The gentle restoration thread

[Pulsar]

Going off thread slightly, but these are mine

08 Xterra, spent way too much on it, but it has lasted me over 6 years... and thats saying something
03 Tiburon GT. Got it for $2500, only had 104k miles on it. Fun work beater 

[gentlydoingit*]

Did a little work to the white pagoda today, started trimming its hard top too. Also did a little more exploratory work on the vantage but I forgot to grab a pic.

[gentlydoingit*]

Before;


After;

[gentlydoingit*]

Slightly embarrassed by the welding tbh, so heres a pic of the setting up bench weld test    



You can see I set it up perfectly.. shame the 40 odd year old British steel of the Aston didn't concur. 

[Pulsar]

Hey, "little grinding and a little paint will make a welder what he aint"... or... "you can either be a good welder or a good grinder" 

Joking aside, good work. I was never too good with sheet metal. Too used to big steel and high amps I guess. I can do it, but never really liked it

[gentlydoingit*]

I don't mind welding the thin gauges tbh, but when they're old, rust impregnated and been linished in an earlier life it becomes an epic ball ache. Add that to awkward body positioning and welding overhead on one of the hottest days of the year and it becomes a total nightmare!

If I do some production work you'll see the difference  

[Pulsar]

Yeah, I know what you mean.. my mom actually was the one to always tell me "you can either be a good welder or a good grinder". Pretty sure it was my dad that said "a little grinding and a little paint will make a welder what he aint" lol 

My mom was a tig welder in the Air Force. Welding on exotic metals and all that good stuff on experimental aircrafts. She said they would pretty much get a print to a small part, fab it and weld it, they would never know what exactly it was going on. She quit welding when I was 3 or so, but my dad says she is one of the best welders hes ever seen, and he dont got much good to say about her so I kind of got to believe it lol 


Edit: Ill snap some pics of a weld I been 3 days on so far.

[Almost Jaded]

How the hell did I miss this thread?!

I *LOVE* the Vantages.  I wish they'd go a little retro with the new ones and shoot for that look.  Yummy.

I would kill to get my hands on an FD.  And then motor swap the hell out of it.  Wankel's are the least efficient mechanism ever conceived for turning gasoline into power.  Yuck.  I had a chance to buy a really well set up LS1 swapped '95 a few years ago; every panel that could be replaced with CF had been, full race suspension, Penske shocks, 3 sets of wheels.  Real seats.  Seriously upgraded brakes.  It was a longtime SCCA member and former champion that had built it; he offered it up for $15k to club members only, $18k outside of the club.  I kick myself every day for not buying that thing.

I had a friend in high school who redneck engineered a Chevy 454 into a Sprite.  They moved the firewall back 6" and the rear axle was offset 8" to one side so it would drive straight under even moderate throttle.  Looked ridiculous.  Drove even more ridiculous.  Always wondered what became of that monster.

   

[Chuck-Drl]

I never quite developed a nack for electric welders , not enough experience . I was however quite tallented with an acetylene torch and a brass rod . Did auto body repair and auto machining in job cors , wanted to build hot rod . Got out of job corps , took a job washing dishes and eventualy learned i was tallented in the kitchen.

[Pulsar]

To me taking a Wankel out and putting in an American v8 just kills the car.