Beta Volumex HPE restoration

[chrisc]

Envious! Funny seeing how closely some of the repairs match those from my past vx hpe.

I have found my perfect house, nice area, nice house, 2 double garages and a big driveway. However, it's not for sale and if it were I would hazard a guess it would be close to £1.5m.. Still, if I ever win the lottery..

[squiglyzigly]

Progress slowed a little recently due to overdue jobs on the house that really needed addressing before winter. A new roof on the garage and new radiators in the house to save on energy bills had to take priority. Oh and a fortnight in the south of Italy for a little R&R.
But I’ve got back to the HPE focusing on finishing the welding to the off side sill and rear quarter panel.
There were a couple of repairs to the front and rear of the sill that I didn’t like the look of so I took the decision to cut the entire sill off and repair and strengthen as I did on the near side. If I didn’t do this I would never know what I might of missed. And this would be a shortcut that would play on my mind.

As I turned out, it wasn’t to bad at all really. There were a few repairs to do inside and the rear end of the sill/inner arch section was a bit messy but quite good considering.

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A couple of straightforward repairs to the inside of the rear end of the sill.  Very minimal I’d say.

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Some cleaning up and minor repairs with extra cross bracing from inner to outer sill for strengthening to improve shell stiffness.

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Then onto the off side rear arch. Several areas needed attention as you would expect, but I thought local repairs were all that were needed rather than cutting the whole arch out like the near side required.

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Then onto the spare wheel well and lower rear quarter. This was a bit more involved as it required work inside and out to remove some previous repairs that once again I was not prepared to accept. I had a donor section to fit here but that in itself also needed some repairs. But it was a useful piece to start from because it is a complicated area that needed a lot removed.

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The donor piece needed repairing on the leading edge and wheel arch lip. When I remake any wheel arch lips, I always do it with stainless. It’s probably a bit unnecessary as other areas nearby will eventually succumb to corrosion but at least I know the repairs will never fail in my lifetime. But I have a free supply of scrap stainless so I put it to use.

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Once in place it was meant that the off side of the car was complete of welding repairs.

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New Betaboyz outer sill welded on and it’s prime time.
From bare metal to etch primer to high build 2K.

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The last remaining exterior repairs are the rear panel and tailgate.

[WestonE]

Hi Ian

Impressive and rapid work well done.

Eric

[peteracs]

Yep, very impressive, hopefully my bodywork guy will be as thorough….

Peter

[Nigel]

Concurring with the others, nice work.

Two things Ian, do you need to use a special weld wire to
bond the dissimilar properties of the steels?
And are you using Mig or Tig?

Nigel

[squiglyzigly]

Hi Nigel,
I only have a simple 130amp Snap-on (read Cerbora) mig.
I’ve tried using stainless wire with Argoshield gas but didn’t have the skill to make it work very well. So I experimented with regular mig wire and CO2. It welds very easily in joining both mild steel to stainless and stainless to stainless. Obviously the welds are only mild steel and therefore they will rust if left untreated.
But the welds seem strong and reliable.
The complete exhaust from manifold back on my VX coupe is stainless with mild steel mig work (untreated) and it’s been faultless to date. Only a light dusting of surface rust on the welds. I have also made exhausts like this on friends cars and again they have been reliable for over 15 years.

It’s not the most professional way of welding compared to back purging tig but it’s a safe/reliable and cheap option if you diy.  Oh, and very rewarding.

p.s. below is my VX rear section still going strong.

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Seeing as the car is now in primer albeit the final corrections and alignment are still to do, I thought I’d take a break from bodywork and get on with the last of the chassis repairs.
Not an ideal time of the year to be rolling around on a cold concrete floor but it ain’t gonna fix itself.
The rear turrets have seen a number of repairs over the years which is to be expected but the style of these repairs is new to me. At a guess I’d say Picasso was an inspiration.

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This is going to be a simple job of cutting out the rough area and replacing. Easy to access and enjoyable.
The interesting thing I have noticed on all HPE and coupes (haven’t checked my Berlina but expect the same) is the area circled. The gap between the turret and the inner panel is the rear quarter and it is not joined. They come like this from the factory and the gap is hidden with seam sealer. Behind the panel is a nice strengthening brace. I’m surprised the join wasn’t made to improve the structural integrity. Maybe it was too time consuming to achieve in mass production. Anyway, it will be joined now.

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This will need a little more work to correct. I hope I can do better.

[WestonE]

Hi Ian

On mine in this area it was a large L shape new plate on the insides and a new large flat plate outside both of thicker gauge. Obviously the water trap section and previous bodges were cut out and thrown away.

They all go there!

Cheers

Eric

[squiglyzigly]

Hi Eric,
Yes that sounds like the best way to go. The HPE is a more open structure than a coupe due to the lack of a parcel shelf, so I think it would benefit a lot from any strengthening mods.
I was pleased to see the door shut didn’t move a single millimetre when I jacked the car at the rear of the sill. I think that’s an indication the internal sill mods I put in place are a successful upgrade.

Whilst carrying out the obvious repairs it became apparent that the factory spot welding wasn’t really up to spec. There are many theories on spot weld spacing due to factors such as how many sheets of metal, what guage metal etc., but none of the theories seemed to support the random and very wide spacing in most areas of this car. So I have gone all around it drilling and plug welding the missing spots. I’ve lost count how many so far but I think it’s now in triple digits.
It will all be invisible once it’s painted and worthwhile I think.

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The circles are what I deem to be missing or sloppy spot welding. Some of the spot to spot weld spacing was approaching 100mm so I’ve drilled through 2 of the 3 sheets ready to plug weld and dress flat.
Maybe Giuseppe had a fag in one hand on a Friday afternoon.