It looks like you're making good progress! I can't remmeber what they did on the MiniTec car had - will you be building a firewall where the rear seats used to be?
It looks like you're making good progress! I can't remmeber what they did on the MiniTec car had - will you be building a firewall where the rear seats used to be?
Yes, some guys put a plexiglass window going up from the bulkhead and leave out the side and rear glass , I'm planning to build an insulated bulkhead "box" over the engine compartment and use the standard side and back windows, so it will be enclosed. Of course I'll have to put a hatch or something over the top for access to things like the dipstick, spark plugs and other maintenance things.
Next I need to carry on removing sheet metal, but it's 12* out right now and will be -12 tomorrow, so I may have to wait a bit.......I do have a heater in my garage, but it's pretty leaky around the garage doors and it costs a lot to run it long enough to get it to a working temp.....right now it's in the high 30's in there......
Cutting out the sheet metal using a cutoff wheel on an angle grinder puts a lot of metal dust and smoke in the air, last night I finally had to open the shop's back door to let some air in and smoke out, even tho it was bitter cold! To get into some of the constricted areas I also have an air powered cutoff saw and a small right angle cutoff wheel.....I've needed all three so far! A lot of the smoke comes from burning thru the sound deadening (like dynamat) as well as actual sprayed on undercoating on the bottom surfaces. Stinks too!
It took just over two weeks, but MiniTec say they got my axles today 
They say they can turn them around to me in a week......we'll see. I hope they return them via FedEx or UPS tho, cause I'm reading that the post office has close to a million undelivered packages, some from before Xmas!
I've been studying my pics above, trying to plan out where/how to cut out the remaining metal so I can start to fit the subframe in. I found that it bolts on where the old subframe did, at the front, and one of those bolts broke off in the captive nut, so I may need to get out the acetylene torch to get that out. I did buy a set of the heel board repair panels just in case, but after looking at them I figured I could have easily made them myself, since instead of using captive nuts in a bracket they simply welded nuts to the back of the new panel - shoot - I could have done that!
The other interesting part is I only need the outermost portion of the heel board, right where those bolts are.....if mine is rusted badly (and it looks like it is) I may do something creative with the new panels to shore up the area a little more. I won't know till I get the rest of the sheet metal out.....
Once the subframe is fit into place and bolted down I can start to replace all the rust with new metal - there will be a LOT of that based on what I'm seeing. Looks like I also need to order a new inner fender/wheel well as the right side has some huge holes in it that I didn't see till I was reviewing the pics. Pic below is of the inner arch, looking up from below.
I'll also need to smooth out some of the sharp edges I left so I don't slice myself to ribbons!
Binky has nothing on this car when it comes to rusty bits!
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