lots of grinding and filling and things are looking much more presentable, infact we may be looking at a 4 wheels on the ground situation (something I haven't seen for a long while!). I've cleaned up the swage line area a bit and it all appears to be full of (original) leadloading which may be a bit of a health hazard :o(. Time for a load of wag I think!






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Quick post, more progress last weekend! I butt welded in the middle repair, it needs a little tidying and another small repair putting in but that should have the rear inner wing done.











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The kids and their mom are away for half term, my laptop has been impounded so progress has been made! I have spent most of the weekend whittling the rear arch repair panel and making a new panel too. (sorry neighbours!)


I took my time and lined everything before I got the welder fired up. The panel took quite a bit of re-shaping, but it wasn't too bad in the end. The small holes are so that the panel can be plug welded which mimics the original spot welding (but is a little stronger).


I did manage to find some "new" rust however. I'm not sure how, as I have been crawling all over the car for years now! What seems to have happened is the leaky rear screen has soaked the bit of leather which holds the bottom of the headlining in, this in turn caused the bit of steel below it to rust out. Its probably the most awkward area to fix properly, so it'll be a case of cleaning, killing the rust and keeping an eye on it.












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bin at it again. The rear spring hanger was a little wooly so that has been replaced. However this entails removal of some of inner wing, which leads up to the wing mounting flange. Unfortunately, when I repaired the inner wing last time (5 years ago) I thought the rear part of the flange was ok, but it wasn't, so I've prepped the area to fit the back end of the flange, and a rear inner wing repair panel.




Some of this area was quite sound, but it was made up of 6-7 different panels so rather than add to them I decided to make it all a little neater.













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Well its been a while (Again) but now we're getting there again. All the driver's side bodywork has been sorted pretty much and needs a final flat before undercoat and topcoat.

The next things to do are the rear quarter (again!) its not too bad, and I have a repair panel, but I have been there before (this is where I started - Forth bridge or what!).

I have managed to buy a super duper roof rack on ebay.
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Lots of the bodywork has been sorted, however I decided it was probably best to trial fit the new rear offside door. Lucky I did, as it didn't fit. There was something like a 3mm overlap which it quite a lot when its supposed to be a straight swap!




The answer, it turned out, lay in the hinges. The ones from the new door were a slightly different design and which kicked the back of the door out by that 3mm. Once swapped, everything was fine, well better. It was still a little proud, and all the bashing made me realize that the end of the gutter was not as fresh as it should be, so a piece had to be made and that was sorted.









The next things on the list are: finishing the welding on the new rear door (the old one was far too bad - see previous posts). Sorting out a front door (new or old decisions decisions..), lots more flatting. I have pretty much decided to get a proper re-spray done, so I'll really just need to do all the filling and priming I think. I'll have to get the interior sorted at some point too.

After this little lot is done, then there is the near side rear door (more of the same I'm afraid). The spare one looks remarkably good, but I'm sure that is not the case!

Will we be on the road for the summer? Not at this rate we won't!



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after lots of swearing and cut fingers I've finally managed to get all the welding done, and get cracking on the pretty stuff. This is really quite a small quantity of filler and lots of sanding/flatting. I have got a couple of conflicting views on this 1) filler and primer are porous so always dry sand 2) dry sanding clogs really easily and is a waste of time so wet sand . I went for option 2...

This bit always takes ages, and I'm never happy with it. I have considered getting it done by a pro, but it is rather expesive. so far it as been pretty good. I'm now working on the rear arch (double curvature so really tricky) the guter (fiddly) and the windscreen aperture (should have done it properly last time...)

I have been having problems getting filler and stopper to dry quickly enough. The process is usually
go into the garage of an evening, sand the filler down, look at where the blemishes are fill and then leave it for the next evening.. which means it takes AGES!




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