passenger door sils

Scared yet? Bog was covering most of it. Giving the rust a nice little
hidey hole to grow in.

LH side behind door

Just thought I'd take some more paint off.

Shockingly bad. Nothing really unexpected.

Visit from the Boys in Blue

The neighbors called the cops on me tonight.

Just after dark. Say 7ish. Me in the garage, one roller door up, the mini sticking out by about one third. They must have had about all the angle grinder noise they could take. Fair enough I guess. Would have preferred a quiet word in person though.

I was welding when they showed up. Gave me a yell.
The conversation went something like this [through the mini since it is jammed sideways in the door]:

Me: G'day. Wasup?
Cops: We've had a complaint about noise. Something about an angle grinder and loud music. Have you been using a grinder?
Me: Yep, a bit earlier.
[radio is on JJJ in the background]
Cops: And the radio you've haven't had it louder?
Me: Nope. Is it too loud?
Cops: [Look at eacher other] Nah that's alright.
Cop2: You might wanna just close the door if you're making noise.
Cop1: Err, you probably want to do that sort of thing during the day.
Me: No problem. I'll leave the grinder alone tonight.
Cops: So no more grinding?
Me: Right.

Can't imagine it was well spent tax payer money. I bet some poor bugger was getting their house broken into as we spoke.

And I bet the same bloody neighbor won't bother to call the cops when some bastard is ransacking the garage and making away with my tools & stuff.

So I guess this means I have to start getting a whole heap more out of my weekends.

LH rear inner skin done

I'm getting better and quicker at doing this.

LH rear inner skin

Don't you hate it when you have to grind your beautiful welds back?

LH rear floor mostly done

Didn't turn out too bad for a hour or so's work.

LH rear floor fabrication

A bit of bending, a radius cut. Some faffing around, but not too hard.

LH rear floor removal

Tacked & hacked.

LH rear floor discovery

Was ready to start work patching the LH side when I wire brushed the
inside to prevent the paint catching on fire. Discovered it was far to
far gone.

RH rear out skin patched

Had the MIG running well and was doing good welds when I run out if MIG wire. Tried my big roll of 0.9mm wire, but it's just too heavy for panel work.

Back to supercheap: $22 for a mini spool of 0.8mm.
Another ~$20 for cutting wheels and goggles (from the first trip).

Oh yeah, I think the eye soreness from yesterday was just steel in my eyes from grinding all day long, not the auto-darkening helmet. Hence the new goggles.

I'm still using the auto-darkening helmet only when I need my other hand to hold the job. I prefer the old flip front the majority of the time.

RH rear inner skin patched

Late start today, then burned some DVDs for Danidad.

Created a patch out of some offcuts from the replacement floor pan, but
after it was done decided to got for the thicker zinc coated gear.
Discovered air nibbler doesn't like going through that stuff (too
thick?) so back to the angle grinder. Want to buy another grinder since
I'm getting sick of changing between the wire brush and the cutting and
grinding discs.

Dion called from Ballina on his way back from Sydney with his new
Aprilla Falco. Wanted to meet me at Mooball so we could do Buringbah,
Mur'bah, Currumbin. Took a couple of hours.

Welded in the patch. Partially welding in some of the donor floor from
Bob.

Sore eyes tonight, might give the auto-darkening helmet a rest. I don't
think it's reaction time is good enough.

Tools & Costs

So I think I'll start blogging the money I spend on the resto, just so I can tally it all up some day.

Today @ Superdodgy spent ~$44 on:
Sandblaster, some grinding & cutting wheels, spray pack primer.

Left Hand side the same

More work to be done here too.

Left Hand side the same

More work to be done here too.

Angle Grinder Master

Yep cut all the rust out.

Right Rear Quarter: Rust 'n' Bog

Who ever painted this mini last was a Michelangelo with bog.

There appears to be some crash damage. I'm no panel beater by any
stretch, but a little work with a hammer and dolly should see it
straightened out. But our Michelangelo decided to bog over it (and the
rust holes). The bog was up to 2cm thick in places.

Rear Quarter

Decided to take the paint off where it was bubbling today with the wire
brush in the angle grinder.

Discovered bog... more than expected...

First Post

Why is it so hard to get blogspace that will host photos, or just plain free webspace? I miss the bubble days.

Now I have to stuff around with flickr... this is far harder than it needs to be.

Anyway this blog is about my bare-metal resto of this lil beastie we affectionately call the Monster Truck: