johnnys series 3 resto project

Ever tried "Electrolytic rust removal" plenty of info on the web, never tried it myself but it is on my to-do list, involves bucket of water with soda and a battery charger.

Telboy111 said:

Ever tried "Electrolytic rust removal" plenty of info on the web, never tried it myself but it is on my to-do list, involves bucket of water with soda and a battery charger.

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i have actually experimented with this when i was a kidd trying to remove rust from nails with some pretty good results but it turned the nails charcoal black and somehow i managed to melt a hole in the bedroom carpet

ive also managed to copper plate a couple of these said nails by reversing the polarity of the computer power unit i was useing changing to just salt water and a bit of copper pipe on the live electrode dangling in the water it too ages but got a half decent finnish with it

reet i got a bit brave this afternoon and decided to try and make the end section of one of me bulkhead vent holes wich im pretty proud of really

and its all thanks to paying attention in metalwork classes in hight school



thing is i didnt stop there i just had to see it attatched to the bloody thing and gave meself the confidence to just go for it when i get me gas shortage sorted out





thing is this bulkhead is gonna take a fair bit of time as its took me 2 hours just to make this corner but hopefully itll be worth it in the end

Hey fella, just found this, good read, keep up the good work mate.

You must have the patience of a saint working on the bulkhead, I spent two days on mine and have had to give it a rest and will go back to it later as it's doing my head, and I havn't got as much welding as you.

Great job :cool2:

now with always thinking about 5 steps ahead of myself ive given some serious consideration to the bonnet and the way it was made

its the older razor edge type and the underframe is shot completely along the front edge wich means if im gonna repair it properly im going top have to take the rivvets out of the bonnet and skin it or atleast part of it to get the new bits to fit

wich left me with the dilemma of loseing the lovely round head rivvets from the top of the bonnet and useing fekkin pop rivvets wich means to get it looking uniform ill have to redo all the rivets on the bonnet

so ive invested the time to scope out one of me old haunts and past hobby suppliers to come up with one of these little beauties

Rivet Snaps and Set up

ive never had one of these things and never used a propper one previousley just a length of steel bar with a dimple machined in the end with less than crap results so for the £6 its gonna cost its worth a shot

is it just me being anal about rivvets or what

yeah maybe a bit anal. this baby is gonna be a show winner!!

matcal1999 said:

yeah maybe a bit anal. this baby is gonna be a show winner!!

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if i ever do enter it into any shows itll be in the best working category as ive got me head into the bulkhead the same way i did with the mini i used to have when i double skinned the floorpans on that im going for a rock solid triple skin addaptation on the footwells with reinforced 4mm thick corner posts its probably gonna weigh a fekkin tonne when ive finished but hopefully the bulkhead will outlast me

thing is ive got no gas now for me welder and ive just been making the patterns up for the footwells and profiles to repair those damn vent holes and cannot do much more untill i get the welder up and running again

im also quickly running out of ideas and little things to do so im at the catch 22 stage now to do one thing i have to do something else first wich goes on backwards down thew list back to the welding

grrrrr im climbing the friggin walls with it

Nice looking repair to the bulkhead Johnny. I wouldnt worry about the rivets, its a Landy.

i think mainly i wanna learn the traditional way of rivveting more than anything as its a long gone and dyeing art and maybee a usefull skill to learn for future projects

Johnny I like your attitude mate proper engineering,to many rebuilds have more money than sense thrown at em, yours is a proper restoration keep up the good work mate!

not much of an update but ive done some smashing ****ting cutting and tacking on the drivers footwell on me bulkhead today with the arc welder as i found a handfull of 1.6mm rods in the back of a drawer wich kept me out of the missus way for the afternoon i just cant wait to get some gas in me mig again





im deffo gonna triple skin the footwells now as ive noticed theres some considerable warpage round where the pedal boxes bolt through the bulkhead and seems to not be strong enough to cope with the general forces of heavy clutch work and braking so why not reinforce the bugger while ive got it off

on the same note all these little tedious profiles and shapes arent arf easy when youve got a folding machine

and in true johnny style i couldnt afford to buy a commercial one and made me own out of scrap gurders and crap i had knocking abbout the place

Johnny, you are doing a fine job there. I should have made my own sheet metal bender as the clarke one is too weak to fold the sheet metal. I learned how to rivet during metalwork at school (I passed my Higher grade), using a ball pein hammer but I think the aluminium would suffer if you used that method. I think one of these gadgets you mentioned will be the answer. Keep us informed how you do the rivets as I have similar issues with my Series resto.

i cant wait for the snap setter to arrive so i might have a go at machining one up tonight just so i can have a practise since i have next to nothing left worth doing till i finish the bulkhead

johnny curt 1 said:

i cant wait for the snap setter to arrive so i might have a go at machining one up tonight just so i can have a practise since i have next to nothing left worth doing till i finish the bulkhead

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Snap setter, thats it, if you make one up will it need tempering or is it ally rivets?

crashbox said:

Snap setter, thats it, if you make one up will it need tempering or is it ally rivets?

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the original rivvets are soft ally so im going to have a go at making me own on the lathe since i have a fair bit of 10mm soft ali bar knocking about and a fair good length of silver steel 1" bar somewhere in me scraps bin to try and make the tool out of

silver steel is also most commonly known as drill rod and used mainly to make woodruff keys and cotter pins out of and is pretty hard stuff to start with the only thing ive got that will machine that stuff is me mega expensive cobalt steel tooling and ball end mills for the lathe

ill keep you all posted how i get on

right abbout these anal rivvets

ive just been in the shed fekking abbout with me lathe and a length of silver steel and come up with this ugly brute of a thing



now the one on the left is the first attempt pretty rough and a bit wobbly but me second attempt on the right just might be passable as an oldschool rivvet atleast its pretty neat and about the same size and shape as the ones on me bonnet



and the rivvet itself is just a half inch long slug of 4mm soft aluminium rod just trapped in the vice and headed up with the punch thingy ive made shoved through the hole in the steel plate turned over and punched again to head up the other side

ive got gaaaassss

so today it was full steam ahead and all systems go with the bulkhead and i think im about a quater the way through it