My mean green hornet

I made one for my morris minor convertible, a scaffold pole through the middle and an A frame stand at each end.
worked a treat, used a small block and tackle mounted in the ceiling of the room to safely rotate the frame to any desired position...
materials cost $300, labor free, time about one day of toil...
Ohh and 3 cans of green aerosol spray to make it look pretty :rolleyes:
Peter
 
I bought a new one from ebay for £200 designed specifically for the P6B. After redesigning it to actually fit a P6B, I used it to rebuild Sparky, then sold if for £120 :)

It really did make the work a great deal easier, and I mean a great deal. :)
 
Corazon, your man cave looks like a wicked place to work! Well lit, nice big door, and now a rollover jig to boot. How I wish I had one of those!
Those fat and sparkly rims in the background will be a good motivation to get that P6 back together now! Crack on, keep the updates coming thick and fast.
 
It’s already so handy just assessing different areas of the shell that were tricky to see before :cool:

I nearly made one but decided to go with a tried and tested design from Lee @ BrightSparksWelding. He advertises on eBay and will copy your bumper irons to make brackets that will actually fit the car. £290 + postage but his are made with much chunkier steel than most on eBay, fully height adjustable.
Plus all the time I’ve been spending on making other tooling recently I thought I really should concentrate my energies on the actual car!

Thanks, my current workshop has completely spoiled me I’ll admit. I’ll be losing it soon as this house is on the market for sale. Luckily I’ve secured another great space as part of where I’ll be living next. It’s a shared barn but the owner has a 4 post ramp which will be mighty useful!

Jim
 
Some daylight shots of the mess I’m cutting out and doing properly, along with any other areas the blasting uncovers..
Much of the sills was done very cheaply (as you’ll see) by a friend’s step dad soon after I bought the car 9 years ago. This was to get through MoT and enable me to keep the car on the road, so I’m very grateful he helped me out all those years before I could weld etc.
Having said that, the welds are some of the worst I’ve seen, and it’ll come as no surprise I began to get wet carpets soon after the work was done.

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Full length sill panels (inner and base unit) ordered from Wadhams, along with some others to save time such as headlamp splash panels. Everything else I’ll form by hand, shrinker stretcher, bead roller etc.

I can’t wait to see it blasted!

Jim
 
Hey Jim
I was looking at your photo of the heavy duty spring compressor and the 'Porta power ram'. Help me comprehend what I'm looking at!
The horseshoe compressor isn't hydraulic, is it? Is it opened and closed by a threaded nut using an open ended spanner?
You used that hydraulic pump to extend the 'power ram' to lift the swivel pillar so as to partly compress the coil, then held and further compressed the road spring with the horseshoe clamp, which only clamped three coils of the spring but which did the trick?
I have to dismantle my front suspension to replace the rubber bushes on the lever that fits in the front spring cups. I want to get a tool that will fit in the wheel well and grip my 130% uprated and slightly shorter springs really safely.
I'm looking at the compressor in your pic and wondering how the horseshoes grip the slanted coils!?
I welcome your thoughts!
 
Hey Al,
Exactly, the compressor is a heavy duty threaded shaft with one moving jaw block. Nothing hydraulic about it. It comes with removable 'horseshoes' in different sizes. It's a well designed chunky tool, very happy with it.
Each horseshoe has an offset/twist to it so it matches and grips the spring coils correctly as they slant. Hard to describe, instantly clear when you have it in front of you.
Mine was particularly tricky as the shell was fully stripped/no engine weight etc, and I had that damaged bowed spring..
You could use a jack and block of wood instead of the porta power, or indeed just follow Ron's front spring removal thread and use the new compressors without supporting the bellcrank arm.
Once the coils are compressed safely it is just a matter of undoing the the 4 nuts inside the car incrementally until the arm drops far enough to remove the spring.
You may well be able to catch more coils with your springs, but 3 was ample to compress and decompress safely.
Hope that helps, definitely best to get your head around the task fully before attempting it.
Just be methodical and take your time :)
Jim
 
Where do I start?..It's been rather a long time since I made any kind of update here.
House and workshop move has really halted progress.
I'm nearly there with my new workshop but I'll set the scene just for entertainment purposes.

Currently all my tools and parts of the car which are being retained are in a container on site here at my new place.
The Rover shell has been sheeted on a trailer since November.
Early January I started refurbishing/upgrading a spare trailer to use for the Rover as I'd been borrowing my landlord's.

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It needed some strengthening by my reckoning, so I welded in some extra steel. This was only the second project with my new ESAB machine, which so far I love using.

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I then treated it to new 18mm ply, covered with rubber diamond plate that was laying around, and finished with 25mm aluminium angle

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And here's me swapping from trailer to trailer singlehanded

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Next installment, workshop build

Jim
 
Thanks Mr H

The day after the trailer swap I helped my landlord load his 40s Plymouth Deluxe, and we trailered it to a bodyshop in Essex- can't remember their name right now..but they had a bubble top impala in primer and some other interesting cars.

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So, onto the worksop build. Originally I was to have an uncovered space between containers, build a roof and sort a floor etc.
I designed a roof using scaffold that we already had, top and bottom 2x2 timber hole-sawed and sandwiching the scaffold tubing.
The whole structure was to be locked to the corners of the containers with Twistlocks.
Once I had the frame together it was decided I could actually use an already roofed space between two other containers!
Luckily it's slightly larger and had been evacuated rather quickly by some builders.
I was also paid to finish the roof so got that mostly complete last week, it's more of a carport than anything now

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Anyway, onto my actual workspace!
I ripped out a subsided wet ply/pallet floor, wacked the ground as level as possible and set to building a strong floor with provision for cars at the front. Again recycling whatever I could scavenge, I worked out a floor plan involving steel beams, channel and timber.
Luckily there is a recycled wood store nearby in Brighton and just short of £100 got me a van full of chunky timber.

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That was as of last night. Note 4" sleepers and steel beams making up my car area between 6" I beam and channel, was like building a railway line!

And after today I've got to here

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There's a double thickness of 18mm ply on the car area which sits nice and flush with the steel, and it feels more than adequate support.

Hopefully I'll be able to make a car update fairly soon!
 
Its looking good Jim.
My only concern is with all that steel walling and roof sheeting you may find you have a condensation problem and may have to factor in some insulation at some point otherwise things may get dripped on and also the atmosphere may be quite damp in there.
Good ventilation may also help.
 
Thanks. Yeah it's not ideal, I have my tools in a uninsulated container at the moment and the bed of my mill has developed a layer of rust annoyingly- nothing that can't be fixed of course but not nice on precision surfaces.
The pitched roof has plenty of ventilation but insulation and thin boarding the walls is a good plan, if the funds are there..
 
A little workshop progress. Rear wall and windows in, floor 90% complete, door next and then I'm moving tools and Rover in!

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Each door will be hung on three of these, captive hinge design I made from modified key clamp fittings and 6" straight trailer hinges

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I hope to furnish you all with a car update very soon!

Jim
 
I had an corrugated iron garage and condensation was no issue until I boxed in the open area above the doors as it looked untidy! Soon opened it up again as everything covered in moisture.
 
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