Welding

When the chassis was totally stripped from all parts, including the rear axle, cleaned and primed, it was time for some welding. During priming I marked all rust spots with a white marker, also writing down "exactly" what I wanted the welder to do and check for. This turned out to be a good idea, since the cleaning process covered over two years and it's easy to forget things! My 219 had all the typical rust spots, maybe not as bad as they can be but still there...

Note, do also see article Fenders and entrance sills (88) for the reparations that were done to the fenders!!

Me working side by side with the welder in Kisa, 2001

A-, B- and C-pillars etc

The following pictures show the C-pillars, brand new! After that I cleaned and primed the wheel arc pan and marked where the welder ought to continue his work. The last picture of the right side was taken when the sliding roof frame had been installed. I've painfully learnt that the more thoroughly you clean the car, the more money the welder makes... ;-)  Then I had to add a picture of me as well as of the welding wizard, Mikael. Hanging on the wall you can see the rear mudguards as well as the trunk lid to the left, behind him.

And here we have:

- rear side members

- spare wheel recess

- and finally, the centerpiece

Here is Mikael with a new centerpiece, sandblasted and primed, ready for the chassis.

These photos shows the previous status of the spring support and brackets that supports the thrust rod and cross arm respectively.

And, what can be done with chock absorber cups? Maybe this;

Both B-pillar bottoms as well as some of the car jack supports have been repaired. We also replaced some old welding and emptied the side members of a couple of liters of Tectyl. These, as well as everything else, will be re-filled.

Both A-pillars were restored with new angle plates and reinforcements. Repair panels from Mercedes was used. Below you can see the cut open left A-pillar as well as the repaired left and right A-pillar.

Reinforcement in fork member

A surprise was the bad shape of the fork member, you can see the hole that we cut in order to inspect it. The reason for this rust attack is that the speedometer cable goes right through the fork with no protection. Even though my father had cut a hole into the fork from the cabin side, cleaned it and filled it with Tectyl and thereafter sealed the cable holes, the fork was almost gone. We found the leftovers of some kind of reinforcement inside the fork but we were never been able to identify it or get a new one. The reinforcement in the spare parts list is not similar to the rests found in the car. See fig 37 in the scan from the list below and compare with the two other drawings as well as photos below. So Mikael did a new one, with the rests as master. You can see the whole process (incl a minor thing on the floor) below. This repair is today totally invisible, fantastic!

Wheel arch and air intakes/scoops

The following pictures show you the repair of another typical rust attack on a Ponton; the reinforcement on the front part of the wheel arc pans.

The right scoop was cut off in order to clean both the scoop and the plate underneath. The left scoop was too rusty, as well as the plate underneath (see below). The right one was thoroughly cleaned and a new left one was ordered.

Well, what happened? My welder and I waited and waited for the shipment. Nothing happened even though my supplier had sent it out over a week earlier. We all got a little bit upset, me for not having my car finished on time and my supplier for not getting his money. Suddenly the parcel showed up at my welder, in his basement (yes, he lives in a small town where you obviously don't have the need for locked doors), without any notice from the post office. Strange!! Naja, back to the car and the welding. Eeehhh, this isn't the needed left scoop, it's the right scoop. Dang, phone call to Germany for a free replacement. As a matter of fact, with a fair price offered by my supplier I decided to keep the wrong scoop. It's always nice with new, shiny scoops on both sides, isn't it?!

A Ponton awaiting in the garage to be assembled

And then the waiting started all over again. This time it took two weeks. We checked with the Swedish post and they found out that the parcel hadn't crossed the German border for well over one week after shipment from the supplier! And now, was it the correct scoop? Nope, it was a right scoop again. German Ordnung muß nicht immer sein, and yes; the supplier was embarrassed ;-).

After a couple of weeks (!), the correct scoop, the left one, arrived... No harm done to my welder however, luckily a car also have some doors that you can repair.

My impression of the German post, ehemaliger Deutsche Bundespost? I don't think I can publish here. The Swedish post also found out that the first shipment had been shipped and received by someone (the post didn't know who!) in a town ~80km north of my welder. The story how the parcel came to my welder and his basement is still not known.

This is the right scoop, the one that was supposed to be used again, therefore thoroughly cleaned. But since I got a brand new one, it was never used which I think was very good...

First, the front, waiting for its scoops and thereafter the left one in place and thereafter primed.

As mentioned above, the firewall around the battery needed to be repaired - or more precisely - totally renewed. The surface was puttied with tin. Long time after these pictures were taken I used the original, old cut out wall to identify and drill all holes needed in their correct position. The holes and their exact location (it's more holes than you can believe, some "blind") can be found in a sketch I published in the article Instrument panel, floor, parcel shelf, window frame (67, 68, 69).

The first picture show you the new firewall from the engine side and the other one from the inside (obvious?!!).

Sliding roof

Mid 80:ies I bought a complete 190 Ponton roof with a Webasto sliding roof in it, in condition like new, almost... The locking bow didn't belong to this 190-roof but another car, so to speak, and was in an extremely bad condition. As I've learnt later, my locking bow was "famous" in Sweden. I wasn't the only [looser] who had owned it. Many before me had bought a sunroof with it and later realized that it was impossible to restore it. Then they bought a second sliding roof with a fresh locking bow where after they sold the spare roof together with the nightmare.

Now, it can rest in peace. Sometime someone has to have some luck; I had it. The summer of 2001 I happened to ask a guy from Germany (I've asked hundreds of Swedes, Germans etc the last decade) if he had parts for a sliding roof. "Well, no I don't think so..." was the answer, "...I might however have a lonely locking bow which no one have shown interest in". 1 second later I made my final decision, let's install a sliding roof in my car! See the article Webasto sliding roof and the sub article about the old roof. There you can see more about its status...

These pictures show you the final result of Mikael work. This time we're not speaking about welding (with the exception of the reinforcements) but of gluing. The reasons for this where:

• Some people cut the cars A-,B- and C-pillars and weld the sliding roof (with some length of the pillars left) on top of it. I didn't dare to go through that process, what if the chassis would have flexed or you cut the pillars in the wrong length or ...
• With the first version ruled out we have two more (at least). The second is to drill out the roof along the window and door lists. This may be possible but the drawback is that this involves a lot of work and that you will end up with a joint on the A- and C-pillars. Especially the joint on the C-pillar will be very difficult to hide.
• The third method is to cut out a hole in the roof, tailor made for the sliding roof frame from the donor car. The problem we have to solve here is that the heat from welding will cause stress/strain (=problems) in the sheet metal which will be very difficult to do something about/hide. Instead you can make a fold in the roof of the car or in the sliding roof and then glue it. The joint only have to be sealed and not necessarily hidden since it will be covered by the aluminium cover rails. This was what we did.

Below you can see two versions of the third method. Actually I thought we went for the first alternative but we didn't. The method we use has one advantage; the cover rails press the frame up against the roof. As Mikael has contacts with Volvo (sic!), he used the same glue as they use in today's car production; 3M's two component chassis glue.

The first picture doesn't show Mikael's feelings. He has said to me that he was horrified. I can imagine, had he done something wrong there... The third picture shows a Ponton hedgehog, ~50 grips holding the frame in place.

And now it was time to put it all together...