My Piazza project thread

Bugle · Post by **Bugle** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 6:25 pm

Dug all the seam sealant out of where the chassis rail meets the firewall and found that moisture had gotten under the seam sealant and made a mess of the rail. There's actually a rust hole at one point. So I think i'm gonna have to chop out a piece of the floorpan and fix the rail then weld the bit back into the floor. Everyone should check this spot on their car..

Rodeobob · Post by **Rodeobob** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 6:57 pm

I think thats where Chris and Joe had rust in their red beast they drove around the big island.

Bob.

Bugle · Post by **Bugle** » Wed Nov 02, 2005 12:22 am

Yeah I bet heaps of Piazzas and Geminis have it.
As soon as you get an undetected brake fluid leak it'll wreck the paint and seam sealant and start rust. Also it catches leaves and dirt where the fuel/brake lines run in the corner of the floorpan/rail which makes it worse.

Bugle · Post by **Bugle** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 10:32 pm

Yea pulled the car apart a bit more

Pulled the rest of wiring out of the engine bay so I could clean it.

This is the firewall and floor.. Bit of rust here from a leaking clutch master cylinder just surface rust though.

So I cut out a piece of the floor so I could get to the rail then cut the rail. Note the rail is 2 layers thick from just behind the crossmember mounts to where it meets the sill.. Gemini seems to be just 1 layer the whole way..

Only pic I took of the rail replacement bit at the moment sitting in place taped in.. Was wondering where I was gonna find some 2.5mm steel to make the bit, then I checked this chop i got for the Gemini to fix some rust and found the suspension arm mount is 2.5mm and there was a large enough flat piece to use for my purpose

Then once i'd finished that I made a replacement piece for the firewall section that I had to chop out.. and drilled some holes for plug welding where the original spot welds were.

GeminiCoupe · Post by **GeminiCoupe** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 10:08 am

Have fun with the wiring LOL, that looks farked. Wonder how much neater things would be if, say the standard ecu's were ditched and replaced with a single unit, along with the cruise control.

I think it might be time you did a write up on the rust repairs, because although i know how to make some of the simpler panels some of the ones youve made are like wtf? How you hold them in place, how you weld them [type of weld etc] would be nice too

Nick-

twocan · Post by **twocan** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 2:16 pm

I had the same rust problem in my car. In mine it rusted between the two plates of the rail all the way down until it joined to the floor pan. holes periodically along the rail. Not being any good at welding and the other rustholes in the car i decided to buy a shell off of elky and put the parts in it. probably not the easyist way to do it but oh well. good luck with it, hope it works nicley

twocan

Bugle · Post by **Bugle** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 8:11 pm

Wiring isn't too bad pretty easy getting it to all the places it needs to go. I think it gets alot worse when it gets behind the dash though! Yeah i could do a workshop article on doing rust repairs and forming bits of metal..

Daamn twocan a re-shell is a bit of effort! After doing the rust on the Gemini the Piazza has very minor rust I don't think any rust can defeat me now.

Rodeobob · Post by **Rodeobob** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 12:15 am

twocan wrote:I had the same rust problem in my car. In mine it rusted between the two plates of the rail all the way down until it joined to the floor pan. holes periodically along the rail. Not being any good at welding and the other rustholes in the car i decided to buy a shell off of elky and put the parts in it. probably not the easyist way to do it but oh well. good luck with it, hope it works nicley

twocan

I hope you kept the shell.

Bob.

Bugle · Post by **Bugle** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 10:43 pm

Thought id post some more stuff.. Missed the dead line to get a pink slip so I've gotta get a blue slip now but thats ok because i've rebuilt the whole car it should pass ok.

Some pics of fixing the rail

This is the piece of gemini rear suspension arm mount after a bit of heating and hammering on the anvil

Then welded in. Forgot to take some pics of it in primer after i'd cleaned off all the remaining surface rust but it looked alright.

Then I stuffed a load of seam sealant on the rail, stuck this bit on and welded it in

Bugle · Post by **Bugle** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 10:59 pm

Painted the bottom of the crossmember

Lower arms
That's as far as I could get the bush in with my little arbor press so i'm going to have to make a tool with a big bolt down the middle where I tighten the nut and it pulls the bush in..

Upper arms

Decided to make some radius rod bushes the original rubber ones are damaged a bit

GeminiCoupe · Post by **GeminiCoupe** » Sun Nov 27, 2005 11:08 am

Thomas, if it means anything to you im VERY fucking impressed with your welding/rust work. The more i look at the work youve done to your cars the more im convinced i couldve saved my TE. Too late now..

Cant beleive you have your own lathe you bastard. Whatd you make the bushes out of? Looks like some sort of rubber/plastic compound.

Nick-

Bugle · Post by **Bugle** » Sun Nov 27, 2005 2:32 pm

Thanks Nick, yeah anything can be saved, except maybe an EH I saw at the wreckers which looked like it had been underwater for the past 20 years. Also I admit it is pretty strange to be restoring a Gemini in the condition mine was in I wonder why I bother sometimes.

Yeah it's Noltec polyurethane rod http://www.noltecsuspension.com/product ... _vhcid=791
Bought some a while back to make these rear bushes have just enough left over to make these ones luckily!

Also got the urge yesterday arvo to make a shiney gear knob for the car to replace the cheap gold one I had before, the lathe is teh best tool ever

GeminiCoupe · Post by **GeminiCoupe** » Sun Nov 27, 2005 2:39 pm

That solid rod doesnt sound cheap...the bushes you made were for the rear lower control arms right?

As for the Gemini, mate most people wouldnt save one - takes a lot of time, care and effort to save one like your one. I used to love my TE, dad bought it for 1k back in 96 and only spent $150 on it [aside from rego] over the whole 8yrs we owned it. That was the car that taught me what oversteer was and how to "double shuffle". Wouldve loved to save it...pity i have no welder/welding experience. The old man is VERY handy with a welder but he cbf. So yeah she went to the scrap.

Speaking of old Holdens...once my Gemini is finished im thinking about building a HR Premier for a daily with a VS V6.

Nick-

Rodeobob · Post by **Rodeobob** » Sun Nov 27, 2005 11:15 pm

GeminiCoupe wrote:Speaking of old Holdens...once my Gemini is finished im thinking about building a HR Premier for a daily with a VS V6.

Nick-

Would be a sweet ride. Id be sure and go with the rack and pinion modded front end too, cut down diff from the donor car.

I always wanted an XL Falcon ute. Retro fitted with a cross flow. That would be old tech these days, but it was back when the EA was the new big thing, so it wasnt that old. Id have to go a Barra motor now even an AU one would do. My mate had (well still has but its stored up and getting rustier by the day) an XM coupe he did up and i had a few sedans and a ute for paddok bombs. I rekon a sedan with the full retro treatment would be good too.

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Im Jealous of that lathe Bugle.
How much was that rod??
Is it tougher than the red stuff??? i tried to spin down some red bushes once with little luck.
Could be looking for some sets for my suspension too, no doubt a few others could be as well. Ive got to fit the front ball joints and swaybar rubers so i might as well do the springs and the rest of the bushes while im at it.

Im on the lookout at the moment for somone with a lathe that will spin up 15". I might make up something myself. Ive got some rims here for the Piazza i want to widen but the centres have to be bored out a bit. Centres will come out easy enough then put em in a jig and weld em into a wider rim.
My mate has a lathe but its not big enough and he lives whoopies away.

Cheers. Bob.

Bugle · Post by **Bugle** » Mon Nov 28, 2005 1:56 pm

Nah go a HK Brougham 307 for a daily

Yeah the rod was around $120 I think pretty exxy for a piece of plastic!
Noltec is 85 durometer the higher the number the stiffer, red is Nolathane brand isnt it? They all seem to use a similar durometer rating for suspension bushes. It's not easy to turn because it's so soft had one grab on the lathe tool and fly out of the lathe and hit me in the head. Was so nice to machine a solid piece of aluminium after working with that shit.

Gotta sort out a swaybar mount bush as well. Gemini end links are the same but the sway bar pivot bushes are 22mm. I think i'll just get a pair of those from Noltec and stick them in a Gemini mount bolted to a flat piece of steel and mount them in the 4-jaw chuck then bore them out to 23mm.

That'd be a huge lathe to be able to hold a 15 inch wheel!