Roof off part 2

Armed with an angle grinder, spot weld drill, hammer and pry bar I set about removing the outer skin of the roof. The section above the windscreen was made difficult by the silicone used to hold the glass on. The hard part was finding the spot welds rather than removing them.
One at a time I removed the spot welds, once I had drilled through each weld I used the pry bar to separate the roof skin from the body work, with exception of the air drill breaking when I dropped it everything was quite easy.







With all the spot welds removed from the the sides and front of the roof skin I set about removing the seam welds on the outside. I found the best way to attack the seam welds is with an angle grinder which quickly removed any trace of weld. In total there are 8 seam welds on the roof skin outer.

With all the side and front outer welds removed I set about removing the inner seam welds, they are placed in such a way that it is difficult to gain access with the angle grinder and the car quickly fills with sparks from the grinding process. Very glad I was wearing the hat and eye protection - still got covered in hot ground material but nothing I couldn't deal with...


With the seam welds removed from the inside I decided to cut the rear section of the roof off to enable easy access to the remaining welds. The hardest welds to remove are those above the boot partly because they are not viable so I had to find them with the aid of my pry bar, lifting the metal till I could see the attached weld pull, then I drilled the bodywork to release the remaining part of the roof skin.







With the roof skin off and out of the way I set my attention to removing some mass off the car body, I decided that I wanted to remove the front end steering, suspension, and sub frame assembly. As this assembly has already been off it was easy to undo the lower bolts and top suspension and remove the whole assembly as one. Once removed I set about stripping all the parts ready for powder coating.


With the sub frame out I set about removing the front break lines which had both seen better days, I decided that they would be replaced though have kept them to copy and product the new pipes from. The nuts and clips had both rusted on and where not suitable for re-use.




Lastly I decided that it was time to remove the exhaust system, most of this was made difficult by the rusted bolts which refused to budge. The bolts on the manifold where that rusted that there was no apparent head left on so I decided to remove the whole system in one go. From the under side of the car I set about removing the brackets and clips which hold the exhaust to the car. Removal of the exhaust system was messy with rust falling from all around the system.




Next I look forward to cleaning the car body and removing the rear assembly and ensuring that the car is nothing but an empty shell with nothing attached. Until then, take it easy.

Roof off part 1

The last few weeks have been about moving into my new unit so I am able to progress with getting the car off the ground and into the air.
Now moved into the unit with the compressor and tools in the correct place, all the floor is now painted and mostly dry.
Dave from Thinkmini turned up to tow the car from my home to the unit, everything went well though made slightly difficult with the fact that the steering had all been removed, no matter its all there now.

With the mini in the unit the first thing to do was to get the mini up in the air, up in the air I removed all the wheels and threw them in the back of the Golf to keep the area clutter free and to take them to the storage unit.

Taking it easy the only job which I want to achieve over the next few weeks is to drill out the spot welds of the roof skin and removed the skin. Not much to say about un-stitching the roof, its a long time consuming job but each weld removed is a step closer to getting the skin off.





As you can see from the photos every 50mm - 100mm there is a spot weld and at each corner of the roof there is a seam weld. The rear section of the roof skin is glued on and the front is brazed at each end so I hope that thats not going to give too many problems...

Until next time, take it easy