Small Axe Racing: Big Healey, BMW E21 & '67 F350

In reply to Patrick :

So if I were to, say, fill your argon tank and provide a meal...could I give this a shot at your place?

AxeHealey said:

In reply to Patrick :

So if I were to, say, fill your argon tank and provide a meal...could I give this a shot at your place?

Most definitely, i’ll let you know when the regulator shows up.  I have aluminum and mild filler rods, so if you need another kind bring it with you.  I’m not terribly experienced with aluminum, though I have fixed a broken oil pan.  Steel is easy.  

In reply to Patrick :

You're the man!

I'll do some research to figure out what we'll need for old, thin, nasty aluminum...

I managed to pull it off as my first ever aluminum welding effort, so it is doable by the rank newby. Be lying if I said I was not worried about wrecking a shroud.

The secret is to clean the metal. Old oxide and grease has to go. A new wire brush and maybe even two of them so that you dont keep re0introducing oxide and grease. Wipe with acetone.  Scotchbright and acetone the welding rod also. Used 3003 full soft for the patch pieces. 

As you approach the end of the tin work, here is a pic from your near-future to keep you motivated. We drove the chassis around the yard a few time just for grins

Thanks Pete. I'll track down some 3003. The local welding store suggested 4043 rod. Do you remember what you used?

I was pretty bummed out yesterday about the state of the Healey shroud. I whipped up and welded on the end caps for Elmore's bumper to prove to myself that I can accomplish something. Interestingly enough, I couldn't see a damn thing in the bright sunlight once my helmet dimmed so the welds aren't great looking. Still need to clean them up but I'm in no rush.

Even though every square inch of the car is covered in filler, the panels are actually very straight save some sins that I've now discovered.

You are dangerously close to spraying on that first coat of epoxy.

Where I get a bit uneducated is with the alloy shrouds: Typically, an etch primer is used on alloy bits before anything else. I would read the Material Data Sheet for your epoxy and see if aluminum is an acceptable substrate.

Here is a link to what I used as the foundation.

http://refinish.basf.us/products/801-703-chromated-epoxy-primer/

Country

Canada

United States

Chromated epoxy primer for galvanized sheets, aluminum and bare metal. Excellent corrosion protection, outstanding adhesion, good solvent resistance and hold out of topcoat.

Very dangerous. Thanks for the heads up on the epoxy. According to Eastwood I'm OK.

ABOUT EASTWOOD'S 2K AEROSPRAY EPOXY PRIMER GRAY & BLACK

Can be applied over: steel, aluminum, fiberglass, body fillers, existing finishes
Do not apply over: self-etching primer, Lacquer
Pot Life: Approximately 48 hours after button is pushed and can is activated.
Ideal application conditions:Temperature between 70-85 degrees F at 50% humidity or less.

More strippin'

Patrick said:

And here I was thinking Big Healeys are tough!

More strippin'.

I also started on the driver's door. The floor is becoming quite...pink...

More strippin'. I really don't enjoy this.

All of the steel is now paint-less. I've started into the front shroud. The rear is loaded into Elmore and will be taken to a local specialty welder tomorrow during lunch. It'll then either stay put or Elmore and I will trundle over to Patrick's to give it a shot at some point.

Yesterday at lunch, I hopped in Elmore with the rear shroud in the bed headed to a custom welding shop. I had spoken with the owner who said that one of their guys can weld anything and to bring it by there before trying it myself. Well, that guy says that there is no way that a solid weld will happen. The metal is too contaminated and the welds will continue to fail just as they have been. He said that legitimately my best bet is JB Weld/Panel bond and that is what he would do. I kept pushing back; what if I made up a big patch panel, etc. etc. and his answer remained. There's almost no chance of successfully welding it.

Now. I know that there are really fine craftsmen repairing these nasty old shrouds so technically I know it's possible. I also know that I am not one of those people. I also know that it's not in the budget to pay one of those people. I hate it but I need to get past this part of the project. Period. 

The really friendly parts store/mechanic shop across the street let me borrow a two part panel bond and the sort-of caulk gun that goes with it. Last night I gave it a shot.

Here's the problem area. You can see the outline of where my attempt to braze a patch failed. I knocked all this back before moving forward.

Here is the stuff I used.

I made a patch for the top-side and then sandwiched the shroud with a strip of aluminum. WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGE BELOW

Don't worry, I have some dignity left and filled in that spot where my glove took a fingerprints-worth of panel bond away. It set pretty hard after around 30 minutes but doesn't fully cure until 24 hours. Hopefully I'll have time to run over tonight and see how it is.

Maybe instead of Axe, we should call the Healey Hax... get it?

While waiting for the panel bond to set, I gave the E21 some attention. I noticed on my drive a couple weeks ago that I needed to adjust the front hood pins so I did that and made some new stoppers out of old fuel line.

And I bought myself a little father's day present for selling the American Racing wheels...

It's a carbon composite material and the entire thing weights 2.5 lbs. I figure with whatever mounts I whip up it'll be a total of 5 lbs. Last September at PittRace the car clocked in at 2136. I've since cut 1 of the door bars out (8 lbs), removed the blower shroud (2 lbs) and now have the ability to take the whole rear bumper and shock assembly off and not look like a complete doofus (39 lbs). All that leaves me with an approximate weight of 2,092 lbs. Not bad, however, I've realized that the cage is going to make taking the sunroof assembly out extremely difficult and maybe impossible. That, the HVAC and dashboard are what do the biggest lifting to get under 2,000 so I'll have to be creative.

Agree that pretty welds are going to be troublesome with the old alloy, but if I managed to do it on the fist go then anyone with experience should be able to get the job done.

That said, the epoxies that are available to us nowadays are pretty impressive. I don't think you will be giving up any strength or durability.

Back to work.

Pete

I hope (and feel) that you're right. Gotta keep this train moving!

EDIT: About the epoxy. You're also probably right about the weld but, again, momentum.

AxeHealey said:

I hope (and feel) that you're right. Gotta keep this train moving!

EDIT: About the epoxy. You're also probably right about the weld but, again, momentum.

Here from the future to tell you that a lot of what I have done in past projects under the name of "Keep the momentum going" ends up getting redone or re-jiggered at a latter date....  and yet I will still defend the past decision  because it kept me moving until I was in a place to see that there was a better way  ( education)  or that it needed re-doing ( empirical testing).

Pete

No pictures from last night but the epoxy seems to have done the trick. I guess I'm relieved...

Now the only thing left to strip is the rear shroud. Primer is on the way from Eastwood.

Rallycross in Ross County this weekend so likely no Healey work until Monday.

10 cans of 2-part epoxy primer, in three boxes.

That panel bond stuff is pricey! I was thinking that may be a good idea for a couple patches on the baja floor pans instead of welding.

captainawesome said:

That panel bond stuff is pricey! I was thinking that may be a good idea for a couple patches on the baja floor pans instead of welding.

Yeah, no joke but maybe if you also find a friendly body or mechanic shop they'll also lend you an open one! It ended up costing me a couple hours of driving (25 min away) and like $4. The applicator gun is also like $70 I think.

I'm going to color the rallycross this weekend a success although we hardly succeeded in rallycrossing...

I broke off of work early on Friday to head to my friend's shop to prep the car a bit. We did some things; figured out how to lock up the rear diff in the URS6, put tags on it and tracked down a misfire. Then both of us had family dinners to go to. We reconvened around 10PM. We put new shocks on it (this was a huge pain), made sure all the bulbs worked, put some snows on and made up a little skid plate. Oh, and someone chopped the exhaust off before the cats. 

At 2AM we left for a friend's farm in Seville. We got to the farm at 3, BS'd for about an hour, slept for an hour then woke up and bombed it down to Ross County. I drove from 2-3 and then the 2 hours from 5:30-7:30. Most of this driving was done at a high rate of speed. About 5 minutes from the Fairgrounds I slow my roll to not miss anything and get popped for doing 79 in 60. Sheesh. Who even writes a ticket for that with no traffic early on a Saturday. Oh well.

We pull into tech and, what do you know, we fail. We get the suggestion from one of the registration guys to go find some dryer ducting, strap it to what's left of the exhaust and run it back behind the front seats. We do that and roll into grid.

I do my parade lap and my first run. Feels OK. Co-driver does his first, I do my second and he does his. Then smoke. One of the ancient coolant lines that runs to the turbo had burst. While back in our paddock, Ed comes by and essentially tells us that people aren't happy with our exhaust fix and we need to handle it properly. Both of us had to be home for father's day activities anyways and we'd rather fix it correctly so we fixed the coolant line, hung out, worked our morning shift and headed home after lunch.

It stunk to only get a couple runs in each but we sort of did it to ourselves. I'm still recovering from 1 hour of sleep and 7 hours of driving plus rallycrossing and wrenching but it was a great adventure.

Rallycross - The Audi's exhaust is about 1/2 done. We're tentatively planning to go to the early-July Detroit event.

E21 - It's covered in pink dust. Hasn't run in a couple weeks

Elmore - Comfortably parked in the garage, needs an oil change.

Daddywagen - Home. 

Healey - I've always been artistic and with that has come a pretty vivid imagination. Not even I could have imagined the amount of filler on the back end of the rear shroud. berkeley me that was a pain in the ass. 98% of the paint is gone, just need to get the tight, detailed spots removed. There shall be no excuse if I don't have at least some of the car in primer this weekend!

Is your wagen a slicktop? The wife got the big pano one and I hate it. It was the major selling point for the wife though so whatevs. Also assume it's TDI?