Adoom

So, grape vine told me about a round nose mini shell that has rego on hold. And all the rust repairs had already been done to a high standard. It's only in primer so you can see the butt welded joins and spot welds done with a mig. It all looks really well done. It will need minimal filling for paint. But, there were plans to make it a racecar, so a number of holes have been filled that I probably need and the rear seat and storage pockets have been cut out. It was also only 15 minutes down the road. So now it's mine. It had P-Plates in the past, so no black plates. It was only a stripped shell with doors and a boot lid. He did find me some things from his stores. Front and rear subframes and some suspension bits and glass. But I still need LOTS of bits. I know of another rusty shell that is being turned into body cuts to fix a racecar. It's also hydrolastic and the current owner wants all the hydrolastic specific bits, like subframes and suspension bits. I've hopefully got dibs on the remaining bits. Engine/box, wiring, interior, trim, the storage pockets and seat panel. That should see me most of the way to a complete set of mini parts. Of course everything will need to be rebuilt/repaired. Discuss! https://oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/81726-adooms-1981-mini-1000-discussion/

WD40 didn't do much. I gave it a polish with jif. Definitely an improvement, the staining is much reduced, but it's a little hazy still. Clearer than it was before, but not like new. Still want to get some new ones.

Does anyone else have an Optrel panoramaxx helmet? I need some of the replacement front lenses. 5000.270. Mine are all burnt and stained. I might have a go polishing an old one... like plastic headlights. Looks like they will cost about $90(incl freight) for 5 from Proline Welding supplies. I guess $18 each doesn't sound so bad... for a molded bit of plastic. Is this pretty much how much they cost everywhere, or is there somewhere better to get them?

Well shit. Apparently I was running real low on 0.9 mig wire. I just ran out mid-bead. Sigheth. I changed over to the 0.6 roll and swapped jobs to seam welding the thin edge of the cut floor to the cross member. Hopefully the local hardware store BOC agent has mig wire as well as gas.

Join this bit to that bit. First, makes some holes. So as not to intrude into the seat space, the front part goes under the floor. To avoid a suspension pivot point, the back part goes above the floor, also to tie into the strut tower.

Got some more 2.5mm. Zip zap building a box.

Yeh, the exhaust smell thing. My bag and jacket would reek of fumes. With STRONG tailwinds over the Remutakas the stinky fumes catch up. I don't think it uses lots of fuel. Less than the 2zzge.

Building the cross member out to the sills. I'm using 2.5mm to match the wall thickness of the cross member. Possibly overkill... The floor is a little lower where it meets the sill, so the ends of the cross member needed to angle down a little.

Bandsaw?

Is your gas turned up too high? Have you tried turning it down?

Brakekleen is not recommended for degreasing prior to welding because Tetrachloroethylene, when heated to temperatures you get in welding creates Phosgene gas. Phosgene gas is really not good for you... it was used as a chemical weapon.

I discovered that my original plan to create internal chassis rails to support the front subframe mounts was going to intrude far too much into the seat base. New plan is to make another cross member that ties in with the sills and leading edge of the wheel well. There will be a hump in it for the driveshaft. Oh yeh. I got a driveshaft made.

Does your Hornet smell like it runs really rich? Mine does. Apparently it's fairly common in the CB900.

Both sides done now. I also removed the brackets for the fuel tank. I'll use straps for the new tank. Old one won't fit anymore. New one will be about 65L, hopefully big enough.

Took a bit of thinking to work out a neat way to fill the last hole on this side. I'll linish back some of these welds, they are welded both sides. S Still got this side to do.

For peace of mind, I got the plum bob and long straight edges out and did some measuring. The subframe is centered left/right across the car measuring from the wheel arch. Yay. And, since there is no suspension at the front, I used the front cross member mounting holes to make two points on the floor and draw a line through them, then measure back to the spots I made for each rear wheel center. Only 5mm difference side to side. Which I think is about 0.05 degrees. The two points I took from the front were not very far apart, so drawing a line through them would have exaggerated any errors, so I think 5mm is not bad. It is a 70's triumph after all.

Cut cut bend bend weld weld. And filled some holes.

SO much more access to weld the back of the strut towers now. It will go back in later, but trying to contort my arms through it to get good welding angles was a bitch. I also needed to make some space for the propshaft universal.

Well, the rear mounts are in. Already feels pretty solid. The boot hinge brackets are probably helping too since they tie the top of the wheel well to the boxed in section of the parcel tray. Still some more welding to do here, I haven't finished welding the back side of the corners, which I'm doing so I can linish back the weld on the visible side. Then all the big gaps to span and some plating. I'm using 1.6mm for both.

So I'm reasonably sure the subframe is aligned correctly. But just in case, I have given myself some wiggle room. These big washers will allow me to move the mounts around a few mm. And a bit of plate with a threaded hole and a pointy bolt that fits into a corresponding hole in the big bolt to temporarily 'lock' it into position. I'll leave it like this until I can get it on a wheel alignment machine. Once I confirm that the subframe is straight, I'll weld it all solid. I still need to make a plan for the front mounts. I don't have any flat surface there, so I need to create a temporary one.

I second it being legit. Uses a chemical process called chelation. So no acid. There are several products that are all the same shiz. Metal rescue is another one. It eventually does stop working because the active ingredient is used up in the chelation reaction and it gets real dark brown.

Stop crying guys, it was full of rust and bog.

Like a glove.

It evaporates fairly fast.