The car's been mainly undriven for whole summer.

I've been having a bit of motivational troubles. Quite honestly I got fed up with the constant repairs, which the car required while I was daily driving it so I've been keeping a bit of a pause and I've been mainly driving the S90.

But now I've got the motivation back so I bought a lightweight sheet metal bender and I will be making my own sills some time in near future. Old ones were replaced at 2005 or so, but as the floor of the car near the sills is somewhat similiar to a puzzle (consisting of many pieces) I'll be replacing the sills and re-doing the floor near the sills. It's quite intact but there's some surface corrosion at many of the current weldings etc... so it's not pretty and there's always some seam which corrodes through. I'll be redoing everything properly this time and everything will be epoxy painted.

I'll be making the new sills from galvanized sheet metal, thickness somewhere between 1.0 and 1.5mm and I'll be also welding a support beam inside the lower part of the sill in such way, that the car can be lifted with a jack from any point of the sill. Should be strong enough and no worries about rust.

-Marko

Good stuff

Ben........

Everything's been delayed but the car hasn't been abandoned! I've been quite busy with other stuff so the car has been hibernating through the winter. I did start and ran it for a while regularly during the winter though to keep everything in order. It started every time untill the 2004 labelled battery died.

I had to move it one time during the winter when the whole parking lot was wiped clean from the accumulated snow.. Of course the parking lot was ploughed every time it snowed, but the snow started to pile on to the sides of the parking lot so much that ploughing became impossible so they had to transport the snow elsewhere.

Well the car had a dead battery then and of course summer tires as I didn't drive it at all during the winter. Not a problem. Some auxilliary power from the S90 and snow chains and we were good to go.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1rizfhob4stoc ... 2013_2.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cbmlxjp3fg0el ... 2013_3.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/17kar0lm105lq ... r_2013.jpg

A coldstart from -15C (5 degrees fahrenheit) when the car hadn't been started for four months.. Not too bad I think.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/d4wne95p47g6o1c/coldstart.mp4
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3rrljsml27ra2e0/running.mp4

But now it's time to get the car through mot so I can drive it again, because it's spring time and no more snow! I ordered ~200 euros worth of car polishing and wax products so that should get me somewhere with the paint surface.. I think there will be enough left to polish the S90 also... I'll be redoing the sills mentioned above at some time, but first I'll just want to get it through MOT and drive for a while! I'll change the front spirngs to Intrax racing ones I ordered a year ago and polish it. Then it's good to go!

Older pics are dead temporarily as I'm changing the host! Those will be back online when I'll get files sorted out.


-Marko

It's still a lovely car. A body-kitted red 3dr GLT - my ideal 300

Keep up the work, you'll be pleased you kept the car one day!

Cheers

Tom

Lovely car but not sure about the galv plate idea, surely the welds will still be the rust weakspots?

Main reason for galvanized is because I happen to have that in storage.

Better to store than normal mild steel, as the normal mild steel gathers surface rust very quickly from air moisture alone.

But even though weld seams will be non galvanized, there's still some advantage when replacing large areas of steel which cannot be painted from other side. Of course I'll spray the sills etc... inside with cavity wax, but it's always better more there are large areas which cannot gather even surface rust.

One guy I know uses a lot of galvanized sheet metal for same reasons.

New beams he made for the floor of the 142:




If you have to do welding and sheet metal work, his project pics are very inspirational. 16 pages of body work pics: http://smg.photobucket.com/user/244x2/l ... t=9&page=1

-Marko

I thought it would be harder to weld than that, but looks very neat.

Hot galvanized sheet metal is quite "neat" to weld. Electro galvanized becomes messy more easily as the galvanization burns away from larger areas more easily. Hot galvanized is more durable also as the zinc layer is thicker.

Both are "self-correcting" to some point, hot galvanized better because the zinc layer is thicker. Small scartches etc... will "grow" intact as the zinc and mild steel forms a galvanic pair, where zinc is anode and mild steel is cathode. Zinc around the scratch will dissolve and precipitate again on to the surface of mild steel.

With both you have to have a very good ventilation when welding if you don't grind the seam area before welding, because zinc fumes are not healthy! If you'll breath the fumes you might get what is called "zinc fever", which is caused by zinc oxide gotten in to your blood stream. Zinc oxide in your blood stream will cause fever, nausea and headache.

Well this got quite far from a 360 but thought to share if someone plans on welding zinc plated sheet metal.


-Marko

over here it is known as galva-flue and can also come with a good dose of the shits!

What is this...



Could it be...

Yes! Something has finally been done with the 360. I drove it to the carage yesterday and started with the polishing. It was a sad sight as it had been outside without any protection from the weather for about a year... Whole car was as badly oxidized as the hood at the picture above.

But with some cyclo-polisher action with Sonüs SFX-1, SFX-2 and SFX-3 it's already looking much better.



Still have to put on few coats of Carnauba wax on and vacuum the interior... Then I'll take it to the MOT, drive it (finally!) for awhile and start with the body work stuff (sills and rear arches). No hurry though as there's nothing major, only cosmetical stuff.. But as the floor around sills is done patch-fix style, I'll redo those areas completely like mentioned before.

But it's nice just to drive it for a while because after I did the engine work, changed the manifold, gearbox etc.. I haven't actually driven the car at all. Engine works like a charm and ~0,5bar of boost comes on almost instantly with the new setup when you touch the pedal. That's also the max boost level currently, I don't go more with the piggypack setup. ~1bar when I'll get the MS installed and after that it's time for a new (larger and stronger redblock) engine and stronger box/diff.

I also have arranged a dry winter storage place for the 360 so no more outside storage at mercy of the weather!


-Marko

Finished the polishing and waxing about a week ago.



The chroming on the plastic 360GLT badge was faded and flaked so I went over the badge with a polishing machine also. Much better than the faded chrome.



Overall the car came out pretty nice.




Rear arches and lower parts of the doors need some work at some time in the future. I'll have to fit the OEM side skirts and repair the cracks on the front piece of the bodykit also.

But it's finally on the road again!




-Marko

Dude, looks awesome. Well done

Well done Fuse. A good polish has always been the best way to get rid of the "pinkyness" ...

Cheers

Tom

Hello!

Still alive and I do have the GLT also. I haven't had too much time to work with cars in past couple years, it's been quite hectic at the work etc... but now things have settled a bit so I do have time to work with cars again!

I did try to get the car through MOT two years ago when those last pics were taken but it needed some major work around the rear archers (both rear arches and wheel wells need welding) and also the panelling behind the bumper at the rear needs to be replaced.

I didn't have time then to tackle those issues so sadly for one more winter the car was parked outside. I did occasionally drive short trips though to keep everything working and not jamming etc...

I decided that the car won't be outside another winter and when I'll start to work on those rust problems, I'll sort out everything from the underside also because the car's floor has too many "patch up weldings" so it's like a puzzle in some areas. I'll cut out those and do it proper this time.

The problem was where to do all this work. The garage my brother in law and my sister have is an excellent place, all the tools and 2-pillar lift, good lightning etc... but of course my brother in law uses it quite a lot also, so I couldn't start such a huge project there.

Soo... I arranged a transfer for the GLT to my friend's farm in central parts of Finland. At last fall he picked the car up with a trailer and transported the car to the winter storage at his farm. He also has a fully equipped garage there and plenty of storage space and also all the welding and metal fabrication equipment, so working out that rust problem is not an issue anymore. He already has about 10 cars there so one more doesn't matter...

It's a bit of a trip though, ~300km from where I live but my friend drives there and back every weekends as for weekdays he works as a reporter in Helsinki, so I can hitch a ride whenever necessary.. The place is also along the way to my summer house.

We are planning to do a one week of intensive metal work and sort everything in such order that the car passes MOT and then I'll drive the GLT to Helsinki so I can finally (legally) drive it at this summer.

Some pics of the transportation to the winter storage.

Picking up the car



Nice dry barn to hibernate during the winter.




Edit: The older pic links are dead again, I do have everything at a new server though so I'll replace the links in couple days!

Thanks for the update Marko, good to hear from you and your car again. Look forward to seeing how the work progresses!

Tom