Lego's 71 510 wagon

[Legoman27]

getting my Wagon back on the road, lets get up to speed
Please hold

 

[datzenmike]

Is that like: Go ahead! Back up.

[Legoman27]

 

19 hours ago, datzenmike said:

Is that like: Go ahead! Back up.

something like that lol

ended up in an argument with imgur getting things to upload en masse
but anyway
--------------------------

This is the day I got the car on 5/11/2018

been off the road since 99' per the window sticker
plenty of rust in the usual places, and AstroTurf for carpet, but it was manual, mostly ran, and was mostly complete
 

 

I ended up driving the 3hr trip back and forth from school the next couple weekends to work on the car
First thing to happen was a complete brake rebuild

 

Since then I've only actually driven it once - with a gas can and a jump pack strapped to the rad support

 

 

Managed to find a replacement hood & hatch
They ended up shipped freight from IL I think?

 

 

 

Other than the floor pans, the rear hatch & trunk had the worst of the rust

 

Since it wasn't my garage to work in a lot of the rust patches were very rushed or just half finished, but at least this one got the hatch to latch again
(we'll come back to these eventually)


 

Painting the roof was probably the biggest thing I did to the car at the time
wire wheel/sanded off all the paint

used some rust treatment stuff

a skim coat of filler for the remaining pitting

epoxy sealer primer

paint
in the six years since then the only issue has been one hole that rusted through from the inside - there were some rubber pieces that seem like they trapped moisture

 

 

[Legoman27]

After summer 18', things got pretty sporadic
got most of set of seals and would spend long weekends installing those and burning whatever spare cash I had dousing the car in POR15
Car was starting to look pretty alright if you ignore the glaring rust holes and half finished patches

 

 

Fast forward to summer 19'
I had just finished school, got a job and everyone moved, so very little chance to work on the car
This is where the car sat for the next two years, complete with those pesky unpainted patches

 

 

Fall 21'
road trip time

Got a house with my own garage, so time to get this thing inside

 

This was the most obvious casualty of the car's time under that tree
a nice hole in my freshly painted roof

 

 

I threw some cheap spray paint at anything that remotely looked like rust
Since house projects took priority, the car sat like this for another year an a half,  but at least it was out of the weather now

 

In my spare time I worked on a big 3d printing project though

 

 

Spring 23'
Finally taking the plunge and learning welding / rust repair
patched the roof hole & coated the entire inside of the roof with POR15

 

Patched the driver's footwell
welds aren't pretty by any means, but they'll do
Might redo these eventually

Replaced the driver's rocker
Considered just trying to patch the existing for a while, but couldn't think of a good way to make the complex bit at the front of the rocker

 

[Legoman27]

Turning the car around to the passenger side, the front support arm was probably the worst case of my half-baked rust repair

 

 

Ended up making a new outer skin

and a new corner brace

 

 

 

Floor pans on the passenger side needed work
seems like my welds are slowly getting better

 

Replaced the passenger rocker

 

and spliced together two passenger fenders
needs a few alignment tweaks

 

 

[Legoman27]

And now we're up to today
I've been working on stamping new panels for the trunk using 3d printed dies

Never was happy with the old patch panel

 

 

I'll probably replace the other main patch for the latch at some point


current plan is to replace the rust around the trunk, then start reassembling everything to get the car on the road before the end of summer
its been long enough, I want to drive this thing lol

once winter rolls around  I can pull the engine and fix the rust up front and (budget permitting) get my L20b swap machined  and assemble

[RLJ]

Nice work.
Did you 3D print the rear hatch torsion bar cover?

[Legoman27]

1 hour ago, RLJ said:

Nice work.
Did you 3D print the rear hatch torsion bar cover?

Yep

22+ separate pieces all glued together

[Legoman27]

Getting close on all these trunk panels

new metal at the rear of the wheel well
cleaned up welds on the panel in the lower right

 

This panel fought me most of the way
I managed to stamp it crooked at first, then it kept moving as I was trying to weld
If I had to do it again, I'd probably make the dies differently next time

 

 

 

[KELMO]

This is all very cool. Especially the 3D printed torsion bar cover for the hatch.

 

Seems like now may be the time to investigate getting a 3D printer.

[Legoman27]

It has definitely been a useful tool for the shop

 

Great at setting money on fire though 😅

3 hours ago, KELMO said:

This is all very cool. Especially the 3D printed torsion bar cover for the hatch.

 

Seems like now may be the time to investigate getting a 3D printer.

 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

How are you stamping those panels? Pullmax? Air hammer?

[Legoman27]

23 minutes ago, Stoffregen Motorsports said:

How are you stamping those panels? Pullmax? Air hammer?

 

Printed dies sandwiched between arbor plates on my press

 

 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

A lengthy process.

 

I'm considering a pullmax, but I have no room left in the shop...

[Legoman27]

Yeah, takes a while

Takes ~3 hours to print each side of the smaller dies, and then it probably took me an hour plus to stamp the panel with the s shape

 

Could probably be faster if I found a way to mount the dies on the press and align them

Changing out to an air operated jack would help too

[Rustbin]

It looks like you also got squirrels, and rust. I've just been hammer forming the beads or buying KF panels for the big pieces.

 

9 hours ago, Stoffregen Motorsports said:

A lengthy process.

 

I'm considering a pullmax, but I have no room left in the shop...

 

 I watch this You Tuber and am intrigued by this tool because it wouldn't take up much room but wonder if I would use it enough to be worth it. He also made some thumb nail dies for shrinking. 

 

 

 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

I've seen that, and having used air hammers before, I can't imagine the toll it would take on one's body and mind to make panels with that.

[powderfinger]

On 5/7/2024 at 8:46 AM, KELMO said:

Seems like now may be the time to investigate getting a 3D printer.

If seriously considering getting one now is definitely a better time than ever. With so many quality printers coming out now at really good prices for what you get. When I first started 3D printing years ago it took many hours of troubleshooting then modifying then rinse and repeat before my, admittedly cheap, printer would print with good quality. Even then it was very slow. Now you can get one from a company like Bambu Labs that just simply works for as low as $250 if you don't need a large print bed and only want to print with a single color.

 

I now own the P1S from Bambu Labs with the AMS unit for doing up to 4 colors and I love it. 

[Legoman27]

trunk panels are all laid out now, and just about ready to start welding
A little cleanup needed here and there, but it's real close

 

 

 

 

[Legoman27]

While staring at that last picture last night I realized that the last ridge on that bottom right panel is shifted ~10mm more to the center of the car than stock / the other side🙃

 

At least I noticed now and not after welding it in