Thread: D1 First Build - Melbourne

Good luck with your project, I understand completely the attraction of starting with a basket case and learning the craft. The satisfaction is immense. I've been overcapitalising cars for more than 30 years as a hobby, learned heaps, made every mistake under the sun and made good friends along the way. I couldn't imagine the boredom an empty shed, no project and a healthy bank balance.
I've got a heap of interior plastics, dash bits, panels , doors, console & heater unit left over from wrecking a 97 D1 tdi for my LSE project. Come and pick over what you want, I don't want much. Also I have a re trimmed headlining for a D1 that was done for my brothers Disco which he is selling.

Justin

Man thats a big project!
Good luck!

Originally Posted by 460cixy

That's rust looked worse then it is for sure. Definitely ditch the factory carpet underlay

Yeah I really don't want to put that mess back in. Any ideas on what to replace it with? Toying with the dynamat idea, would probably appreciate it down the line, but I'm struggling to find a definitive answer as to what I should use as underlay. I'm also thinking that if I can get a decent rubber mat I might lose the carpets all together, would certainly make cleaning it easier.

Yeah not sure what to use. But some sort of rubber would be the go but with some way for it to breath so if it leaks again it can dry out

I'll ask around some places in Melbourne and report back

That winky face just looks plain weird.

So it's been a while since I posted here, I've been having financial nightmare after financial nightmare for the last six or seven months, tax payments, bloodsucking estate agents, Visa fees etc. all of which has meant my Disco got shelved. On the plus side I moved out of my last place to a house that not only has off-street parking but also a garage! Stoked.

So over the last two weekends I wanted to get as much of the structural and metalwork done whilst I can still work outside, once winter sets in I can do most of the other stuff in the garage or the car itself.

But before we moved I sorted out the rusting alpine windows. It was top of the list as water was streaming in, luckily all electricals in the area survived and are still functional, somehow.





I cut 2mm steel sheet for the window frames using what I cut out as templates, there are awkward angles around the base of the windows so there was a lot of sparking and grinding to get it all to shape which left a pretty ugly result, not to mention a cheap as chips welder, not ideal for thin sheet work but got there in the end. Once it was filled and sanded you wouldn't know the difference.



After that I decided to paint the roof but as I was in a public road I couldn't use spray paint so I was left with brushes and rollers, couldn't care less about how it turned out as long as it's waterproof so that's what it got. Good from afar but far from good, didn't get a snap of the black that went on after but you get the idea.



The last thing I tied up before the move was getting the rear windows working, replaced the old relay with the new component and it worked a treat, I bought two just in case I stuffed the first up so if anyone's in Melbourne and wants one you're more than welcome to have it.



After the house move I've been able to make some serious progress, this is all from the last two weekends. Firstly I wanted to get my a-pillar sorted, as the biggest structural problem I wanted to get it out of the way and hopefully trick myself into thinking I'm getting somewhere with this car...



Drilled the spot welds and pried the offending piece away. I think the drainage hole had been blocked and water was pooling up inside, so while I had access I treated the rust as far into the pillar as I could, I also need to patch a hole on the interior side.











The YRM replacement part was ok for fitment although it did need a fair bit of persuasion to truly line up, however, the metal was good, thick enough and welded well so I'd definitely buy from them again.





Whilst I had the door and wing off I treated any surface rust that popped up and gave the inner wing a coat of chassis black as it's just good manners.



The top half of the a-pillar also got some attention as it was worse for wear. The flashing was peeling away from the windscreen frame and the paint was rusting through. Sanded, primed, painted. The flashing was cleaned up and straightened, then Sikaflex down the bead to set it back in place. At least that part of the car looks nice now.







I used the time between paint coats to treat the rust in my footwells. I was going to stitch new steel in where it was rusted through but as they were only small holes and the rust wasn't too bedded in I just filled them with fibreglass. They were also primed and painted so that's another job ticked off the list.





The last job I tackled was having a look at the bonnet, the reason I did was because I got three rattle cans mixed up for my a-pillar job and had load left afterwards so I though I'd put them to good use. The intention was to paint the perimeter of the bonnet in the same blue/grey as the rest of the car and have the top flatter section in Camel Trophy style matte black. Annoyingly I ran out of the paint before I got satisfactory coverage so there are a few high primer spots which came through in the final wet-sand. Oh well. that's now clear coated and awaiting the black patch which I hope to do during the evenings this week. No photo of the blue down I'm afraid.





Sorry for the essay but it's been a while. Hopefully now I'm in a decent house and have more time available I can make proper progress.

It looks a treat. Love the post too. Keep it up.

Will be as good as new when ya finished.

Keep us updated.

Dave