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Mechanica Design

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Doing weird science to restore and hotrod a Volvo 1800ES with readily available tools

08/30/2026

Editing the MiG brazing video, and filming some pyrotechnics shots . Don’t you hate it when you burn holes in thin steel?

08/22/2026

I use Bosch Power Tools Bosch Tools , always used them because that’s what my dad used

But wow , what a disappointing line up , no innovation here at all . Just look at all the directions Milwaukee Tool is going , all the advances they’re making .

If I were starting with a new tool line today , it would probably be Hercules because great price and lots of innovation

Sorry Bosch , time to step up

08/14/2026

Volvo’s unholy love of wood screws / self tappers to hold everything together.

Coming from European / Japanese / American cars , never would have imagined seeing this kind of nonsense from anything other than high school kids screwing on fender flares onto a clapped out Civic .

08/09/2026

Getting ready to shoot this 1/2” tall, 3” deep gap between upper frame rail and fender , and this 6” deep wedge in the back is the fender with Eastwood rust encapsulator moisture cured urethane , and have a long reach wand for it . And the main part , I’ll shoot SPI Epoxy .

Then will shoot inside the cleaned windshield cowl area .

These are deep gaps , and the Eastwood long reach wand is the only thing that gets in there.

I’ll follow up with compressed air blast to ensure no pooling or puddling to avoid solvent entrapment .

I spent weeks cleaning these areas , wire brushed , chemically cleaned , sand blasted , but still can’t get every minuscule spot

I have no idea if I’m using the right approach with this hybrid solution .

08/08/2026

Made a few different versions of the “spinning flail of death”. These are directional controlled versions that let you get into weird spots . Weird rust traps that this freaking Volvo is full of .

It’s brutal , it’s crude , but it’s effective

08/07/2026

Working on the video where I document all these findings. This is going to be really cool, basically what I did is I had one camera recording the weld, the other camera recording the welder settings. Then synched those up, and generated a first video that just the welder display, this shows in real time voltage and current. I wrote a Python script to extract the frames from the welder display, send those to an OCR software that extracts the voltage / current from the LED display, and I wrote all this to a file, this had the timestamps, voltage and current. Next, I wrote some more Python to figure out where the actual welds were, and calculate the stitch weld duration, and use this to calculate total energy delivered per stitch weld. Then, generate a series of image overlays with a bar chart showing this data, and finally import those back in to a new movie, and overlay the welder display, data display to really show how each weld process compares.

08/06/2026

Why am I not working on the new video ?

Because my garage door opener broke and I having to fit a new one

08/02/2026

Working on getting these wheel wells ready for paint ; sandblasted impossible to reach wedges .

I really wanted to get to engine bay, but have to paint inside the cowl first as that drains to wheel wells , so have to prep and paint interior of those first

Used a fan here to try and get some negative pressure flow under the car , the sandblasting wasn’t terrible as far as mess goes , not great , but not terrible

07/30/2026

Video progress update: started as a small silicon-bronze repair on the Volvo windshield frame has turned into a full CuSi-vs-steel welding experiment.

I made about 50 coupons, recorded the welder’s actual voltage and current, synchronized it with the welds, and compared stitch duration, electrical energy, pe*******on, and backside wetting.

The early result is not what the usual “silicon bronze means less heat” crowd would claim. CuSi is great for pinholes, fragile edges, and areas where the bronze can remain on the surface. But for a flush-ground butt weld, it needed much longer arc time to wet through the joint. My hot, fast steel tacks achieved full pe*******on while using roughly half the electrical energy per stitch.

Apparently MIG CuSi brazing was invented by Ea-nāṣir to sell us more substandard copper.

Full video coming soon—with the repair, the coupons, the data, and probably some angry comments.

https://youtube.com/

07/26/2026

Experimenting with MiG brazing . On the lower corner of my windshield frame , 72 Volvo 1800ES, there is a seam where the fender meets the cowl panel , it’s a lap weld . The factory screwed up where they got carried away with the angle grinder and ground all the way through the windshield frame lip for about 2”. Maybe Lars had a little too much schnapps at lunch ???

This is clearly a factory screw up , as you can clearly see where they ground down this joint between the fender and cowl panel with an angle grinder , the flattened section is a good 3-4” long and the deepest part was right at the seam . This fender was never replaced , so only time anyone would have been here was the factory .

So there is some lead near that seam and I didn’t want to melt it, and the metal is thin here so wanted the minimal heat input .

First time using it , silicon bronzed MiG a bead and filled beautifully . Added a second bead over to top to rebuild the correct crown / lip shape , then filed down .

Mostly I wanted some structure here so when I fit the windshield , it’s solid and makes sure totally water tight .

Think it looks pretty OK

I’ll put together a YouTube on what I learned about MiG brazing and where I think it’s useful .

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5080 W State Road 46
Bloomington, IN
47404

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