Welded at Last

Before we get to the E9 I want to share a funny story. On my ride to work last week I came across a sad yet funny situation. Seeing a rode sign flattened is not so special. What makes it ironically funny is what the sign says, and what was secured to the sign pole.



That's my beautiful Merlin leaning against the bridge. While I was taking this picture I was all decked out in cycling gear, and three people stopped to ask if I was OK. Just goes to show you that most Honolulu drivers are good folk.

My goal for Sunday was to get the rear panel patch welded on. I have been working on this for way too long! And I made it, too.

Last week I determined that the rust hole I wanted to use for the first bolt was too low, so I began by grinding it larger. That required me to use a washer to prevent the nut from pulling through, and even then bolting it in place was tricky. I marked the places where I wanted to drill for bolts and used a center punch to make drilling in the right place easier. With the patch held firmly in place by the first bolt I drilled through both layers with a 1/8" bit, then through the patch with a 9/32" bit. The bolts have 1/4" shanks but I wanted a little slop. With the patch removed I finished drilling through the original panel. The last step was to use my pnumatic punch to punch spot-weld holes al around the edge.

Due to Hawaii's demanding weather I hate to put things together without moisture protection, so before proceding I wanted to paint the patch with weld-thru primer. Especially the inside. First I cleaned it with POR-15 Marine Clean and roughened the surface with clean 180# sandpaper, to give the primer something to hold on to.



When the primer was dry I bolted the patch into place one last time. A couple of spots at each end needed help to lay flat, so I used some Vise-Grips to hold the edges tightly in place. This patch is different than the previous patches because the holes for welding are on the outside. This will require a lot of grinding, and some filler. After the patch was tacked in place I removed the clamps and bolts, then went back and finished the places that had been covered. I thought I would weld up the bolt holes until I realized that the welds would go right through to the inside, which would make more of a mess than the strength they would provide. I will use either epoxy putty or fiberglass and POR-15; probably the putty.





As I was setting up to weld my friend Tom offered to help me pick out some better tires from the junk tire pile and mount them, so that the car would not look quite so destitute. So next Sunday will be Super Bowl Sunday for most folks, and Tire Sunday for me. Who cares about the Steelers and the Cardinals, anyway?

Nowhere to Clamp

Ever tried climbing a cliff, or a tree, and reaching a point where you had nothing above you to hold on to? That's how I felt looking at my current patch. In order to get a good weld the two layers must be held tightly together. The panel has a slight curve, so the long, flat patch wants to pull away. The usual solution is a few Vise-Grips, but the position of this patch makes clamping with those impossible. Some really big Jorgensen clamps might work, if they don't get set on fire by the welder. Maybe the Adjustable Clamp Company has what I need, but Chicago is a long way from Honolulu.

The solution I chose was one I had used before, bolts to hold the patch in place which are removed after the patch is tacked in place. In this case the holes need to line up just right, so I want to drill through both layers at the same time. Only I can't clamp the patch in place to drill the holes.

The solution to this problem came in the form of an irregularly shaped rust hole, right where a bolt belonged. This would allow me to slide the patch around and clamp it place, then drill the other holes exactly where I want them.

As I fiddled with the bolt thing I discovered a few places where the edge needed to be ground some more. Funny how long that takes.



It was at that point that I had to leave because my masseuse -- her name is Sonya -- was having a birthday party on the beach at Waikiki. Next Sunday I ought to have the patch welded in place. I feel like I am getting stuck too long on this one.

Back to the Rear End

Last week I never got around to posting because I was busy finishing up the photos I took during our annual New Year's celebration. Our activities are typical for Hawaii, a mix of American and Japanese customs including a seemingly endless stream of parties with family and friends. It's all on my Flickr account in a collection named New Year 2009.

What I did last week was review the patch design that I have been working on, apply a second coat of POR-15 to the fiberglass, and apply POR-15 to the outside areas concentrating on the places that the hole I am trying to cover provides access to. When I applied the glass I decided to use my tube of POR Patch because it really is POR-15 in a tube and I was worried it might dry up. This time I was going to be covering a lot more area so I opened my can. Surprise! It had set up solid. But wait. When I shook it I felt sloshing. Sure enough, after a bit of work with a screw driver and hammer I broke through the rock-hard skin and found plenty of liquid underneath. When I was done I re-sealed the can with plastic wrap, but I really should buy a new, smaller can the next time I paint.





Today began with grinding away the drips and runs from where the patch will go and cleaning the entire opening down to bare metal with my trusty wire brush in the die grinder. I really did plan on welding today. I guess I underestimated how much I had to grind the bottom edge to get the fit right, because that ended up consuming most of my time today. Grind and fit, grind and fit. I found myself wishing the car was on a lift, but this way I get more exercise.

When the perimeter was finally the shape I wanted, I realized it wasn't. All along the top edge is where the trunk floor is welded to the rear panel. The hole I am repairing was caused my moisture collecting in the area, exacerbated by previous collision damage which must have compromised the paint. Over at the top right corner a significant piece of the original rear panel extends down and is securely attached to to the floor piece. This sheet metal is at the same height as the patch I am making. If I left it the way it was the patch would stick out noticeably. Even though this area is obscured by the bumper, the lump would be as obvious as a day one pimple. I could grind away the old metal, but that would weaken the joint. I decided to cut away that corner of the new patch. I know this will make the joint messy, but that is easy to fix with Epoxy Putty. I ended up drawing the cut lines but not cutting, in case I get a better idea during the week.





Before leaving I shot the opening with Weld-Thru primer. I just don't like leaving metal bare in Hawaii, even for a week.

First Attack on Spare Tire Well

My plan for today was to repair the rust holes in the spare tire well using fiberglass impregnated with POR-15. This needed to be done before treating the exterior of the well, which needs to be done before welding on the patch I have been working on. This is a case of dependencies; happily I realized this before getting hopelessly ahead of myself.

At the outset I thought I would do the entire inside of the well. All I had to do was scrub off the loose, rusty bits with a wire brush. It turns out that this area is treated with a hearty layer of black tar, which made progress slow. To scale the task to the available time I focused my efforts on the back half, and ended up doing a bit less. Still it was enough to allow me to move forward on the rear panel repair.

I did not bother with a before picture because there are plenty of those in previous postings. Actually, a before picture would not have revealed the extent of the damage due to the way the still tenacious rubbery undercoating covered the holes. I would say that most of the rust damage in this area was from the inside. I wonder why the black, tar-like primer failed to block moisture. It was not until I wire-brushed the outside that the holes became clearly visible.

The first set of pictures were taken after wiping the area with acetone to clean off any tar spread by the wire brush, followed by the usual Marine-Clean and Metal-Ready treatment. The orange stuff is primer. Since it is stuck in pitted areas I suspect it was part of a rust treatment -- these areas would have left the factory smooth. Maybe that black tar primer was another after-market treatment. The black layer is most apparent along the border between bare metal and finish painted surface and is on top of the orange primer.





Due to the compound curves I cut the fiberglass on the bias. Here it is worked into place over bare metal.



Here is how it looked after applying POR-15. Actually I used my tube of POR PATCH, which is basically POR-15 in a tube. I spread it with a small foam rubber brush.



I was worried about attempting this today because it was raining hard on my way to the shop. Luckily by the time I was ready to apply the paint the rain had stopped and the air was considerably drier.

For dinner my family met with our old friend Lester Mau. It is not very often that the four of us sit down for dinner together, and to go out with a friend is almost unheard of these days. We ate at Good to Grill, next to the new Safeway in Kapahulu. Not bad. Obviously the price of the meal goes mostly to ingredients, but what little service we got was pleasant.



Last but not least, it is time once again for the annual Dunn family Christmas photo. Yes, it is wacky, a tradition in itself.



Ah yeah, one more thing. On Saturday we attended the annual mochi pounding party given by a friend of a friend, in Kapahulu. I took a lot of pictures and have not had time to sort through them, but I did put together a little video. You can watch it on YouTube.

More Lotus Than E9 Today

Today was the annual British Car Club Christmas party. It was at the Kona Brewing Co. Restaurant at the Hawaii Kai Shopping Center. For the first time in weeks the weather was beautiful, so there was much grumbling about how we should have been out driving around the island. As unpredictable as the weather has been it could only be considered a fluke. Even yesterday, as I washed and shined up my Lotus I thought I might be wasting my time. I was dodging rain drizzle the entire time, and when I woke up this morning I was totally shocked to see nothing but blue sky and sunshine. To put all this in perspective I was watching football as I ate breakfast and it was snowing so hard you could barely see the crowd in the stands. "Lucky you live Hawaii," we like to say.

I always have trouble getting the Lotus started after it has sat awhile. Yesterday I decided to try an experiment and possibly save the battery at the same time. Without even trying to start it using its own battery I jumpered it with my trusty old Toyota Camry, clipping the positive lead to the connector right where it clamps to the wire. Sure enough, it cranked just fine. It didn't want to start, which meant lots of cranking and waiting, but eventually it coughed and sputtered to life. Water in the carb floats, I suppose. This eliminates everything else, like replays, grounds, and the ignition switch. The battery was new and is still good. The problem seems to be the cheap, after-market terminal I used when I switched back from aircraft type connectors to standard battery terminals. Yes, I actually used to use a 12 volt airplane battery, very light and spill-proof. Also very expensive. I really need to make a new cable.

Once I had the engine running I discovered another problem. The clutch was frozen. Luckily both my sons were home, so I had them rock the car while I sat inside with the trans in forth and the clutch in. After that it was fine, so I drove around the neighborhood for an hour to see if anything would fall off. Hey, its a Lotus.

This morning the car started just fine, and I made it to the meeting without a hitch. I never have time to attend the Saturday tech sessions. In fact, the only activity I've done so far with the group is the annual British Car Day at Kapiolani Park, so it was nice to hang out in a more social setting.





After the meeting there was still enough time to get some work done on the E9. I actually made it to the shop by 1:30. I started out improving the fit of the patch I cut out last week, but then I realized that the opening I had cut gave me unique access to a tight spot where the spare tire well, in the floor of the trunk, meets the rear panel. The area was covered with a thick, rubbery coating, but the area where I was had broken down, perhaps as a result of previous read-end collision damage, and light surface rust was spreading. I changed course and set to work scrapping off the loose, dry, cracked coating, finishing with the usual POR-15 prep treatment of a wash with Marine-Clean followed by an application of Metal-Ready. I took a picture of all the crud I scrapped off, and that doest include the stuff that ended up stuck in my hair or went flying off into unknown nooks and crannies. I'm not going to strip off all the undercoating. Some of it still looks good, even after 30+ years. When the exterior body work is mostly done I'll put the car up on a lift and look for more bad spots. At least for now I can get to one a lot easier before I weld on this latest patch, and POR-15 will be the perfect treatment for these areas. Maybe I should experiment with getting a heavy undercoating to stick to POR-15.





On the way home I rendezvoused with Patrick Casey, who has been holding onto the fire system I purchased for the Lotus. In the box was a bottle, nozzles, tubing, and a mechanical pull trigger. I have yet to study the installation instructions, but when its in I should be able to pull the handle from inside the driver's compartment and set off the fire extinguisher in the engine bay. Lotus Europas are famous for bursting into flame due to the lousy original plastic fuel lines, but then I changed all that. Still even a small fire in a fiberglass car can cause major damage. The smart thing to do would be to install that and the battery cable at the same time.

Marathon Sunday

Today was Honolulu Marathon. Once again my wife and I got up at 2:30 A.M. to help. We are members of the clock team. Our job is to start all of the clocks along the route. I manned the one mile clock, partnered with a newbie named Nick, and my wife had the two kilometer clock. About a dozen team members meet at Fort DeRussey in Waikiki at 3:30 for a final time check and last minute instructions, then we all ride our bikes to our station and wait for the 5:00 start. My wife and I ride all the way from home, and after watching the first few hundred runners go by head off in search of breakfast. Well, today it rained. Hard. By the time we got to Big City Diner in Kaimuki we were soaked to the bone, so we road on home, got cleaned up, and went back. After a leisurely breakfast we went home, and on the way we could still see runners headed out. The magnitude of these events never fails to amaze me.

A lack of sleep was not the only thing that interfered with working on the E9 today. Since Friday I have been struggling with a bout of vertigo. On Saturday I doubted I could ride a bike Sunday, but with the help of Dramamine I managed. I had Nick go up the ladder to start the clock, while I called out the time. The two things that trigger a dizzy spell are looking up and, even more so, looking down. Needless to say, working on the E9 was a challenge.

The first thing to do was to smooth out the putty I applied at the end of last week's session. I started with my pneumatic grinder, then switched to a sanding block. The tricky part was to sculpt the indentation where the panel changes height. I ended up with one low spot. After the next patch is welded in place I can add enough filler to even out the surface. I think I have reached the point where I need to sand down more of the rear end, so see why there is so much bondo.

When I got the sculpting as far as I wanted to take it I still had enough time to cut out the next patch. Next week will begin with grinding it down to fit, and preparing the opening.

First Time Using Fiberglass

When I discovered POR-15 I read about a particularly interesting application, patching holes with fiberglass cloth. Apparently POR-15 works like polyurethane resin. Sunday was my chance to try it out.

The area I selected was where the rear panel has a height change. The rust hole -- more like a slot -- is where the panel curves in and under, just above the joint with the trunk floor. I decided to put the glass cloth on the inside, and later-on fill in the low spot with epoxy filler.

The first order of business was to strip off the primer I had used in the area, as well as a bit more of the ridiculously thick layer of bondo that I find all over the rear-end. For that I used a small die grinder and a beefy looking wire brush I picked up at Redline. Unlike other wire brushes, this one seems indestructible. Next came the standard POR-15 prep, a wash and an application of rust converter. One thing I did not do but probably should have was to rough up the bare metal with my grinder or some #80 sandpaper, to give the patch something to hold on to.




I already had a tube of POR PATCH, the type of POR-15 that comes in a tube, and because it seems a little thicker I decided to use that. The first bit that came out was runny so I put the cap back on and kneaded the tube a bit ... not easy with a metal tube. I used a wood tongue depressor to spread the POR PATCH and work it into the cloth. The rounded end was perfect for the curve in the metal.



When that was done I still had a little time left so I applied some Epoxy Putty to some of last week's patch. I stayed away from the lower areas because I anticipate welding there. I was especially interested in the lower right corner of the tail light opening. I finally used the last of the first box I purchased to use on the rear windowsill.