Project 3 door estate...........

[24vdan]

Not been on here in a while, i know i'm gonna get a slap off mads.

Heres my ongoing project, i get very little time to crash on with it at the mo, the joys of keep a liitle one happy (and the wife  )

Heres how the estate started approx 16 months ago.



Dropped off my house




Moved into the garage and stripped naked 







Shes looking very sorry for herself, and very naked.

She needs.....
new outer sills both sides
inner sill repairs
seat mounts
rear arches
rear chassis rail n/s

The plan is a stripped out interior, a little body mod involving 'new' doors and 24v rwd coversion.




I managed to start the conversion a couple of week back and here is how she looks at the moment in my garage.....


Heres how the side view looked before i started..



and about an hour later.....







Mocked up the door...





Then it was alot of measuring and cut out more steel out of the estate to start fitting the 'new' B posts.






Still got some trimming out to do, also need to sort the donor B posts so that i can fit them as close to the factory welds as possible as to retain the strength and rigidity.

Just the otherside to do, but before that i'm gonna complete this side, sills, seat mount, arch and filling in the empty space behind the B post.


The runnning gear is gonna be full granada cossie stuff and a 24v BOA engine with BOB cams and twin exit exhaust 

My intention is to make it look possibly as ford intended if they'd built one, it's gonna be clean but not tooooooo bufty...... 


As progress grows and i get time on it i'll post pics up. my target was Ford Fair but thats looking tight with my time restraints.

[2saffs]

Nice to see somehing different being done on the bodywork mate, keep us updated will look great when its done 

[Owain]

Like dan says, good to see something out the ordinary being done, be great to see it when its done, maybe you could get some thundersaloon arches and park it alongside taps's car

[24vdan]

Like dan says, good to see something out the ordinary being done, be great to see it when its done, maybe you could get some thundersaloon arches and park it alongside taps's car

i did think about doing a wide arch set up on it, was toying with the idea of ecos wings, but, i think just to keep it as simple as i can (and keep costs down) i'm gonna be keeping it looking like a sierra at the least.

[Owain]

Either way mate, it'll still look the dogs no matter what you do with it, especially if fit an finish are anything like your saff, keep up the good work on it mate, be great to see it done

[V6 EDC]

I like the idea of building a 3 door estate, thinking outside the box as it were. Well done, look forward to seeing the progress...

[madasahatter]

Nice to see you about here again dan

Gonna try and come up your way soon so we can talkabout tatton park and i can see how your getting on

[24vdan]

Got a bit more done today, the drivers side B post is 95% in and ahs beem spotwelded and seam welded in where required.

The cutting seemed never ending and i was wondering if i'd have any car left 

Heres the pics of the progress so far.


The post has been spot and seam welded here as it was that way origionally on the 3 door i took it off.



Tacked into place here as a little bit of 'reshaping' is need to follow the contours of the estate door well, the 3 door door well has an extra bend in it and need 'beating' out so that it all mates up nice and true.



The door edge all spot welded in, or plug welded to the true welder.



A inside look at the B post, the gaps are all nice when the door is shut 



I'll keep the progress updates coming as i get on with her.

[madasahatter]

Doing good danny doing good

[24vdan]

Bit of an update, got a few hours onit on sunday and managed to sort out one of the rear arches.

Cut out the old rusty stuff and found the inner was rusty too, started off by patching up the inner part first.
All welded in and the welds ground back nice and smooth.



Then came a couple of hours trying to line up a pattern part, but with a bit of trimming and jigging about with it i finally got it all to line up nicely.

The finished result.





Sorry for the lack of pics today as i was trying to get it done without too many stops.

Don't think i'm doing too bad considering i've never welded a car in my life before 

Next on the list is to try and do the lower section of the arch and then start filling in the the 'hole' behine the repostioned B post.

[3 door 4x4]

ideally you want the rear quarter panels for a late LHD 3 door Sierra as they had the 3 door body on the Continent until 1992.

[sierra3dr]

My god! What an interesting conversion,hope it goes well Dan,very impressed

[24vdan]

First job of the day was to move the shell over to one side of my garage to give me more room, you don't realise how heavy a bare shell estate is until you've tried lifting one on your own, anyway, after a couple of hours of lifting and moving it was over to one side of the garage and then a little more was done today.

I managed to get the 'space' behind the B-post filled in. Now i'm just waiting for a mate of mine to pull his finger out with the steel i need to finish this side off.

Heres the progress made today, i know it aint pretty in places but it aint finished yet. like i said i'm waiting on a mate to sort out some steel.....


The 'door' all lined up and welded to the B-post, just around the edges to do and once it's got a lick of paint you'll never know.


The rectangular plates are there just to hold the door in the right place whilst i welded it all in.


A Little messy on the inside but you'll never ever see it. the section you can see was welded back in to retain some of the strength.

Hope you like so far.

[Taps]

Coming on Dan, be good to see the finished article

[24vdan]

Coming on Dan, be good to see the finished article

I can't wait either 

[madasahatter]

lots of hard work there, doing well dan

[johnnysaph]

mate thats alot of work
my hats off to you

[3 door 4x4]

What do you plan to do with the upper glass height? You have Mk1 doors on the front and Mk2 mid and rear which have a taller window line at the upper edge. Unless one of our mainland Euro friends has a pair of Mk2 LHD 3 door doors? They'd match up a treat...

[24vdan]

Been busy the last couple of weeks working on the house, so i decided to take a couple of hours out and do some on the estate.

Abig thanks goes to Cromwell engineering for sorting out 2 sheets of 18g steel for the project, as well as a tonne of off cuts.   

Progress so far, untill i ran out of wire......   



2 sheets of 5ft x 2ft 18 guage steel.



Just testing out how easy it is to weld up the door gaps, might be why i ran out of wire lol



Rough cut the panel fo filling in the rear window and tacked it in in a couple of places, it'll be trimmed to fit as i go along.



A look from the inside.


Like i say, unfortunatly ran out of wire, hope fully more progress will be made in a couple of weeks.

[24vdan]

Update.

Got the side 90% finished. Only got the sills to rebuild, seat mount to do, rear chassis rail.....

Then i have to do it all over on the otherside   

Pics so far as the day went on today.

It's not quite finished as you'll see in the pics, but it's gettin there.

Started off like this this morning.



Finished tacking the panel in......



and put the second one in...




Ground all the welds back and put a quick coat of white primer just to seal it up.





Just the door shuts to weld up and also the old door handle on whats left of the rear door.


Hope you like so far guys and gals....