Joiji's general repairs.

[Joiji]

Afternoon/Evening all.

 

I introduced myself on the forums quite a while ago, middle of last year to be specific, when I picked up a red '75 2+2. Over New Years last year I did some general rust repairs, which also resulted in me deciding to fit a new interior, including seats with new mounts, all that jazz. Fast forward to recently and the car has been down at the panel beaters for a few other rust repairs, and a nice new coat of paint. While the glass was out doing that I threw a new headling in, to replace the older, slightly sagging one.

 

Anyway. I've just finished my student teaching placement, which was also the end of my Uni year. So with 4-odd months of holidays, it's time to tidy up the remaining bits of the car, and move back to my buggy project.

 

First step is a new grill. The old one was looking a little tired, and once disassembled, it just seemed easier to make a new one from scratch than attempt to repair the old. I went down to Alspec a while back and picked up 12m of 20x12mm 1.4mm wall thickness alu angle, and a length of 12mm u-channel.

 

Raw 20x12.

Machined 20x6.

The mill setup.

 

This weekend I finally started machining it up to size. Which meant cutting the 20x12 into appropriate lengths, then trimming down on the mill to 20x6, which is what the original slats for the grill are sized at.

 

All that machining marked the end of my Saturday. Onto Sunday in the next post.

 

For anyone interested, this is the current state of the buggy project in the shed because the Zed has taken over

[Joiji]

Wow. Apologies for the images, my iPhone was the only thing I had on hand. I'll take my DSLR down for any future work.

 

Today was just a short session on marking up and drilling holes for the rods which thread through the uprights. I just setup a stop on the mill for depth and then had a mark for where to drill horizontally. The powerdrill was used afterwards to deburr the holes.

 

 

 

 

Next week will be cutting some mitres and TIGing the slats back together. If I can get my hands on a mandrell for some small slot cutters I have, I'll cut the upright slots too.

 

Thanks for looking!

[handsandwhich]

Why not just start with some 20x6 flat? Easier to cut/bend/weld. Then you can mill to specs later or just leave it solid for more stability.

[luvemfast]

Is this in your home workshop? 

How jealous am I?

[Roberto]

Yeah, the buggy can wait.  Intersted to see how the grill turns out.  Good luck

[Joiji]

Why not just start with some 20x6 flat? Easier to cut/bend/weld. Then you can mill to specs later or just leave it solid for more stability.

 

Just personal preference really. The 20x6 ends up looking almost identical to the original slats, and I can bend the upright to get a small radius too, just like the originals.

 

Is this in your home workshop? 

How jealous am I?

 

I can do a full tour if you'd like?

 

Yeah, the buggy can wait.  Intersted to see how the grill turns out.  Good luck

 

Thanks Roberto

[Joiji]

Well, this weekend has seen some progress. When we left all the holes had been drilled in the slats.

 

I've taken both sets of brackets off the original grill, sandblasted them, and given them a quick coat of something to stop them rusting, I'll be giving them another, more thorough blast, along with anything else I can fit in my little booth, before it all goes off for powdercoating. No pictures, but if you wan't to know what they look like I'll throw an image up next time.

 

Figured out how to cut the slots for the slats in the uprights, also decided to move from 12x12mm to 16x16mm uprights, otherwise I'm going to run into the same problem as the originals had, which is when cut through enough to accomodate the slats, they bend far too easily. I'll pick some up tomorrow.

 

Onto pictures.

This is the setup for cutting the slats. Channel is held in the vice, mill head is tilted @30 degrees to match the original stagger. I really don't understand Nissan sometimes, the slats in these grills are 24.5mm apart. Why not just make them 25mm and make it easier on everyone? Anyway.

 

This is the end result in the test piece. As you can see, the slat doesn't fit far enough down, but even now we are looking at not having enough metal to keep the upright sound.

 

The grill will probably stop until next weekend aside from material aquisition. This week is probably part TAFE/Uni work and running all the speaker wire around my car.

 

Thanks for looking!

[Joiji]

Alright. I had a short Uni Intensive which set this back a couple of weeks, but all is well now, and after Christmas should be doing a few odds and ends on the car again.

 

Last time I made the decision to move from 12x12mm u-channel to 16x16mm u-channel, so I've had to recut and machine all of up uprights. I had the same setup in the mill, staggering the slots 24mm apart, which is pretty close to a standard grill (within 0.25mm).

 

If you have a look at a standard grill though, the top slat is bent out so it sits flat on the top of the uprights. I didn't want to go through the process of making a die and punching these indents into my slat, so I just changed the design of my uprights slightly! The uprights now have 7 slots cut in them, compared to the traditional 6, with the top one being 5mm down from the fold at the top of the upright.

 

This fold is my way of capping the tops of the uprights off. The original grill has a rod down the centre of every upright to hold the slats in place, and I intend to mimic this. The fold is slightly too long, but I'm planning on TIG welding around the seams and then cleaning it up with some sanding/filing to give me a smooth rounded curve for the top of the upright.

 

The next week or so is likely to be used to make a new shelf for my welders, to free up more space in the shed, so at the very least you can all have a chuckle at my MIG welding skills, at best you might see some more progress on these uprights!

 

 

[EMPRACING]

Dam you play for keeps with your power tools dont ya!!!

My grills about 3 pages down the list of stuff to do on mine was wondering how ide go fixing it

so ill be watching thiswith interest

have fun with the welding

[Scoota G]

Looks similar to the method i used on dales zed.

 

http://www.viczcar.com/forum/index.php/topic,5828.45.html

 

You'll see it half way down the page.