Malleus
Far west of Siegen
Top notch work. I wish you were closer; I'd send you my doors.
Builds 1977 FJ40 Rebuild – Focus on Custom Stainless Tub
- Thread starter psmbfuer
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psmbfuer
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- #163
Thanks @Malleus, much appreciated - from a quick look at maps, you are about 3 hours away, and not too far from Reston VA. I mention this in that I have come down to Reston for work in past years - and although I don't have current plans, I'll let you know if I need to drive down for work - it would be good to touch base.
Why did you make the quarter panel so much shorter than original? Are you building some sort of custom bumper or something?
psmbfuer
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- #165
Good catch White Stripe. I haven't been trying to hide this fact, but I haven't brought it up yet either, other than in a PM or two, and yes, that is exactly the plan. Below is a preview of this bumper extension - more details on this to come after we complete the quarter and wheel well.
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Teslota? Delorota? Yea I like stainless.
. I like the way it looks, love how well it holds up to the elements, and I like working with it, so covering a lot of bases...
psmbfuer
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- #171
Thanks again peesalot and thanks as well for the questions.
As you suggest by your initial comment and this question, stainless can be tough to put holes in. After realizing this when I first started working with it, I bought a small used, but industrial mechanical punch, albeit a lighter duty punch when compared to the large industrial rotary punches. If memory serves, it would punch 18 gauge 304, but not easily and it has not seen much use on stainless because of this.
After that, I came across a Matco bit set that was stepped, I believe they brand them as hyper-step bits and the set that I have are polished HSS (High Speed Steel) bits. These are fantastic bits and Matco (there is a chance they are MAC) will replace any bit that breaks that is larger than 3/16", so I have had them for years and they work well on stainless. These bits were quite expensive and even with their replacement policy, I have learned to be very deliberate with any bit when drilling stainless - I use the drill press whenever possible, better allowing me to control speed, pressure, and more-consistently apply cutting fluid. I also clamp down the material whenever possible, again helping to reduce bit breakage.
And this year I did another deep dive into bits and found the Norseman 22903. It turns out that the polished HSS Matco (or MAC) bits are actually better suited for aluminum, even through they worked well on the stainless. This Norseman set is black and gold oxide, which are better suited for stainless. These have not seen a lot of action to date, but they also seem to work well on stainless. The Norsemen site is excellent, with a good deal of bit information, not just sales, as is their tech support. (And I have no vested interest in them, just had a good experience, so thought it worth sharing.)
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I have played with a bit of stainless and basically decided it was beyond my tools & knowledge. One fellow suggested cutting holes with a jewelers torch ? This was brought up when the need to create holes on pieces that couldnt be put on drill press or what not, like still on vehicle or tight spaces.
psmbfuer
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- #173
Interesting, and I agree that drilling stainless is more difficult, and even though I try to use the press as I mentioned above, many of the stainless holes were hand drilled with a Milwaukee M12 drill and were not a big deal, and the bit is still in good shape. As an example, if you look back at post #122 you will notice that the floor edges were not drilled and that all the holes were drilled afterwards. I did it this way so I could use the vertical wheel well and its holes as a template and get the best alignment possible.
I point this out in that I don't want anyone that is not familiar with stainless to be scared off.
Also, and you likely know this, but for others, stainless steels can work harden fairly easy. And hardening can happen when not using enough pressure or cutting fluid, or if you are starting out with a questionably sharp bit, or if you are using too much speed. And if it hardens, you are basically done drilling - if this happens and it is a piece that I have a lot of time into and need to complete, I get out the plasma torch, but this is very rare these days.
The stepped bits are another factor and heat up the material less quickly, allowing you to keep cutting while lessening the chance of work-hardening.
Other stainless steels like 410 and 420 are hardened by definition, if my memory / understanding is straight. When I first started playing with stainless, I picked up several drops (scraps) at a nearby shop - I'm pretty certain that at the time I was not yet aware of the different classes of stainless, nor was I aware of work hardening. So, I tried to drill one of these drops - I still have this piece somewhere on a shelf - it was like superman - I went through two bits before I gave up and I barely made a dent and the bits couldn't cut anything afterwards. I'm not exactly certain what stainless it was and never took it to the scrap yard to be classified. The scrap yard that I go to has this very expensive gun that you point at a material and it tells you what it is, in detail - it is amazing.
Long story short, I'm now careful to buy stainless that has the factory printing, telling me what type of stainless I am buying, or I go to the office and ask to borrow the wonder gun. And then, I'm careful to use all the tricks noted above to make drilling fairly straight-forward.
If any of you are a machinist, or just have added insight, please feel free to add your thoughts.
I point this out in that I don't want anyone that is not familiar with stainless to be scared off.
Also, and you likely know this, but for others, stainless steels can work harden fairly easy. And hardening can happen when not using enough pressure or cutting fluid, or if you are starting out with a questionably sharp bit, or if you are using too much speed. And if it hardens, you are basically done drilling - if this happens and it is a piece that I have a lot of time into and need to complete, I get out the plasma torch, but this is very rare these days.
The stepped bits are another factor and heat up the material less quickly, allowing you to keep cutting while lessening the chance of work-hardening.
Other stainless steels like 410 and 420 are hardened by definition, if my memory / understanding is straight. When I first started playing with stainless, I picked up several drops (scraps) at a nearby shop - I'm pretty certain that at the time I was not yet aware of the different classes of stainless, nor was I aware of work hardening. So, I tried to drill one of these drops - I still have this piece somewhere on a shelf - it was like superman - I went through two bits before I gave up and I barely made a dent and the bits couldn't cut anything afterwards. I'm not exactly certain what stainless it was and never took it to the scrap yard to be classified. The scrap yard that I go to has this very expensive gun that you point at a material and it tells you what it is, in detail - it is amazing.
Long story short, I'm now careful to buy stainless that has the factory printing, telling me what type of stainless I am buying, or I go to the office and ask to borrow the wonder gun. And then, I'm careful to use all the tricks noted above to make drilling fairly straight-forward.
If any of you are a machinist, or just have added insight, please feel free to add your thoughts.
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psmbfuer
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- #174
Now that we have final fitment of the rocker, quarter, and wheel well panels complete, it is time to walk through installation. But, before doing that, here is another pic showing the drawing overlay of an actual photo, in this case, used for final validation. If you are newer to all of this, there are several additional points that might be beneficial / interesting:
- You will see that the factory spot welds were rather wonky and done by hand. Interestingly, we looked this up when we were working on the 40 and found this Toyota "Vehicles Welding" chart. It indicates that Toyota didn't start with machine spot welding until 1981, which was rather late when compared to others in the industry. With this, you will see that not all new holes align with the factory spot welds that we removed.
- You will notice that finding spot welds is not always a perfect science.
- In that this panel is made of all straight edges, this overlay was really NOT necessary, but it is a good sanity check, so we did it anyway.
- And please note, we are not using the photo in the backward layer to trace the new panel. We first measured the panel in detail, noted all angles, then drew it, evenly distributing all holes, and then added another layer and placed it in front of the photo. This is important to note in that there is generally some amount of distortion and perspective in the photo, and simply tracing will likely result in bad parts. So while this process is very valuable to help draw / refine the curves of a quarter panel, for example, it is simply a check here. The lens must also be parallel and in the center of the panel as much as possible, or these potential issues will be even worse.
psmbfuer
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- #175
This time we have pics of the panel adhesive used to help seal and mate the vertical wheel well panel to the rear floor edge. It comes in a gun, similar to a caulk gun, noted in the top right corner in the pic immediately below. We tried to squeeze a consistent amount on the panel and on the floor edge and then lightly smoothed it with an acid brush.
You will see several bare spots below - these will be plug weld areas. The SEM specs sheet states that "Dual-Mix Multi-Purpose Panel Adhesive is versatile and can be used with traditional welding methods or resistance spot welding techniques while wet when following OEM recommendations. Remove excess adhesive
prior to welding." To me, this statement could be written more clearly, but from experience it means that trying to plug weld through it makes a mess and a terrible looking weld, so I remove all adhesive from the immediate weld area, not just excessive adhesive. We couldn't put bolts at these locations due to interferes with the roll bar supports.
Always checking square and level... and then plug-welded the holds seen below.
A small bead squeezed out of the seam, which is what we were hoping for. We then use a body filler spreader with a slightly rounded corner to smooth the joint, and then wiped everything clean with either thinner or acetone.
And you can see below that we use e-torx bolts, and you can't see it, but we used nylocks stainless nuts on the backside.
You will see several bare spots below - these will be plug weld areas. The SEM specs sheet states that "Dual-Mix Multi-Purpose Panel Adhesive is versatile and can be used with traditional welding methods or resistance spot welding techniques while wet when following OEM recommendations. Remove excess adhesive
prior to welding." To me, this statement could be written more clearly, but from experience it means that trying to plug weld through it makes a mess and a terrible looking weld, so I remove all adhesive from the immediate weld area, not just excessive adhesive. We couldn't put bolts at these locations due to interferes with the roll bar supports.
Always checking square and level... and then plug-welded the holds seen below.
A small bead squeezed out of the seam, which is what we were hoping for. We then use a body filler spreader with a slightly rounded corner to smooth the joint, and then wiped everything clean with either thinner or acetone.
And you can see below that we use e-torx bolts, and you can't see it, but we used nylocks stainless nuts on the backside.
psmbfuer
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- #176
Now we can complete the installation of the horizontal wheel well and the quarter panel, pretty much at the same time. We reinstalled everything, including the ambulance doors and then used the holes in the quarter as a template and marked all of the plug weld areas with a paint marker.
We then removed the paint so we have clean areas for the plug welds. And yes, we could have used weld through primer, but we applied several coats of the SEM Rust Trap and expect that it will do the job.
Now, we clamp and screw it back together, check squareness, level, and fitment, again, and start with several welds to hold everything in place.
And before we progressed the welding too far, we reinstalled the ambulance doors for one final check.
And then finished up the all the plug welding and the quarter the skeleton seam. If you recall from above, the rear of the quarter suffered from a less than straight cut (and that is being polite), so we first welded a small series of beads to the skeleton and then a series of half moon welds to fill it in. I'm really not thrilled with the fab work in this area, but in the end, it came out quite well.
The depth of field in the following is rather short, but you get a decent view of the final work, prior to clean up.
We then removed the paint so we have clean areas for the plug welds. And yes, we could have used weld through primer, but we applied several coats of the SEM Rust Trap and expect that it will do the job.
Now, we clamp and screw it back together, check squareness, level, and fitment, again, and start with several welds to hold everything in place.
And before we progressed the welding too far, we reinstalled the ambulance doors for one final check.
And then finished up the all the plug welding and the quarter the skeleton seam. If you recall from above, the rear of the quarter suffered from a less than straight cut (and that is being polite), so we first welded a small series of beads to the skeleton and then a series of half moon welds to fill it in. I'm really not thrilled with the fab work in this area, but in the end, it came out quite well.
The depth of field in the following is rather short, but you get a decent view of the final work, prior to clean up.
psmbfuer
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- #177
And below is a view from the rear after installing the roll bar and 4 L-Track channels. The floor still needs several dents removed, two patches, and several holes plugged, but that comes later. And for the curious, the L-Track channels mount to the new roll bar supports, shared back on post #62.
psmbfuer
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- #178
Falling back to the question about the height of the quarter, back on post #164 and #165, as I shared, this was done intentionally in that I planned to build this bumper extension shared in post #165.
This was fairly straightforward to design and fab up, but as you might expect, a fair bit of time and patience were needed.
This was fairly straightforward to design and fab up, but as you might expect, a fair bit of time and patience were needed.
- First, we cut, bent and taped up a cardboard template.
- Then using measurements and a photo of the complete and flattened template, we brought it into CAD.
- Next we cut a prototype in 12 gauge carbon steel - we used 12 gauge to see how readily the required length would bend, and from this, determine whether we needed to burn stitch cuts along the long edge to ease the bending process for the stainless. We were able to bend it without much struggle, so figured we would be able to bend the same in stainless, without the stitch cuts.
- Then, made several mods to the drawing and cut another revision, but in 18 gauge save our supply of 12 gauge.
- And finally, we cut the two final pieces of stainless for the driver's side - the main outer extension in 12 gauge, and the lower / inner in 16 gauge.
psmbfuer
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- #179
Next, we laid out the parts and labelled them for bending. The first several bends could be done on the hydraulic break, while others would be done on the manual bender.
Since I don't have any punch pieces short enough to fit inside to make the final bend, I had two options, either cut my main die so I could use a piece to make the bend below, or go back to the manual bender and make the bend there, using a piece or anything strong enough to help make the bend. I happened to have this piece of 2"x2", which was exactly the correct length, so used it.
Below, the main extension is now bent, but not welded.
And final fit is looking good, so moving on to the welding.
It wasn't really needed, but thought we would use an aluminum backer to give us a very clean backside.
Since I don't have any punch pieces short enough to fit inside to make the final bend, I had two options, either cut my main die so I could use a piece to make the bend below, or go back to the manual bender and make the bend there, using a piece or anything strong enough to help make the bend. I happened to have this piece of 2"x2", which was exactly the correct length, so used it.
Below, the main extension is now bent, but not welded.
And final fit is looking good, so moving on to the welding.
It wasn't really needed, but thought we would use an aluminum backer to give us a very clean backside.
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psmbfuer
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- #180
Here are the extension with the corners welded.
No two tack welds to double check everything.
We removed the tacks so we weld the main 12 gauge extension to the lower / inner 16 gauge piece.
Here is the entire driver's side rear bumper extension before finish grinding and installation.
And now several pics installed.
No two tack welds to double check everything.
We removed the tacks so we weld the main 12 gauge extension to the lower / inner 16 gauge piece.
Here is the entire driver's side rear bumper extension before finish grinding and installation.
And now several pics installed.
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