Giving the Jimny a birthday

Friday 12th March,

Jobs done

• reinforced rear body mount areas with new metal
• also welded metal to rear of arches area
• welded in plates on rear of both seat pans
• test fitted new boot floor

Well, as expected, I didn't get as far as I thought I would have.  The rear arches had lot of fiddly bits of metal to cut and bend into shape, but got most of the patching done that needs doing.  The plates on the back of the seat pans were overkill, really went a bit over the top there as the rust was quite localised, but I thought, whilst I'm here I might as well (I'll be doing this to the rear arches also).  The welding is definitely not going to win any prizes, but as long as it gets that test certificate, I'm not really bothered. 

This leaves the boot floor and slam panel as the only welding needing done.  Hopefully I can get these done this weekend and start prepping to get the paint on before next week starts.  Pulled 12 hours in the shed today and only stopped because the extension lead I was using blew out the power.  The fusebox uses fusewire, so couldn't just reset it. As it was 2200, I decided I might as well go home for the night.

Jobs tomorrow:
Get more cutting discs for the grinder
Dive into more welding and get as much done as possible
Think about what needs seam sealed, prep some areas and decide what coatings I'm going to use under the stonechip.

I used to have an MoT testers certificate and I would have no hesitation in passing your welds.

Well done.

Roger

Thanks Roger,

That makes me feel a bit better about my precision bodging . I should be getting better at it, I've done so much welding this past week.

Saturday 13th March,

Jobs done

• finished last two patches of welding on seat pans
• fitted and welded in boot floor
• welded in starboard arch plate and also welded outside seam

Welding for another 12 hours again today.  A lot of faffing, fitting, cutting, fitting again, cutting again etc. So my optimism on how far I'd progress was soon put back in check.  As I'm working on my own, it was a bit of a pain trying to hold the boot floor panel up whilst checking it for a fit, so  I came up with a rigging system spiderman would be proud of that allowed me to drop and raise it for making minor adjustments.  This seemed to work well and let me to get the boot floor secured in place so that I could carry on with the inner arch plates.  Managed to get one arch done by the end of the day, however, I'll still need to seal the seams inside the vehicle.

Jobs tomorrow:
carry on fitting and welding the port arch plate
perhaps seal up the boot floor inside. Not sure what to use, perhaps tiger seal(?)
measure up metal for a rigid brace for front of vehicle during slam panel removal

Sunday 14th March,

Jobs done

• tidied up workshop and ditched old templates and off cuts
• finished welding in port arch.  Boot floor area welding now completed (finally!)
• bent some bits of metal to use for outer sil starboard side
• bent some bits of metal to use for outer sil port side
• welded in one of the starboard sil plates, two to go.

Surprise surprise, welding all day again.  The end is in sight though. Once I've got the sils done on the outside all that will be left is the slam panel.  Cannot wait until I can get the paint out, the novelty of melting metal has definitely worn off.

Jobs for tomorrow
WELDING  and wire wheeling.   I'm under no illusions now that I won't get much further than that in a day.

It's looking close now, couple more hours with a wire wheel and that'll be ready. Good work that man.