RCVTR

Attaching the rear section was pretty straightforward.

On the right side, the damaged fender had been cut off and a replacement scabbed on and spot-welded in place. The patch went up to the rear window, then followed the window and door frame down to the rocker. We had cut it out along the edge of the patch and removed it. To reinstall we used some sheet metal fixturing clamps to hold a consistent gap and butt welded it in place. The metal is super thin. Welding was done with ~1.5 second tacks spaced out around the opening and slowly filled in until all the gaps were joined together. The window, door and rocker lap joints were bonded.

The next step was to bond the fender to the roof beam and rebuild the corner of the fender to rear cowl.

To install the left fender and rear cowl pieces all of the lap joints were bonded together with SEM Panel Bonding Adhesive, for strong, waterproof joints and ease of assembly. First the inner fender cowl was bonded to the floor and inner wheel tub, the rear side window reinforcement was welded to the roof overhang and the left side rear cowl piece was bonded to the fender. Next, the lap joints around the window frame, door frame and rocker panel were coated with adhesive and the fender was fixtured in place. Then the seam at the roof-fender joint was welded.

The next step was welding in the main structural beam for the rear quarter. As I mentioned previously the beam was severed, when the rear quarter panel was replaced, leaving the roof and rear quarter supported by the skin. We fixtured it up accurately and Petr welded it in.

Time for paint stripping and surface prep. Ya gotta want it!

The only way we could think of to deal with the rust in the back end of the car was to separate every rusted seam that we could, media blast it and treat it with Eastwood Fast Etch, which acid etches the surfaces and contains some zinc to mildly passivate the treated areas. Once we did that, we could determine what was servicable and what needed to be cut out and patched. Fortunately a lot of it turned out to be okay. The rear valance and other very high quality parts are now available from Resurrected Classics and KlassicFab. The valance was not available a couple years ago, so we had to have a new top deck made for it and weld it into place. A few more small patches had to be done. Not perfect but they served the purpose. We were finally ready to start putting it all back together.

With all of the blasting and stripping ahead, we needed a rotisserie. A couple of ~$50some engine stands and a bit of fabrication came to under $200 and served he purpose well.

The next step was repairing the rear deck frame and deck. The left rear frame rail was destroyed when the car was hit in the rear corner. We built a new subframe, with a cutout for the fuel cell. Then installed a deck and bonded it in place with SEM panel bonding adhesive. Looking better already.

We finished the cage in early 2019. Hand mitered every tube. Hours and hours and hours...

The plan for chassis reinforcement was an evolutionary process, starting with a basic roll cage and rollover roof support. But we kept coming back to the fact that we want enough chassis stiffness to make the car responsive to suspension tuning. The S30 was designed and built for road racing. They were built super light, with the intention of having a tubular chassis installed, in race trim. We also want to install a heater and drive it on the street. We weren't going to have somebody build it for us, so in Aug 2018, we purchased a JD Squared Bender and started figuring it out. A few You Tube Videos later, we were deep into a year of cage building. We also borrowed a tubing roller, for long-radius bends. To install the heater means that we can't have a cross-beam under the dash, but the dash support structure is a big beam and the top side rails in the engine bay are a big box section that supports the top hinge on the door. So we decided to use this structure to transfer the front frame loads into the main cage. Lots of hours of pondering and a lot more hours of cutting and mitering and we came up with a design and had fun with it. We had to stay focused on the immediate progress, because the scope of the project is huge and progress was slow, for a couple of working boys. But with perseverance and always choosing the right path at every decision, it's been very rewarding. Here's a start:

With all of the distortion in the rear floor, we needed to assess the condition of the rest of the chassis. For that we needed a fixture and a way to measure it. We had some adjustable RV jackstands, adjustable scale pads an electroic protractor and a laser level that I had used on some other chassis setup projects. We set the scale pads level, with a machinist level and all at the same height, using the laser and tape measure. We installed some concrete anchor bolts in the floor and built a chassis measurement and straightening fixture that was accurate to about 0.5 mm. The datum points for the chassis are the back mounting holes for the engine cross member and some fixturing holes at the back of the main frame rails. We used all-thread and turnbuckles to set the front of the chassis level in the lateral axis at the front datum points and the front frame rails and rocker panels level in the longitudinal axis. We then compared the height of the rear datum points relative to the laser plane established from the scale pads. The left rear datum point was about 2mm high (the chassis was slighlty twisted), but it was possible to pull the rear datum down to the flat position with finger tightening of the left rear turnbuckle. However the left rear mustache bar mount was about 8-10 mm high. With the jackstand set at the proper height to support the chassis datum points level, the tension required to pull the mustache bar mount into position broke the turnbuckle. The rear chassis beam is really stiff! After buying the next step up in turnbuckle strength, we pull like hell on the mustache bar stud and heated up the bent beam and tapped all around with a hammer, trying to get it to release the tension. Finally it just let go and relaxed. It was amazing. After that we had full support, with all datums with a chassis level at all four datum points and the mustache bars level with the left rear turnbuckle finger tight at the mustache bar mount finger tight. Now we had the chassis fixtured to build the roll cage.

The left rear deck had a hump in it that, upon further inspection revealed bent stuff all around. We beat on the floor beam with several iterations of a block of wood and a BFH, followed by hammer and dolly, next to the inner fender to bend the floor down and move the bend to the edge of the fender. Then used some heat and gentle persuasion on the buckled inner fender, etc to get the floor and fender to an acceptable state. Then cut out the rusted floor in the spare tire well, which was pinholed and had to go. Somewhere along the line we realized that all of the undercoating had to be removed.. It was a huge project, with a Harbor Freight air chisel, which worked quite well, if you're not in a hurry. after we got it all scraped off we went over it with a spray bottle of paint thinner and Scotch Brite. It was well worth the effort, which was hard to imagine when we were in the middle of it. Some more photos of the initial prep and repair.

The left rear quarter was being held on by the skin, with no structural integrity. The beam that runs from the left corner of the roof to the back end of the car had been sawed off and not reattached. The right door skin had been replaced and the seam was rusted.

As a brief introduction, I'm Rand. My son is Petr. This project is a great opportunity for us to work together. There have been a lot of discoveries, decisions, discussions, methods and implementations along the way. In each one, we have decided on the best course of action that we can come up with. I think it will be inspirational to some trying to find their way and entertaining to others who have taken the time to learn and figure it out. We have learned a lot about these cars, from HybridZ. Back at y'all. We got the car down to a rolling chassis and powerwashed it, then rolled it inside for a closer investigation. The car was hit in the left rear corner, which crumpled that corner of the rear deck. We could see that the left rear quarter and rear cowl had been cut off, the deck was kinda, sorta pounded flat and a used rear quarter and cowl had been scabbed on and the gaps filled with expanding foam. Looking at the other side, she skin on the right rear had been cut off below the top of the fender and a replacement was lapped over the top of the remaining edges with spot welds and bondo, The seams everywhere in that area were rusted. There was almost no rust anywhere else on the car, so we decided the car was worth the commitment. We'd never been down this path before, but the only obviously right thing to do was drill out all of the spot welds and open up all of the rusted seams.