, rather than just having to put one big panel straight on.

I have however left the top part of the sill with a nice straight line that I can join the new sill too, so will have to cut the top section off and joggle the panel edge to have a smooth fit. I'm also practicing my spot welding, and got my good old welder fixed. That is the one that had a much wider range of power settings and a gas system built in. I am going to get gas and also a spot weld tip for the wand. Still got more practicing to go though.

Here is some of the pics, you can see that although it is solid there is rusty bits along where the sill joined and above it. No point leaving that untreated.

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Image

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Got to do similar on the NS as well.
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by cavalier1990 »

Front of the Drivers front sill removed. Had to move the axle stand over a bit to get at this one. Now have started taking off the remaining lower portion of sill on the N/S. I drilled all the spots out last night, started popping it off and got to the front bit and stopped for the night. It's nearly off. Generally when you drill spot welds out you have to go along the join with a thin chisel or screwdriver to pop the last wee bit holding it on, some of them come straight off some don't so it's just law of averages some will need a helping hand.

Image

Next step once all remaining sill bits off is to clean any rust with the knot wire brush, rust treat, paint with epoxy primer and start offering up the new sills.
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Mk3alan
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by Mk3alan »

Never seen inside the sills! Is there any sort of protection inside?
Good work going on must be satisfying.

Alan
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Robsey
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by Robsey »

Looks a 1000 times better than mine 15 months ago.
It was more holey than a paper doily.
Lord knows how my car didn't fold in half.

Excellent progress again.
Sadly I never had the patience or motivation to do this myself.
Hats off to you fella.
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by Tobias_CDX »

Mk3alan wrote:Is there any sort of protection inside?
Small amounts of some wax. Not enough for real protection. :?
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by cavalier1990 »

Mk3alan wrote:Never seen inside the sills! Is there any sort of protection inside?
Good work going on must be satisfying.

Alan
Hi Alan

There does seem to be a bit more wax on box sections on this one. Reckon it's something to do with being built in Germany.
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

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Robsey wrote:Looks a 1000 times better than mine 15 months ago.
It was more holey than a paper doily.
Lord knows how my car didn't fold in half.

Excellent progress again.
Sadly I never had the patience or motivation to do this myself.
Hats off to you fella.
Thanks again Robsey for the kind words. The spot welding, once you get the hang of it and the correct drill to remove them, is actually quite easy. Beats trying to cut through each one with a grinder, and grinding half the other section away while doing it.

Some of the spot welds can be a bit hard to find, due to sealant and rust hiding them, but if you bend out the metal as you work along you will see where the metal is being held together. In saying that I could clearly see 99% of them.
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by Robsey »

I have tried a bit on my mother-in-law's T25 VW camper van.

I quickly found that using cutting discs often resulted in me cutting through too many layers.

I did the spot weld drilling process on the nose cone to good effect, but you have to use spot weld drills otherwise you end up with huge holes in the panel underneath...

or in my case, the standard HSS drills simply get blunt very quickly.

When funds and skill levels improve, I will crack back on with the old Vee Dub.
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by cavalier1990 »

Robsey wrote:or in my case, the standard HSS drills simply get blunt very quickly.
For that I generally use a tin of 3 in 1 spray and give the area a wee scoosh of lube to stop drill getting blunt. Usually 3 or 4 times per spot weld.
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by cavalier1990 »

A wee update in order. Took tank out as there was some work required behind it, and a 3/4 tank of fuel was making me edgy. I think tank will be replaced as a bit rusty around the gills

Have also buffed down more of the rust ready for treatment, more to be done on n/s and all sill bits now off.
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by Robsey »

Good to hear you are still doing a wee bit of fettling.
In these cold, damp and windy conditions, it is all too easy to put it off until a nicer warmer day.

Looking forward to seeing new metal being welded in :)
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by cavalier1990 »

Thanks robsey i must admit it takes a dedicated man to start working away in the cold and damp, dont mind engine work but lying on your back ugghh!.

Tbh i dont think much is going to happen till NY now, i've had to use garage to store a lot of crap out my house as mortgage assessors coming round soon. Im on a 2 year fixed and it runs out NY eve.
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

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Now that I have tank off I was under the other night cleaning along the rear floor edges and roundabout areas in there for rust. Thankfully it is only surface mainly, there is a small hole N/S back of floor, which can probably be treated and sealed up, it doesn't warrant welding.

Since the car was left in the garage over the winter, some rust has started to reappear where I had primered. Note to self, do not leave primered metal for a long time without a top coat!

I rejigged my plans over the winter and bought lots of rust treater and non-water permeable primer from rust.co.uk. I need to buff down the bits I repaired and treated with primer. Then cover it all with rust treater and then primer it. This will include most of the underside rear end and the front outriggers I repaired as well as the inner wheelwell at front.
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

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Continued cleaning up under where the tank goes tonight. I had to remove the wiring loom for the tank and ABS, as it kept getting in the way. There is two ABS plugs that you can take off to remove the majority of the wiring but the little section sticking out the back of the floor has to be pushed through the hole where the rubber grommet is to get it out of the way.

Bit of a pain to remove as you have to remove the back seat bases and lift the carpet. The carpet was glued down to the floorpan and was quite stiff and new feeling so I was trying not to twist it or rip it off the glue too much.

Then once cable was out I got on with buffing off the flaky bits of the very thin coating of paint they put on the underside. Mind you the underseal round the edges and along the chassis leg joins applied at Russleheim seems a lot better than the stuff they put on at Luton!

Here is a few pics of the underside:

You can see how thin the paint is away from the edges of the body, there was lots of little patches of rust, but just flaky stuff not rotten. This just buffs off really easily and the loose paint comes off easily as well.
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This is the cleaning I was doing to the floor pan edges. A common spot on the cavys. Why they put an uperward facing lip with sealer along it is beyond me. It id a total water trap. Anyway luckily there isn't too much damage here. I basically split the join using a simple screwdriver and hammer to tap it open then clean out the old sealer and buff the rust away. Some of the lip on the N/S was looking a bit thin so I cut about a 4" X 1/2" rectangular section off and there is a small hole through into the floor. I'll need to repair that from above.
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Same with floorpan on O/S split it, cleaned it out and buffed down the rust. You can see the hole where the wiring loom for tank and ABS goes.
Image
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by Robsey »

I found that area above the tank was quite sound on my car too.

The original tank was rusty as hell, and the floor of the car both in-front and behind the tank were badly corroded.

Troy had to do a lot of reconstruction in those areas.
All good progress - at least warmer weather should be here soon.
Not that you can tell at the moment.
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by cavalier1990 »

Robsey wrote:I found that area above the tank was quite sound on my car too.

The original tank was rusty as hell, and the floor of the car both in-front and behind the tank were badly corroded.

Troy had to do a lot of reconstruction in those areas.
All good progress - at least warmer weather should be here soon.
Not that you can tell at the moment.
The bit above the tank/axle is usually ok, I find the rust happens on the edges/twists and turns on the metal. They obviously go sparingly with the paint here as no one will really see it or care. Rust/corrosion seems worse round the rubber plug things.


I remember seeing troy's floor pan fabrications for your car, very original looking and very nice. Yeah both areas on my blue batmobile were also gone, well one side mainly.

Warmer weather? Well I'm sure we'll have summer one week this year!! Good thing is this constant easterly blast is not so bad as my garage is West - sort of - facing, so no wind!
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by cavalier1990 »

Si, I've worked my way up the drivers side from back to front with the twisted knot wire brush buffing all the rust bits, and have now got to the front, which I dismissed for quite a while. I'd effectively stripped the bumper bolts out and the lights and stuff but never actually took the bumper off, so decide to do that now.

Everything looks quite good, just little bits of rust on the usual edges where cross member is etc. I'm going to be stripping out the power steering cooling pipe from front, I've disconnected the little poppers and 8mm bolt that holds them on the front panel, now just need to disconnect them behind the front panel and they should pull out the little access hole that they go through.

This is where the power steering cooling pipes come through and I need to disconnect just behind here to remove the cooling pipes on the front.
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The typical coverage of rust I am finding on the front panel, mainly just at the joins and outer edges.
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The power steering pipes partially removed, the 2 poppers, very much like the ones that hold wheelarch liner in but without the big plug so to speak.
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Passenger side same amount of rust at corners, with most being found on the two big fan moulds, which have no fans in them! I think this was for hot countries with air-con.
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

Post by Robsey »

Strange how that front end looks totally different from my '94 manual.

All good progress -
this is one area on my car that did not get attended to as part of it's restoration.
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

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Robsey wrote:Strange how that front end looks totally different from my '94 manual.

All good progress -
this is one area on my car that did not get attended to as part of it's restoration.
It's the 2 electric air-con fan shrouds that seem to make the different look on this.
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Re: Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

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Tonight's job was to remove the power steering cooling pipes from the front of the radiator. While this may seem like a trivial exercise for all the trouble it is to remove, I felt the job wouldn't be worth doing as the pipes need cleaned and painted and the area behind them also need rubbed down, especially around the fan shrouds.

Looking at it the pipe connector for the upward section, the bit that goes up under the battery tray, was almost impossible to reach without removing the gearbox mount, so off that came, but not before having to squeeze a socket into the top hole of the mount under the battery tray. I also had to remove the air con drier cage - 2 X 10mm onto the battery tray,and pull that up out of the way. the hoses are flexible so easy enough to move it.

Once that was out (jack under it first obviously) then it was down to cracking the pipes, one on the front under the radiator, and one as the other pipe goes up towards the battery tray. So trying to find a spanner to fit was a bit of a mission but I ended up getting an old double open-end one that slotted on nicely. I'd soaked the connections in loose oil before hand so it would hopefully make it easier. The pipe looked quite clean and not much if any rust so here was hoping.

Gladly Vx put a sort of block on the back of the fitting with 2 nibs out of it so you can put a spanner on there. Saves twisting the whole pipe unit when removing. I got the first one loosened quite easily with the aid of the old spanner ring onto the other spanner jaws and popped it, then let it drain bit. Then it was onto the one under the rad, This was easy enough too to get off.
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So once they were loose I had to reverse the pipes out of this hole. Not easy when one part of pipework is pointing up and the other part is going left. The air-con condenser pipes are also connected right through the middle of this hole and there is a block connection that they are connected to, that unfortunately I had to undo, I think AC has next to no gas in it anyway. A bit of twisting and swearing and eventually managed to pop them past the AC block connector.
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Finally bung up the open ends and clean around the area, see the yellow bung on the bottom pipe to block it off, the upper pipe is bunged with a black plug, so hard to see but is just above the top AC pipe.
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