NickJ

Still fighting start trouble in my truck, after pulling the entire fuel system to bits, I can no longer find air in the system but nothing has changed. I have previously discounted engine health as once running its great with no other symptoms however for completeness would a compression test go astray? Is it possible to get a diesel compression tester thats not moonbeams? I mean the petrol one I brought was sub $100 with a stack of fittings, the only real difference to diesel is the guage, relatively its not that high pressure right?

Two thermostats for twice the reliability?

Liquid Nitrogen works a treat.... Otherwise a wire wheel where the heatgun and scraper can't reach is my current method. Too scared to try any chemicals cos like Bling mentions, not sure I can remove every trace prior to final coating.

Keep the jets and tubes for drilling/experimenting!

I'm already reliant on sticking my tongue out to direct the bead, adding another variable might end up with slag on my favourite welding jandals! Due to some seriously questionable life choices, getting to the CO2 outlets during 'normal business hours' doesn't work for me, hence i'm stuck with a top shelf product from a rock bottom supplier.

Yep, Coregas Argoshield..... Buy from Bunnings..... open on the weekend they said....... I'm hoping I can get a bottle from Blackwoods when they open on Tuesday, but if you've got a bottle i'll happily empty it for you

Where were we? Ah yes, Rust.... Folded up a patch allowing me to warm up on the relatively simple rear guard. And so onto the main event, the boot floor. I have been thinking many hours how to do this panel, if not for the cobwebs in my wallet I would have just dropped a stack of coin on bead rollers and such and moved forth, instead I gave an idea a go and managed to fold up a test piece with the pan bender which impressed me enough to push forward with making the repair. Hold the breath and... Almost there, used some rivets to hold across the bends and tapped the end around a suitable shaped offcut of 4mm Not the tidiest up close, but it is rust free! Next step would be to launch into welding up but my gas bottle is near empty from other projects and there seems to be somewhat of an Argon shortage going on, hedging bets on making some calls Tuesday. Until then i've got some grot in the front guards that needs attention, folded up some more test pieces to confirm the process and dimensions

Is there any trick to welding 6000 series aluminium extrusions? Have a small side project that would be much easier if I started with an extrusion but being a noob at Al welding i have no idea about the finer points

Max out your broadband on this fellow Golden bay sailor https://www.youtube.com/c/VernonDeckLearningByDoing/featured He brought a boat, learned to sail and filmed the whole lot.

For the price of the gasket set, i'd pull the rest down especially that you already have it on the bench, eyeball the bores and journals, clean up whats easy then put it back together. They're bloody tough little motors, but at least you'll confirm everything is in one piece ready for a hearty Italian tune.

Progress....... Heard the neighbour wasn't too pleased by my weekend activities on the angle grinder, they're lovely people so went and had a chat to keep the peace, end result I spent a day rearranging the workshop so I could work with the door shut, day behind, but further ahead. Workshop tidied and organised, fizzed on patches The light surround was a challenge, none of the holes would be doubled up on the final placement, took me a while to think of the obvious, dry fit with bolts, drill spot welds, hold with clecos then do a slow and terrible job of trimming off the excess. Not the visual end result I was hoping for this patch, but secure and better than it was plus it will be hidden behind the guard! Drivers floor patch, slight pain to fold up but lots of hammer work to stretch around the corner. The scuttle drain runs down the middle of the firewall, the bottom had folded over (Likely during engine/gearbox swaps) blocking it off and was subsequently full of crap, with the lower edge showing heavy corrosion, I couldn't leave it alone thinking what could be in there, drilling out the spot welds underneath was thankfully only surface rust, wire wheel, treat and epoxy primed. With those patches in I can officially tick off front end rust repairs, with the car now spun around in the workshop work on the boot floor can begin....

A mate did exactly this with his winch, from memory he had to rebuild the winch cradle or modify the mounting system because the standard receiver hitch doesn't like the bending from from the cable not being in line. He commented that keeping the winch clean in the back was a bonus, other than the amount of space it took up which lead to it getting left behind...

I've been looking at the same stuff, real world question, how many tins would be needed for an average underbody respray?

I use a pedal only because the torch seems to have been designed for midget hands putting the button in an awkward position. I have also used a welder where the pedal gave proportional control and it was the tits just not at a price I can afford at home.

Thats interesting, some brands of Pushlock hose state not to use clamps/crimps as the barb geometry can damage the hose.

UI looks shit but has all the features you'd want for casual use, sounds like a good deal at $800, i'm tempted!

Game on... I've owned and patched rusty cars in the past, but never one actually worth a fair deal of coin, kicking off with this resto, I was more than aware it was going to take a good measure of thought before launching past the point of no return, aka cutting discs. A few weeks back I was trawling You Tube trying to find a half decent video of the type of repairs I knew were ahead. Between shite camera work and people who shouldn't be near a spanner (or a tin of bog) I found this guy: Nothing new, and i'm sure a technique i've seen before but the timing was on point, with a stack of mdf offcuts from house renos I set to it Remember this rot? I traced a pattern from the "good" side, flipped it, traced and jigsawed from a kitchen offcut, few taps later, my first non-flat panel. In place And compared to the not so rusty side Small amount of trimming before final fitment, but far better than I was ever expecting from a first attempt! Holding some motivation, I set into removing the car from the rotisserie to get at the bumper mounts, made the largest patch first and copied that for the other side All are now soaking in epoxy ready to get glued on later in the week. Looking at the pictures, I think I have brushed the primer on a bit thick, but not so concerned (yet), there was so much crap between the layers, paint is better than rust and this is better treatment than it ever got 50 years ago! I also did some more modifications to the rotisserie while it was off, the alignment between nut and threaded rod was pretty terrible making lifting difficult, i'm in the unfortunate spot that it needs to be raised and lowered to get out of the workshop, new mods should speed that up! Best part of the weekend is I'm now comfortable with the bulk of steps required to get the known rust out, hopefully the motivation hangs around!

There is some pretty cool background math around auditing that unless you have a post-grad statistics degree, you're better off being honest in WOFs rather than thinking you can beat 'The Man' with the occasional light bulb/washer jet.

I really hope your day job rewards you well for your trouble shooting and documentation skills? Applying a basic but definitive process to a new problem set and proving the underlying fault is surprisingly rare not to mention looping back to prove the proposed solution returned the desired result. I enjoy reading such posts, keep it up!

Buy standard mirror (non-toughened) and waterjet cut to shape. I have used our waterjet to cut glass of all sizes so don't see why this wouldn't work.

Lockdown mk2..... But this time I have a project car and supplies, could do with a bit more paint and some specific consumables, but on the whole, I have plenty of tasks to carry on with. Cut a small rust spot out of the front panel only to find nasty muck hiding behind, only way to sort this is to hack it right off, clean out the cavity, paint and back together, only I have no paint. Patch panel is however folded up ready to go once the shops reopen. Passenger footwell, bit of a pain folding this one, but many hammers and vicegrips got it there in the end. Drivers side, near identical... So much symmetry in this car! Much larger patch required and i've run out of 1mm to make it, will have to wait In tech-spam I enquired about straightening the driver's rear quarter, on the good advice of @nzstato I looked into removing the panel to bash off car, only to find it appears the factory used lead/braze to smooth out the gap at the base of the rear screen. Not wanting to hack the panel off in a very visible spot I set about seeing what I could achieve in place... First, pull the fuel filler back into line Leading edge it about 5mm recessed Marking the dented area I tacked some modified M8 fasteners to attach my slide hammer and gently pulled Fail-ish The panel is uber thin where I tacked on and after careful tapping I got there but with a few tears in the sheetmetal, filled them in but may go back and replace it with thicker material later on. Filler cap in roughly a better spot I went over the swageline with a straight edge working out where it was and how it managed to remove itself, using a lump of rimu as a longer dolly I gently tapped a few high spots and much to my surprise it came out from hiding! Thinking I was dreaming I sprayed a quick layer of etch on and sure enough, I found a swageline! Still needs some work under the filler cap but I think this needs some more thinking, appears the panel needs shrinking and that is not a skillset I have mastered just yet so will practice elsewhere and get back to it later on. Also cut out the rot in the lower guard, plenty of dust behind, will be good to get in here painted prior to sealing up. Have started attacking the boot area, what looked promising is now not so, easiest option is to cut out half the floor and replace, with no suitable material to put in there I will wait until after lockdown before digging deeper.

Think I have the same model thicknesser, no plastic all steel? near put my back out when picking it up, even paid a similar price! Has power to burn, if it fits in the gate, it get chomped, even rimu! Buy one yetch, I knew I needed one for making the benchtops, but has been so handy for tidying up timber and odd jobs that would easily have justified buying a good expensive one.

Jacked up a corner of the girlfriend's Passat to figure out how to do an oil change and the small windscreen crack turned to a spider's web. Thats when I realised the mechanic can have my $$$, the only thing I will turn on that car is the heater control.

Lame, appears my workshop interwebs is not quite Zoom quality tonight, was gunna treat you all to a drunk guy stripping paint

Yeah, plenty of time, although I do have a bit more spare now! Once these shenanigans are over, pop round for a beer