Spin off project, bending brake modifications.

The sheet metal bender or bending brake that was acquired earlier in the project would have been better left in the store... Now that it is in the garage I might as well try to make some improvements to it.

So far I have been using 1 mm cold rolled sheet metal. 1 mm sounds thin but is actually a hard material that requires quite sturdy tools for shaping. Specification for the bender says max 1 mm but it is not optimal or even suitable for 1 mm sheet metal. The clamping bar and its fastening is the biggest issue. One is supposed to use loose clamps for fixing the clamping bar and the bar has a tendency to not stay in place when starting to bend the metal.

This is what the bender looked like before modifications. (I need to clean that table...!)

Preparing to weld stiffener to clamping bar.

I spot welded the stiffener bar in place going about it symmetrically and using compressed air to cool the spot weld after every spot. This to avoid heat distortion of the piece.

 

Preparing to weld stiffener to the bender. Removing paint where welding will occur.

Stiffener made out of flat bar welded in place.

Holes where drilled for fixing the clamping bar. The hole in the clamping bar is 3 mm bigger than the bolt witch gives some room for adjustment before tightening the bar in place. The use of drilled true bolts will limit the width of the piece worked on a bit but the alternative solutions would have been much more complicated and  time consuming to build. I spent enough time on this shi..eet metal bender as is.

 

Nuts welded to the bender for limiting the amount of needed tools when tightening the clamping bar. Common hardware store M10 bolts and nuts of 8.8 hardness are used.

Black paint applied to make it look ready.

The plan was to be done after applying paint.

But then I released it should not take long to make a "lift" for the clamping bar.

 

Reinstalled on the work bench. I haven't tried the bender since the modifications (and I haven't cleaned the table yet).

Rust repairs.

I cut away the piece of trunk floor that connects the trunk floor to the quarter panel.  The plan is to try and rebuild this part to look close to factory made. Measures can be taken from the left side witch is in better shape and re fabricate right side part to resemble.

In order to "mirror" the part from the left side of the car a template out of paper was made.

Something like that.

I wanted to try and make stiffening beads to the  repair piece! Not that they are needed but would look nice. Should have made the beads before bending the plate!

Made a groove in a piece of plywood and tried to form the sheet metal by hammering and using the plywood as mold.

The result was terrible!

In an attempt to rescue the situation I called a friend with a bead roller and went over to him and made the beads now the problem was that I had bent the repair piece witch limited the movement when using the bead roller. 

Well now I have beads not exactly as on the original piece but they will have to do!

Hammered the "lip" that connects to the quarter panel on free hand towards a piece of wood! As the edge of the metal is not in a straight line it causes the piece to get bent.

I don't have tools for shrinking and stretching sheet metal so the "lip" was cut to enable bending as needed.

Mocked up. It Looks OK!

Before welding in place the surface that will be facing outwards towards the quarter panel was painted with rattle can spray for rust protection as it might be hard to access later on.

Tack welded in place.

I wanted to try and make a "real" repair piece although this part will not be visible on the couch. The piece came out far from perfect but I'm still quite happy with the result.

Customization

Removing parts and welding shut the excessive holes on a car body like trim holes, antenna holes and what not is probably one the most common and old modification methods around.

The donor car was a Dodge Dart 170, the base model but I want to make the couch look as it is of a Dart GT! So as a small side project to the ongoing rust repairs I decided to weld the trim holes on the sides shut as those don't exist on the GT model.

Dart GT

Dart 170

I tried a couple of different techniques to weld the trim holes shut.

What worked best for me was to have a small piece of sheet metal in the hole and welding that in place that gave least distortion and required least grinding.

Some pictures where I tried to catch the shrinking that has happened when welding holes shut.

Unfortunately I ended up making an unplanned patch during this job as the metal was so thin so I only burned holes in it when trying to weld.

The patch was made on an dent I had tried to straighten out already earlier so the shape of the metal was not optimal from start and adding a lot of heat to the area didn't improve the situation.

Now the trim holes on both sides are welded shut!

Rust repairs, getting started!

My earlier experience of sheet metal work is very limited! To get started I have purchased 2 square meters 1.0 mm cold rolled sheet metal. This should be fairly easy to shape I've been told.

I bought a used MIG welder for my iceboat project that will be used here also. 

I could't help the temptation to purchase a small sheet metal bending tool.This one is small and can only (barely) handle max 1 mm sheet. Also the width is limited to 760 mm.

Manufacturing of repair pieces.

The "leaf spring fastening point".

The welding was started where the smallest repair was needed, left sub frame. Hoping to gain some experience before the more demanding repairs.  

The welds looks like crap but it will not be visible on the ready couch! Hopefully the welding quality will improve before the quarter panel needs to be welded.

As the right side sub frame was in worse shape I welded a temporary stiffener before cutting away the damaged part.

New piece of "sub frame" in place.

I rebuilt something that would look like the rear leaf spring fastening point even if it is basically not needed now. I'm thinking it might come in handy when installing feet or wheels or combination of the two under the sofa. Also it looks better when both sides are alike.

Next on the agenda is to try and bring the right corner back to life.Starting with re manufacturing the piece below.