Blue: Bees Cees and case of a tail gate

Monday, 30 August 2010

Bees Cees and case of a tail gate

Over the past couple of weeks the car has really took shape and I am slowly seeing the car transform every week.

In one day I got to the unit early knowing what I had to do. I wanted to get the join between the C pillar and B pillar also I wanted to get the B pillar to the c pillar connected which would then leave just some work at the front of the car on the inner A pillars and also some work on the B pillar.

The join between the C and B pillar quickly went in with little problem, the practise from the other side of the car meant that this time I knew what to do and how to approach the task.

In went the Join

Then keeping it simple in went the B to A pillar

With the joins in, I set about putting in a plate inside the B pillar and then drilled holes through from the outside of the B pillar in spot welded it together. With the B pillar in the place I then set about cutting and making the outer skin and welded it in place

As previously performed on the other side of the car I set about building the innards of the B pillar

On to a moving body panel! the tail gate, I am quite excited about this. Here I am holding up an original sized tail gate and its clear to see how much height has been taken out of this car.

I was glad to have Rich to hand here. First the thing to do was to cut the tailgate into 4 sections and then 2 sections where bolted to the hinges.

With the 2 top sections in place a couple of sections of steel plate was welded into place to keep it together and help with the alignment.

Once the top sections of the tailgate was in the next was to tack weld the tail gate into place, this involved a fair amount of measuring to ensure that all the gap settings where perfect.
I am a big mini fan both new and old and while I appreciate they have at some point both belonged to Rover and I am used to seeing similarities between them, however with the tail gate chopped it really does look like the rear end of the classic mini (I know its supposed to look like the bigger brother to the classic but with the smaller window it really works)