I hope people real good with sheet metal or maybe experience with this job can help me. Also I hope people can learn from my mistakes. Well, other than spending a bunch of money, these learning experiences and challenges are something I actually enjoy, especially on a lower cost chassis. Anyways. ..

So my project s4 t2 had been going on for a while. I ended up needing to roll my fenders for my 17x9 +22. While rolling it I noticed cracks from bondo. I grinded the bondo down and lucky I didn't find a mangled panel. I'm sure my 87 t2 had some damage from before. I'm to far into it and in it to win it.

So I was doomed to get my car painted, and thought I would do a low budget sunroof delete. As some of you guys see my older post. My impatience and welding warped the roof like crazy! Once it hit that temperature, I just started hearing the metal move. I learned a good lesson. I think even done patiently, the amount of pull the weld had would have warped it a good amount.

Long story short, I was able to get an oem non sunroof panel. Unfortunately, the reinforcement bar is no longer available. My friend told me he'll hook me up when he has time to pop his off.

Anyways, here are some pictures with thoughts and description



I had a window guy come pull my windshield off. Luckily I had a new spot weld drill bit. I would miss a small corner here and there and just used a grinder on some parts, the areas on the left





You see that faint bronze colored line? So this is the area in most scared of. It's braze welded factory. It's not a butt weld. The top of the roof has a ledge that allows them to be lap welded, but with it bent so the 2 pieces line up flush. Sorry for the incorrect terminology, but I'm sure you get what I'm saying. I cut this area 1" higher for now before I can decide the best way to tackle this area.<br/>Tig welding will be flat, but tig pulls a lot more. <br/>Mig welding less penetration control





This is the driver and pass side. This pinch rail is what the door seal grabs onto. Part of that is with the chassis, part is on the roof. Spot welded together from factory






The rear has lots of spot welds. Very few on the punch rail the rear windshield seal goes on. A lot in the middle , and a few here and there at the very top between where the windshield bolts to. I had to leave this for last so I could pull up and see where the roof was getting held up. Oh, I forgot to mention to grind of as much paint so you can see the spot welds better





I'm ready to drive my convertible top down to the beach!

Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of my oem roof. I mocked it up and it fits awesome. I only need to plan and think about that b pillar area. Also maybe which sealer to use after I spot weld everything together.

This makes me itch to build a cage, but my car project keeps snowballing. I'm not sure if snowballing is a better explanation, or 1 step forward and 3 steps back.

Any help is appreciated. I've welded sheet metal before, but none as flimsy as this. Luckily I've had experience drilling out spot welds for carbon fiber roofs, so this took me a tad under 2 hours to remove. Yup, this is a project and a half, but I must finish it, or may God remove my hands so I can no longer masterbate. Unfortunately my stomach is too big, even if i removed my lower rib bones, I would not be able to ...... well, that's another thread on another forum . I'll try to keep you guys updated.

 

by the time you give up, the pile of once rx7 will be no more.
you want to salvage this mess? go to body school... come back two years with know how and experience..
you're not the first person to complete butcher a sunroof delete..

removing body panels from a unibody is a skill very few people pull off.... you've done the easy part of getting it off, now get the new one on without warping....

 

Got any pointers? I posted this to be helpful with the community and to ask for help. It's not like I'm trying to reengineer my car.

 

what you are trying to do takes schooling and lots of work over many years... its called body work, i dont do it... i have no clue. i don't think the internet can help you become a body man over night. i could be wrong.

 

Yeah, it's tough. I'm hoping with clamps and patience I can pull through. I'm having another buddy of mine give his insight on the welding.

I've done carbon fiber roofs before, but that just gets glued on. I'll pay some updates

 

At this point, why have you not taken it to a professional? I'm asking if it's at least crossed your mind.

Your time and effort has to be worth something, even if you enjoy trying, eventually you're going to want to end up with a "good" final product...with body work it's very possible you won't get there with just trying and trying and trying again.

 

the spot welds are pretty straightforward, but yeah the quarter panel seam is the trick. i'd take it somewhere.

i think you will also want to have them throw it on the frame measuring machine and if needed pull it straight. my new boss used to run a body shop, and he said they used to rack everything. in a high performance scenario this kind of goes double as its better if you start with something that is known straight.

here is a link to the FD bodyshop book (FC one isn't nearly this good), notice that they tell you where to put the welds, and sometimes they tell you to add more welds?

http://foxed.ca/rx7manual/manuals/FD...p%20manual.pdf

secondly, i have an NOS roof brace, and i sold the other one to eage8, its a simple part, one of us could probably take measurements. its probably 100mm wide and just goes front to back in the middle, it has a bend in it to follow the roof.

 

Its pretty pbvious to just redo the factory spot welds; that's simple enough. If you are not confident enough in your ability to weld the pillars without warping, consider panel bond adhesive.

 

I'm pretty sure my friend will pull through. He's just busy. I'm not in a rush either.

Yeah, well I'm not sounding very confident on this roof until I can 100% figure out the b pillar. The spot welds are a no brainer and the roof mocks up ****, the line at the braze weld lines up and everything. I still have the b pillar cut one inch high. I'm going to study the rear of it a little more before I cut more.

This is something I don't mind learning myself . If this b pillar gets slightly warped it'll look like crap, but I'm not to concerned about it. My plan is to use a million clamps and take my sweet time welding. I would rather learn on this and make mistakes than to screw up cars worth a lot more, which is almost any other car out there. I'll keep you guys posted so you can give me crap if I screw up. . I can be the car fool on the interwebs with my awd diesel rotary project

 

you might wanna practice on some scrap before try the real thing. panel bonding is an option too

 

Move around when tacking it up. So it's rosette welds at spot weld locations front and rear, butt weld over the doors, and another yet to be determined where butt weld at the B pillar? Start with the rosette welds, one front and one back in or near the middle, then one out maybe half way to the door and so on. Make sure it's clamped good and tight because you don't want to start filling in and get buckles because you didn't have the new skin pulled down tight enough.

 

So right on that braze weld like we're 4 spot welds. I want able to see them until I cut at the line and tried chiseling that little bit of material I had on there.

 

Pretty flush! Getting closer, my confidence is growing. My plans for the next steps are easier to plan now.

 

that looks very promising

 

where DID you get that panel
good to know if they got any more panels to fix some rust...

 

Lastphaseofthis, you have to get it through mazda motorsports with a sponsorship. Unfortunately the sport is no longer available. Dealers can not get it.

I'm confident to weld sheet metal is the warping and my impatience that kills me!

I've been practicing my rosette welds on a lot of e46 m3 subframe, but instead of 16ga, this is 18, and if I'm not careful with my grinding thinner!

I was talking with my buddy that is a full time welder and fabricator for the city and we were thinking about mig welding. Tig would be nice, flat, and clean, but that puddle seems to pull the metal more. Oh well, it's a huge debate. I don't want to sound cocky, but I would say my mig welding is a b+, and my tig is a c+ to b-. I'll seer ifi can search a few examples

 

A good tig welder will be able to do it without warping.

I'm a welder, and mig welding will definitly make it warp more than tig, alot easier to control heat and puddle with tig

 

We have an Everlast tig which my buddy swears is crap for aluminum. Only other example for mig wad with our old 110 miller. The new machine has way flatter welds. I'm worried about the warping. I'm not a full time welder/fabricator




O2 bung on e30 m3 competition header








Aluminum .



This was on our old 110 miller. Our new welder is better. These plates block the hole I made so the tube could reach the subframe mounting

 

Actually I'm giving myself to much credit on that other post. I've seen some insanely good welders. Drop my a's to b's, and b's to c's. I should just say I have a little more experience than the average bear

 

btw, since the b pillar metal is pretty much butt up against the original metal, what do you think about just fusing everyting with no rod? The smallest rod I have is 1/16". I noticed on lower settings the 1/16" seemed to big. I've been looking for pointers on thinner stainless, this is a similar situation. There would be some minor body filler. How would you go about this? Anyone else have tips? I really don't wanna warp this thing. One shot. I almost wanna do 200 tack welds over a long period of time.

 

I'd have to see it in person to be able to judge about that. I sometime just fuse without any filler, it depends on every situation

 

I'm waiting on the center support, until then, I can't get a 100% mock up. Things look good so far, just off by 2mm. If I line up one side, the other side overhangs a tad, but that can be the height on a center support.
Until then, my mind thinks about what j9fd3s said about a chassis being straight. According to our allignment machine, it's not far off from a few cars that went off the race track, better than some But I see a bit bondo here and there. I'm in it to win it, too much time invested. This car is my learning curve But it's a great process.
I feel like captain save a ho. But what doesn't kill me makes me stronger. This sheet metal experience really makes me bow down to guys making custom body parts from metal. It's a lost art. Tons of people on the internet talk as if they know what's going on, but the few that really know can tell who's fake or not. Learning and sharing experiences with the community can't get worse.

In this car industry it helps to know your stuff, but also to have an open mind of new ideas, also knowing which bs to hash out. Some stuff is tried and true. We have rotaries, or cars that came with them. We're doomed at some point!

 

re: the roof, you might think about doing something like Mazda, and use the 4 welds, and then braze it.

re: the chassis straightening. i got rear ended in the Rx8 last year, and it didn't do much cosmetically, there was a golf ball sized hole in the bumper, but pretty much that is it. however if you really look carefully, the hood and trunk don't line up anymore, and the rear wheels point in different directions. teardown revealed that the sheet metal that is the end of the car (flat, holds the tail lights, etc) was mangled. cosmetically the fix was easy, they straightened out the inner sheetmetal, and put a new bumper on it.

however even though i asked them to measure it, they didn't and said it was fine.

so my point is that something is bent from the accident, so it might align ok on an alignment rack, it doesn't drive correctly.

now the FC is ~25 years old, and if we're going to go high performance, maybe its a good idea to make sure its straight first. especially if the roof came off.

my new boss, used to run a body shop, and back in those days they measured everything with some giant calipers or something, these days they have a laser. it does take a long time to set up and measure the thing so its a $500 job, even if it doesn't need any work, but long term its probably worth it. i'm going to do my FC sometime this year.

 

This car is now experimental. I want to do my best trying new things. I appreciate all your help, not just this pst. I'm putting this work into it even if my car is a lost cause. I can shift the subframe and get my car more or less closer to spec. Although I prefer everything to be 100%, trying that just shows or love for this car. It'll drive straight dog legged. The alignment machine we have helps a ton. I never knew the freeplay in the chassis was part of the alignment! Lol. It's obvious if it gives a crazy number on axle setback

I was also thinking about doing the same braze with the 4 spot welds. Man, I haven't brazed since school. I'll definitly have to practice that. Time to buy some flux!