The New Ranger 6 Build Thread

#61

Take all of the inner skin out. Weld the panel in from the top using a filler rod in the gasket gap.

#62

Did you happen to do some research on weld-through primer? I never have it when I need it because it’s to expensive to buy without a specific project in mind.

#63

[quote=“turbo329is” post=62227][quote=“Ranger” post=61809]
I liked the way the yellow cage bars stood out on the old car, so I was kinda oriented on a relatively light color for the new cage. I did some research on abrasive resistant paints and found that most of them are some variation of Alkyd Enamel. The most common one in our circles being the expensive POR15. I found a Benjamin Moore paint that belongs in this family for a helova lot less than POR15, it was available locally and it can be tinted. It’s glossy.
[/quote]

Did you happen to do some research on weld-through primer? I never have it when I need it because it’s to expensive to buy without a specific project in mind.[/quote]
Sorry, I don’t know anything about weld-thru primer.

Dismayed that after several days the cage’s paint was not entirely dry, I put a heater in the car yesterday. The problem is the thickened paint glops and runs. The heater ran all day and all night. It kept the interior temp at ~100deg.

Today was a hard day. Except for swimming some laps, I worked hard on the car all day. I really didn’t accomplish all that much. I’m starting to regret getting so obsessed with the cage’s appearance. It’s now soaked up a lot of man-days and it’s still doesn’t look that good. What is the opposite of “eureka”?

I spent several hours abrading away all the thickened paint glops and runs that occured when I tried to use a brush with this thick abrasion resistant paint. Trying to get a nice feathered surface was tricky because the thickened paint wasn’t really dry. Then I spent several more hours masking the car so I could try spraying the cage.

The spray effort wasn’t a great big success. I used 30% thinner, a little less than yesterday’s experiment but still a lot more than the OEM’s recommendation of “don’t thin”. The paint laid down with a nice shiney surface but I think it should be laying down thicker. Tomorrow I’ll try 20% thinner. If that doesn’t work all that well, I’m going to find one of those little dinky rollers.

The air compressor being glitchy didn’t make my day any more of a celebration.

#64

When spraying paint each pass of the gun should well shy of full coverage. And each coat you spray need not fully cover. Several spray coats are better than a single heavy coat. That results in a more even coat and less chance of runs. I prefer for each spray coat to be just enough for a wet coat (shine).

You need enough thinner for the viscosity of the paint to match the gun and tip you are using (the gun’s doc’s will state range). Then adjust the material delivery to get the right rate and air for proper atomization.

#65

I painted a few cars the right way which led me to realize I hate body-work. Using both PPG with a clearcoat and omnicoat I found that “Flex-Add” helped find the sweet spot between runs and orange peel. Its made to prevent cracking on urethane bumpers but it didn’t hurt to add it to everything. Perhaps rubbery flexible paint is exactly what you wanted on the cage. I suppose this advice is a little late unless you decide to redo it completely.

#66

I’ll tear up the sheetmetal and just create more work for myself if I do that. I’m not a good enough welder to do sheetmetal without making holes.

#67

Welding sheet metal with a MIG, if it is a good one, is pretty much a no-brainer. The common mistake comes from trying to lay a bead rather than laying overlapping spots. Well that and using too large a wire or the wrong welder settings. The second most common mistake is local overheating and distortion from trying to go too fast or welding too much in one spot.

This is a technique you can learn. cut some pieces off the old car to practice on. Clean to shiny metal at least a half inch on both pieces. A small (~0.030") gap is better than a butt fit. Position the torch directly over the gap and trigger the welder just long enough to drop metal over the gap (less than a second). Move well away from the spot and drop another spot bead. Once you have a series of tacks across the seam start extending those those tacks into beads. Point the torch over the end of a tack and briefly trigger the welder and move it towards the open seam for about 1/8" of weld. Skipping around, continue until all of the tacks are joined.

That is how to make a continuous weld. To fasten in the sunroof skin a continuous weld isn’t necessary. A series of stitch welds a couple of inches apart around the perimeter is plenty.

#68

A couple of additions to Jim’s post. When you weld, you should be able to put your hand on the weld spot immediately after welding…too hot and you’ll warp the sheet metal. Tack one side of the insert, then the other side. Stitch wile…1/2" ever 6-8". Grind anything not flat with the roof. Tape area, and fill void with one of the new structural epoxies and flatten while wet. You can sand and paint and if done right, car will look like a non sunroof car. No way in hell is the panel coming out. Chuck

#69

[quote=“jlevie” post=62265]Welding sheet metal with a MIG, if it is a good one, is pretty much a no-brainer. The common mistake comes from trying to lay a bead rather than laying overlapping spots. Well that and using too large a wire or the wrong welder settings. The second most common mistake is local overheating and distortion from trying to go too fast or welding too much in one spot.

This is a technique you can learn. cut some pieces off the old car to practice on. Clean to shiny metal at least a half inch on both pieces. A small (~0.030") gap is better than a butt fit. Position the torch directly over the gap and trigger the welder just long enough to drop metal over the gap (less than a second). Move well away from the spot and drop another spot bead. Once you have a series of tacks across the seam start extending those those tacks into beads. Point the torch over the end of a tack and briefly trigger the welder and move it towards the open seam for about 1/8" of weld. Skipping around, continue until all of the tacks are joined.

That is how to make a continuous weld. To fasten in the sunroof skin a continuous weld isn’t necessary. A series of stitch welds a couple of inches apart around the perimeter is plenty.[/quote]

I hear you. I’ll think about it. I’m spending too much time on cosmetic issues and am inclined to start taking some shortcuts. Moving my piece of sheetmetal from Old to New #6 and putting in rivets would be awfully quick.

I drove on with the cage painting today. It went a lot better than yesterday. I used 20% thinner instead of 30% but it wasn’t until about halfway thru the surprisingly lengthy effort that I really figured out what was kicking my ass. The damn air compressor’s overload buttom was killing me It was only letting the air compressor get up to about 50psi and then after a couple minutes spraying I had to leave the garage, go out back, and reset the damned overload button. I must have done this 20X. Finally, I got pissed, and pulled the case off of the compressor, got to the wiring, and hot wired the 15A overload button. There’s 3 other 15A breakers in that circuit, one of which is GFI so I figured that there was no risk.

Finally, I f**king had reliable air and could really lay down some paint. And I did. And the cage started looking pretty damned ok. Another couple efforts like that and the cage is going to be fini.

#70

That would be quick and easy, but you’ll be stuck with that for a long. Time. Once the car gets painted there is going to be extreme reluctance to mess with the sunroof. It may not sound like it, but this pretty easy to do and do right the first time. If you don’t feel up to welding it in, I’ll bet a body shop would weld it in for not a lot of money. Or you might find someone with experience to weld it on the side. If Savannah wasn’t 6.5hr away I’d come weld it in for you.

#71

[quote=“TrackRat” post=61877][quote=“Ranger” post=61875]
You replaced the vert bolts and I’m probably going to replace the horiz bolts that are above. I was able to get the horiz bolts out but the vertical bolts kicked my ass. I couldn’t get a grinder in there to cut a slot or a flat on the bolt w/o chewing the heck out of the flange that they are bolted thru. [/quote]

The vertical bolts have nuts captive on a retaining plate on the top. I sprayed each with a little PB Blaster and let them sit for a little bit. From there the bolts came out pretty easy. I did have to use a wrench on the top nut and socket the bolt.[/quote]

I need some additional tips to get these bolts out. The heads are too soft to get a grip on and I tried slotting them to use a flat bit and that is not working either. Should I drill and try to “easy out” them?

#72

[quote=“TrackRat” post=61826][quote=“Ranger” post=61809]@Trackrat. At this point I don’t know. I just need to get the column lower and securely located. How I get there is still up in the air.
[/quote]

What I did was to pull the two bolts on the steering column, cut spacers out of heavy wall tubing and put longer grade 5 bolts in. Easy and solid - no issues with any sort of play and it put the wheel down where I want it. Here’s a shot of the spacers:

[/quote]

My next project.

Thanks for sharing.

Carter

#73

[quote=“mcmmotorsports” post=62354]

I need some additional tips to get these bolts out. The heads are too soft to get a grip on and I tried slotting them to use a flat bit and that is not working either. Should I drill and try to “easy out” them?[/quote]

They should be grade 5 bolts or better - not sure why they are soft. Are you using a wrench on the upper captive nuts? Even thought they are captive, they need to be backed up with a wrench when trying to remove them. If you have destroyed the head, then yes, an easy out maybe the way to go.

#74

My bolts have no head, they are the “use once” shear type and the there are no nuts on the upper side too. More like threaded bushings or something. I will get pics in the AM if someone doesn’t chime in here.

#75

No need for the pics, you guys are looking at the same thing. Using an EZ-Out is a reasonable idea. Because of the shape of the head I’d make a pilot hole with a small bit before using a larger bit to make a real hole.

#76

More painting last night. The air compressor problem is really driving me bananas. I had to crawl out of the car, leave one garage and go into another to reset a circuit breaker some 30X last night over the course of a couple hrs spraying. Frustated over this I did some research and found that this might be caused by the long extension cord so I’m going to plug it in differently tonight and see what happens.

Tomorrow I’m buying another air compressor off of a Craigslist ad.

Yesterday I took the TRIPLE PASS radiator to a shop for the necessary mod so the lower hose will fit. This radiator was $50 cheaper than the other double pass radiators I’ve been destroying. It’s supposed to be ready tomorrow. I’ve got a theory that I can go ahead and use a standard radiator cap with it, so I don’t have to weld over the cap port. That cuts the radiator mod cost in half.

The Reverand Al and Robert Patton are both sending me replacement coolant tubes.

I went by a PickNPull yesterday to scout for front sheetmetal. After finding a couple good donor E30’s, on the way home I had an epiphany that maybe I had the exact part I needed stashed away. I’d spent weeks sure that I didn’t have the sheetmetal that went right behind the bumper. And I’ll be goddamned if I didn’t have that piece tucked away in overhead storage in the garage. Woohoo.

Today I bought a new harness and HANS strap from Discovery Parts. $400. Except for painting New #6, that will be the single greatest cost. Fancy decals will probably cost $200. All told we’re talking little more than a grand I expect. Now that’s building a race car on the cheap. So far I’ve sold ~$400 worth of stuff so I’m really not too far in the red.

#77

Ranger, Do you have a link to the triple pass radiator you purchased? What’s the mod to the lower hose fitting you are describing? any pics?

#78

See post #7 in this thread. I got the 26", not the 24" one mentioned.
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1759358

There’s an old thread here about my double-pass radiators that has a link. That design had both inlet and outlet in the right. In order to make that work you do an Early top hose and a Late bottom hose. This triple radiator has both ports in the conventional Late locations. Both radiators have the wrong size outlet tho, which is the bottom pipe so you have to cut off the 1.75"? pipe and weld on a short 1.5"? pipe. One guy got his hose to fit w/o this mod, but I don’t know how he did that.

The outlet port (bottom) doesn’t end up oriented precisely right, but it’s close enough to make the hose work.

The radiator cap mod. Each of these radiator designs require a radiator cap, which we obviously don’t need/want/use, whatever. Each has an overflow port that works fine. With the 3 earlier efforts with the doublepass radiator I had a plate welded over the radiator cap port. But the bf.c thread above discusses going ahead and using the radiator cap, so that’s what I’m going to try. I’m going to drill a small hole in the radiator cap seal so pressure can equalize between the top of the radiator and the overflow tank.

I’ve a theory that the overflow tube isn’t so much about the movement of coolant, but about the equalization of pressure. Therefore it won’t take much of a hole in the radiator cap seal.

#79

Thanks, theres some good info in that thread.

#80

Scott,

Is the radiator overflow port on the same side as the radiator cap? Looking at the picture on the Pro-Tek website, the cap appears to be on the passenger side. I guess you would need to extend the overflow line across the top of the radiator to the expansion port… Is this what you plan to do?