ST162-7254182 "Dirty Deeds" Edited

Re: hatch rust

If your rust is on both sides and your going to use 2 back to back right angle pieces I'd probably use 18 guage

 

Re: ST162-7254182

Well Hell time is finished for now. I got as much as possible sand blasted. To do
any more I would have to remove all the suspension members so I may do that
next summer.

Spare tire wheel well now protected with rust converter.


Back of the rear passenger wheel well


Top of the rear passenger strut tower


Front of the rear passenger wheel well


Passenger side rear fender


Passenger side front floor


Passenger side rear suspension bracket


Rear passenger side underbody


Rear sub frame


Rear drivers side frame


Rear sub frame


Rear drivers side suspension bracket


Rear drivers side underbody


Drivers side front floor


Drivers side front floor


All the sand I ended up with. Probably lost about 1/4 of the sand I started with



Well thats alot of rust that got obliterated. If I had to guess I'd say I got about
90% of all the rust on the car. Next summer hopefully I can get the rest. Inside
the car I got all the rust but under the car the exhaust system and suspension
members have prevented a perfect job their.

Now I've got alot of metal to cut & bend & weld

 

Re: ST162-7254182

Not much has happened in the past couple of days. I got the car back in the
garage and I got the yard cleaned up. Took down the tarps and we got a good
rain so it cleaned all the dust of the All Trac as well.


I got a fuel filler pipe from irish, its the top 1 in the following 2 pictures. So I did
more media blasting at least this time in my booth.




Also gathered up a bunch of nuts and bolts to clean up. For these little piece
I made a wooded basket with a piece of window screen for its bottom. Its
pretty hard to hold some of the small nuts and bolts when you have the big
heavy rubber sand blasting gloves on so it helps to have a big basket to hold
them in.


After media blasting and being dipped in rust converter


Almost finished but I ran out of media before I got the pipe finished and didn't
want to collect the media and screen it so I just put rust converter on the section
that was media blasted and will finish the rest when I get more parts to clean.

 

Re: ST162-7254182

I think that the phase unibody scares alot of people but really it only means the center section
of the frame is removed. A unibody car has a front and rear subframe which are attached to the
body so the drivers compartment must be made ridgid enough to replace the missing center frame
section. Now in the case of my Celica the rocker panels would definetly count as a substantial part
of the central drivers compartment structure and mine are pretty shot but I do over engineer repairs
of rocker panels as you may recall from my All Trac. In its case the original inner 14-16 guage rocker
panel was still good enough to keep and all I really had to replace was the outer 18 guage panel but
I put in an interior 14 guage panel and also made the outer panel out of 14 guage sheet metal so the
resulting structural member now has an inner 14 guage panel perhaps weakened to the srength of
16-18 guage metal due to rust pitting plus 2 layers of 14 guage sheet metal so ultimately the resulting
structural member has actually gained the strength of an additional 14 guage metal panel. So do I think
my repaired rocker panel is as strong as the original panel Toyota made? Yes without a doubt the new
rocker panel is stronger than the original panel on my All Trac. So I'm not worried about that structural
member. Heres a pic of the All Trac rocker under construction.



So lets look at the rest of the unibody's strength. In the following pic you see the rear sub frame section
which extends all the way forward to the area of the back door pillar.


Looking inside the frame member its relatively rust free inside and the exterior is still well protected by
its undercoating.


In between the 2 rear frame rails is the rear suspension cross member and it has a bit of surface rust
but it's structural integrity has definetly not been compromised.


Looking at the rear of the car from the inside I have outlined what I considered to be the structural
members. Green is the rear subframe and is what I consider to be the strongest structural member.
Yellow I would call the main unibody structure and mainly consists of hollow columbs I would still rate
all these columbs as being as good as new. Blue adds a bit more ridgidity but is not very strong but
again I would rate it as good as new. Obviously the rear strut towers are an issue here but their
primary method of attachment which is to the rear subframe is still in good shape. The wheel well
which does add a bit of strength to the tower does need repairs but welding in new panels will
fix that area. The biggest problem is at the front top of the strut towers and I may end up welding
2 layers of 14 guage metal in that area and perhaps even put some sort of cross bracing between the towers


Moving forward if you look in the picture above at the bottom right corner you see a yellow line going
from the drivers side to the passenger side. This is a hollow columb that contains the openings for the
rear seat bottom front clips, here again its as good as new.


In addition to the rocker panels replacing the cental frame section their is also the strength built into
the central tunnel and it again is still in great shape.


Giving some cross support in the drivers compartment is this brace which has suffered some damage
so I'll rate it at 90%.


In the front of the drivers compartment below the brake pedal their is a little access hatch which
reveals several layers of metal which form a strong cross brace and is the mounting point for
the front sub frame.


This is the underside of the multiple layers of metal that form the front crossmember and their
is damage there but once repaired I'll give 90%.


Other than that you have your front door pillars, windshield frame and that big round bar
under your dash. And that should pretty much include all the structural members of a
unibody car and overall all I would say that once repaired this Celica will be at least as
structurally sound as almost all other 20 year old Celica's.

As far as welding is concerned any panel MIG welded the way I weld them (seam to seam)
should be stronger than the original metal. 2 pieces of 14 guage MIG welded together when
stressed along the seam should fail in one of the 2 pieces of metal. IE one of the 2 broken
pieces of metal will contain all of one of the original pieces of metal pluss the welded seam
plus a broken piece of the second original piece of metal. And thats a MIG welded seam.
I don't know of any seam on vehicles welded in that way all vehicles use spot welds which
greatly reduce the strength of the seam. Heres pictures of the rear sub frame attached to
the vehicle, outlined in boxes are the spot welds.

In the hatch area


Under the rear passenger seat


I count a few more than 30 and given rusted out spots maybe 40 spot welds
attach your rear sub frame to the vehicle. One thing race car drivers do is to
weld solid all these spot welded seams so I'm not to worried about how a bunch
of welded panels is going to hold up in a crash. Of cource it all depends on what
you feel comfortable with. This is a small low car you get T boned by a pickup
and your in big trouble even if the car is brand new. Sports cars are never going
to fair well in an accident so the real key is not to be an idiot when your driving.
Take advantage of its performance when you can and pay attention to the other
drivers cause their the idiots that are potentially going to hit me.......I only really
hit deer reddevil

And like I said its all relative in the city I drive like I'm riding in the following car
but I sure feel alot safer in my Celica than I ever could in a smart car ack2 ack2
I wouldn't even want to hit a deer with one of those might flip the thing right over.
Now that Rick is a truely scary car..... thats maybe a city car if your a cautious driver
but yet I see them whipping up and down the highway all the time.

 

Re: ST162-7254182

I'm going to try and make it a christmas present to myself. That gives me 2 weeks
for welding and 2 weeks for bodywork so thats pushing it but I can try.

I decided to start with the front so I can get the forward part of the drivers
compartment painted black so I can have the option of getting the dash back
together. So I'm not just tack welding these pieces in place everything is being
finished as its installed.






Still a few small holes to fix most of these I'll just use MIG wire to fill the holes in

 

Re: ST162-7254182

Sorry about the hazy pictures its all the smoke from when my welding sets
the undercoating on fire. I constantly have to stop every few minutes and
look under the car to see if the undercoating has caught fire.

The back of the passenger side has been finished except for one hole I'm
going to patch from underneath.


The front half of the drivers side has been finished.

 

Re: ST162-7254182

Well I'm not a structural engineer but heres my take on that issue.

You can go back to the days when all vehicles had seperate frames and in most
cases the floors still had ribs. Ribs in the floor definetly do add strength to the floor
but that strength is designed to support the weight of a person. IE it is designed
to oppose a downwards force not a sideways, forward or rear force. Heres a pretty
simple example useing a piece of paper to simulate a piece of floor pan. Just as a simple
flat surface it has little strength.


Try to support a load on it and it has no strength.


But add some ribs or corugate the floor pan and its ability to support a load is greatly
increased. The downside to this is that the strength to resist a force in the Y direction
has been greatly reduced. The strength in the X direction has been increased but that
is a bonus byproduct of the main intent of the ribs which is to allow a thinner piece of
sheetmetal to cover a large area and allow it to support the weight of a person.


So I do loose some stiffness because my replacement pieces don't have ribs but I
compensate by useing much thicker sheet metal and by bending right angles into the
pieces where I can. For example on the passenger side front floor I have used 1 U shaped
piece and 1 L shaped piece. The U shaped piece I could do the same thing as the piece of
paper and support it on both ends and it would be strong enough to support my weight.
The L shaped piece is a double bonus I get the the additional strength of a right angle bend
and along the left side I have a nice surface to weld the corugated original floor to.


Both the passenger and drivers side rear floor pans has also been repaired useing U shaped
pieces so I think there may be some concerns if you just try to slap a thin piece of sheet
metal in place and attach it with some glue and screws like was originally done to this car




But I do try to compensate by useing thicker metal and by putting right angle bends in the
replacement panels where I see a need for added strength and by welding instead of pop
riveting or screwing the new panels in place.

Overall the strength of the floor is not going to play a significant role in preventing a side
impact. Once again it is a sports car very low to the ground and most side impacts are
going to be taken much higher up on the side of the body.

 

Re: ST162-7254182

Well I got screwed on friday the power went out and didn't come back on
till I had to go to work. Saturday and Sunday were work days so I finally got
back out to the garage today.

I was still pretty lazy today so I thought I'd start on a project I've wanted to
do for a long time. I'm old enough to have lived in the days of cheap gas prices
and custom vans and one of the things I really liked about my custom vans was
the sun visor over the front windshield. I've allways thought that the Celica would
look good with a visor so I finally started to make a pattern for 1. Since I can't
draw all I can do is try to make a pattern on the car and then visualize it rasied up
about 1.5" to 2".









And since I'm going to paint it flat black and given its indcredibly poor shape to
start with I'm considering this to be my version of a rat rod and rat rods look
good with visors


But probably the main reason I want a visor is because I want better night time
lighting. I think the headlights are too low on the car and so unless the road is
totally flat or your going uphill I find that you aren't allways getting much light
on the road where dead animals and other objects are lurking in the darkness.
I ran over a dead deer in my All Trac, it was lying in the middle of the road just
after a small hill so I didn't see it till to late. Went right down the middle of the
car. The brace under the engine that holds the front & rear motor mounts must
of acted like a small ramp. Stuff I had in the center console ended up in the
passenger seat. I have seen a log that fell off a logging truck on the road it was
a good 10' long and about 14" round. That would just be absolutely nasty to hit.
I found some 5" wide by 1.75" high lights I want to mount on the roof but think
it would look kind of dorky to just screw them to the roof so I think they could
be incorporated into the visor and get rid of the dorky look.



So I used a piece of string to mark of the center of the roof, I clamped it to the
center of the spray nozzle for the hatch window and ran it forward to the center
of the hood.



I also made a line right angle to the first line by running the string from this point
on both sides of the car.



So then it was time to cut some paper and see what it looked like









I made some molds and worked a bit with fiberglass before so I think for this job
I'm going to put seran wrap down on the roof and windshield and use some weather
stripping around the edges and lay the fiberglass right on the roof and windshield
and hope the resin doesn't eat through the seran wrap. Once I have a layer of
fiberglass layed down I can cut out openings for the lights and mould them into the
visor.

Afew shots with a feable attempt to give me some idea of what the rectangular
lights might look like. As a special note before someone decides to tell me that roof
mounted lights are illegal for highway use, I have checked the appropriate codes
and the rule states that headlights cannot be higher than 52" and I think mine will
be somewhere between 48" and 49" at their tops.







I allways liked rectangular headlighs and the big attraction for the above lights
was their 1.75" height but I thought I better check out what a 3" round light
would be like.


To make the actual visor I'm first going to lay down a layer of fiberglass in the
area between the green lines and once it has set I am going to raise that piece
up 1.5" to 2" to its final position and then I can make the 2 outside pieces that
will have to be custom curved.



Then once I have the basic shape I want I can cut out holes for the lights and mold
them into the visor, then I can add extra layers of fiberglass until I have the strength
I think is needed.

So that took most of the day, I got a few more pieces of metal cut but didn't do any
welding today.

 

Re: ST162-7254182

Well it was another day without welding but I did get a couple of things done.
In preparation for painting I removed most of what was left on the car.

I removed the taillights and license plate surround


Took out the side windows and cleaned up all the sticky crap


And got rid of some parts that were in the door pillar

I'm sick.....I need help.....

I went down to Ottawa today and picked up that coupe I had posted about earlier.



















So that brings the total too
1988 GTS Hatchback
1988 GTS Coupe
1988 All Trac

I think that pretty well completes my 88 collection