Glass half empty = time for another pint.

Smoother road ahead dude.

Chris, looks like you are getting quite used to this body work lark.

Took a day off work today, so could crack on. It's late, and I'm tired, so will do this in picture form!

Same procedure I used on Kar's front wings, take cornflake packet, make shape that fits in hole in car. Make metal thing from cardboard shape.



Old jacking point cut off rusty backing plate

Magic metal gluing the above plate and jacking point together

Starting from the back, those 2 plates (one with jacking point) glued to the car

Oversized flappy bit, that makes up the wheel arch, to be cut down later

Bright lights show the way...

Finally got some metal back



Some final adjustments to the holey layer (bellows? diaphragm I guess)

and glue that in too

And then the outer skin. This is the only proper panel I bought. I took a genuine Volvo arch repair, and cut the repair panel to match the car rather than the other way round. Took an hour or so lining up, cutting a little off, repeating, but the fit is pretty damn good even if I do say so

Inside flappy bit from earlier trimmed. Note the square needed to the right, I wanted to get everything else in and straight before that one.

Interestingly, the proper Volvo panel is a fold short at the bottom, so will have to make a plate up for here

Side on, and inspection hatch needs welding up still, but I don't think that looks too bad.





Note the wheel arch section is slightly out, this is from a dent Fake had when I got her, runs down both drivers side doors, so will have to work out how to make that pretty. On the other hand, she is the motorsport car


At this point, my friend doing the welding had to run away, so need to seam in the outer skin, and seam the inspection hole I cut, but getting there! I'm really chuffed how this is going, I didn't have a clue until dealing with Kar at xmas, and now have got my head round smacking flat sheets of steel into something car shaped. Just need to learn how to make the curvey outer skins now, and I'll never need to buy panels again

Looking good, man. those panels you made up look awesome, how did you get the bends in them?

Dan

Small hammers and an open vice or dolly?
Lookin good mr c. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (thumbs up)

As Fonzie would say.

volvosneverdie wrote:Small hammers and an open vice or dolly?

Close, but as I replaced the back panel with the jacking point itself with 2.5mm, and the rest with 1.5mm instead of the 1.2/0.8 it looked like,it was vice and f off great hammers

Dan, it's a lot simpler than it looks if you take time to make the panels out of cardboard first, you really see where you'll have problems before the metal. Then copy the cardboard net onto the metal, grinder or jigsaw it out, then make the folds. With 1.2 I did the inner wings out of I used some 15mm ply as bending bars in a vice, for this stuff I just put it in the vice and smacked it with a lump hammer.

Chris_C wrote:

volvosneverdie wrote:Small hammers and an open vice or dolly?

Close, but as I replaced the back panel with the jacking point itself with 2.5mm, and the rest with 1.5mm instead of the 1.2/0.8 it looked like,it was vice and f off great hammers

Dan, it's a lot simpler than it looks if you take time to make the panels out of cardboard first, you really see where you'll have problems before the metal. Then copy the cardboard net onto the metal, grinder or jigsaw it out, then make the folds. With 1.2 I did the inner wings out of I used some 15mm ply as bending bars in a vice, for this stuff I just put it in the vice and smacked it with a lump hammer.

Always thought bodywork looked like fun.
Must be a real sense of achievment in seeing a fiddly piece get slowly from flat metal to an actual car shaped part.

You cut up them huge full arch panels for that small section!

Good work chris, it's a pain in the arse to do but hopefully fake will be giving you back some reliable service in return. BTW, all arch/sill repair panels for the 300's seem to have that extra fold bit missing. Ie. the sill repair panels don't have the lip along the bottom either with the drain holes in - strange

SteveP wrote:You cut up them huge full arch panels for that small section!

I figured I wasn't going to cut up the huge car to fit those repair panels I did think it wasteful, so made the cuts carefully and saved the rest

Nice work! I just threw my jacking points in the bin.

filthyjohn wrote:Nice work! I just threw my jacking points in the bin.

There stands a man who obviously doesny rely on the standard Volvo Jack!
I'd hate to try and ballance that tinker under an axle.

I go for the very front of the leaf spring myself, I figure the bolt holding the spring on can take the weight. The downside is it marks the spring a little, which will hurt my concours chances a bit.

filthyjohn wrote:I go for the very front of the leaf spring myself, I figure the bolt holding the spring on can take the weight. The downside is it marks the spring a little, which will hurt my concours chances a bit.

Thats ok man.
You can file it away with all the other things that'll hurt your concourse chances a bit.

Giant non standard engine.
Rollcage.
Giant non standard wheels.
etc.

Nice work Chris, am watching this thread with huuuge interest. I'll be looking at similar work soon, probably with NOR panels such as this (the 3dr version):



which I would probably also want cut up. No need to repair more than is necessary!

You should be fine with that panel Tom, as the bit that continues onto the sill is only curved in one plane, so you can make one by tacking the bottom having made the bottom folds, then bending it a nadgers and tack an inch higher and bend again etc.

I'm glad you've said you're watching it, I'm only putting this up as I havn't got any experience with this, and I figure if I can do it everyone else can, just I've been lucky enough to get pointers along the way. This is the main killer for 300s (at least, it was when they started going there 5years ago) and it just isn't viable to pay someone to do it. This has taken 2 good days so far, so for the hobbiest it *should* be doable in a summer weekend.

So far it's cost me a fiver for metal (I still have 3/4 of that, I went to metal supermarkets and asked for offcuts ), the repair panel, and a pub dinner for my friend the welder. Oh, and I used a can of paint, so best add another 4 quid. I'll also give matey pennies for welding wire and gas, but it's not going to be expensive overall, and I'll know it'll last which is more than some "professional" sill repairs (plate over the outside) I've seen. The amount of abuse Fake gets I need it to be solid.