1978 Restoration

[jlw35]

Thanks Mohle,

That might be worth a try, although the 3/8" gap at the top might be stretching it a bit, the tower is a hefty piece of metal.

The length on my tower (driver side) was OK at the bottom. I lined up the predrilled hole for the bolt the fits into the crossmember, the problem was at the top of the tower. The modification that I did involved removing some of the metal from the top of tower (where it fits into the shelf, or overhang, of the inner fender). That fixed the length problem, not much difficulty at all.

Jeff

[mohle]

I had made an outline of where the original tower was and ligned it up with that. Butting it up against the top still left it too long. Time will tell if it worked. Next timne however I'll be buying the two piece units.

[mohle]

Just catching up on this thread as I have been involved with other projects myself. "Sand blasting". You can get black beauty metal slag from Home Depot. Less tan $15 a bag. Cuts better than walnut shells. Plus you can sweep it up and re use it. Just have to sift out the rust bits before dumping it back in the blaster.

Project is looking good. Keep it up

Isn't that a little coarse? We use it at work and it's really aggressive. What pressure and distance are you running?

[jlw35]

Mohle,

"You may try to suck the tower to the body with some bolts and washers. Have a look at some of the pictures above. I drilled holes in the new towers where there were spot welds on the originals. Then I put the bolts through with washers on either side. Finally using a nut and the bolt to suck the body and the shock tower together. This also held it in place while I welded other spot welds back together."

Great suggestion!
Just finished and the tower is nice and snug, pretty much perfectly aligned with the contour of the inner fender. Used 4 one inch bolts, washers on each side and it pulled together nicely. 2 man job (at least it saved a bunch of time).

Now to weld it and this will be a big hurdle to put behind me.

Thanks again.
Jeff

[mohle]

Glad to see it worked for you. Worked pretty good when I did it.

[jlw35]

Out of curiosity, what size wire to weld in the shock tower.
I have a Lincoln-Electric 180 that I've been using to patch the floor panels.
The three wire spools that I have are .025, .030, and .035, with a gas bottle.

Thanks
Jeff

[mohle]

Out of curiosity, what size wire to weld in the shock tower.
I have a Lincoln-Electric 180 that I've been using to patch the floor panels.
The three wire spools that I have are .025, .030, and .035, with a gas bottle.

Thanks
Jeff

I only have a very basic mig welder. It's 0.030 flux core wire. I run it on low heat with a relatively low feed speed. It works OK, but not fantastic.

[jlw35]

Thanks

Jeff

[seabeelt]

Funny you should ask about the pressure. I have to say when I first started ( I have the harbor freight blaster) I was using magnesium oxide. It does a nice job, but is very fine and there is a tendency to take a long time on any heavy rust. Since it is fine it gets stuck in everything, and you loose quite a bit even with recovery tarps. Initially I was running a Craftsman 30 gallon 5 hp compressor set at 90 psi. The compressor ran non stop during blasting. I eventually bought an Ingersol 60 gallon with the two piston compressor. It still runs quite a bit but will keep up enough pressure to run a full tank of media.
On our old spider - I eventually scrapped it because of the total amount of rust; I started wit this

Ended up cutting and cutting


That cleaned up to look like this


Then this

And Finally

[mohle]

Funny you should ask about the pressure. I have to say when I first started ( I have the harbor freight blaster) I was using magnesium oxide. It does a nice job, but is very fine and there is a tendency to take a long time on any heavy rust. Since it is fine it gets stuck in everything, and you loose quite a bit even with recovery tarps. Initially I was running a Craftsman 30 gallon 5 hp compressor set at 90 psi. The compressor ran non stop during blasting. I eventually bought an Ingersol 60 gallon with the two piston compressor. It still runs quite a bit but will keep up enough pressure to run a full tank of media.
On our old spider - I eventually scrapped it because of the total amount of rust; I started wit this

Wow, you got more rust than mine. Didn't really think that was possible. Have you gotten to the suspension mount, think it's for the panard rod at the top of the rear wheel well? I can see the rust there in the trunk.

[seabeelt]

Yup, scrapped the car. Mice got into the cross tunnel above the rear wheels and when I rotated the car on the rotisserie, the panhard rod was actually in the trunk and I had forgotten to take it out, punched a hole in that cross tunnel. That was the end of that project. Our current 71 has some serious rust at the rockers, like yours. Haven't wanted to (Look at it) take care of it yet. Having too much fun driving it. I may start this winter once the garage is finished. I know the drivers side lower door hinge portion of the A pillar is rotted away and the door sags

[mohle]

Yup, scrapped the car. Mice got into the cross tunnel above the rear wheels and when I rotated the car on the rotisserie, the panhard rod was actually in the trunk and I had forgotten to take it out, punched a hole in that cross tunnel. That was the end of that project. Our current 71 has some serious rust at the rockers, like yours. Haven't wanted to (Look at it) take care of it yet. Having too much fun driving it. I may start this winter once the garage is finished. I know the drivers side lower door hinge portion of the A pillar is rotted away and the door sags

I think I can fix the area around my panhard rod. It isn't great though. I am basically rebuilding the entire sill/rocker panel area. Will also need to replace the floors for which I was able to buy some pans. I was looking at complete front fenders, but considering the cost of shipping to Canada, it would have doubled the price. As it is I am replacing the rockers, sills, passenger rear wheel arch, drivers quarter panel and all floors. I will be needing to do a whole lot of metal work and hammering on the fenders and front.

[seabeelt]

If you can afford it, you could buy all of the sheet metal here: http://www.spider-point.com/ and pay the bulk shipping from Germany. Bought my sills from them, but looks like AR is carrying them now. You have your work cut out (no pun intended) for you. Looking forward to all of the progress photos.

[mohle]

Very nice selection. I know the Spider has a great following in Germany. A little on the pricey side for myself, considering that I will still have to refurbish and/or replace pretty much all of the interior and a good part of the mechanicals.

[seabeelt]

For most of the miscellaneous sheet metal, I stopped at a local body shop and they let me rummage through their scrap and I came home with three hoods and a truck tailgate for free. Nice thing is that it all has paint and good primer on it so all you have to do is sand where you are going to weld. Talk about cheap At the time I ordered the sills from Spiderpoint, they were the only source that had them. Bruce's listed them, but he was going out of business and wasn't getting any more new stock from them. Wolf Steel makes some nice parts as well. I think AR is carrying stock from both places. Not cheap - any of it, but it's nice that it's available. I don't mind fabricating, but I'm limited to what I can bend and don't have anything to make rolled or pressed sections to add the structural stiffness that you get from that. From what I can tell in the photo, it looks like your are doing a really nice job of it. just curious, are you doing lapped joints or butt welding them?