Since my last update I'd made a decision to complete the main bodywork issues and try to get the car in primer in 6 to 8 weeks.
It sounds like a long time and it is when everything is done by hand on your own in cramped conditions although the time soon seems to count down in rapid fashion.
It gets even longer when further metalwork issues jump into the fray to give you even more work to complete, a veritable domino effect.
However my determination to get this one done is paying off I feel.
After completing the strip back to bare metal of the bonnet, the wings and the door apertures, the passenger door got the same treatment including some attention to a little surface rust on the foldover lap joint underneath it.
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Periodically my not so little helper has stopped by to assist me and dispense his pearls of wisdom including how to put dents into bodypanels.
- 2 and a half and knows the difference between a spanner, a socket, a lamborghini and a citroen. He's after our jobs I tell you!
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Heading rearwards the dire state of the paint and underlying prepwork became obvious, with the discovery of around 10 to 12mm of filler on the rear quarter panel behind the passenger door trailing edge and further filler on the arch itself.
The whole lot had been simply trowelled on and run down with a DA sander leaving a shape that didnt exactly match the original but looked close enough, the fact that it wasnt necessary to have so much of it shows how poor a job had been done by various parties over the cars chequered past.
It took close to a week of solid effort to get the bare minimum skim installed and get the shape right on that passenger arch but the effort was in my opinion worth it to remove the unecessary filler and reinstate the shape to the damaged areas.
- Absolutely stuffed full of filler, removed to bare metal.
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Once that was completed the drivers side got the same treatment and more effort due to the further discovery of more filler in the sill area which covered yet more damage.
I spent the best part of another week fettling that area and fixing the jackup damage ( dents) but its as good as it can be for a non professional like me.
Also I found what appears to be a bullet hole in the upper part of the rear quarter close to the A pillar.
Fairly neat hole with a few rips and tears to the edges, looks too irregular to be most anything else unless some sort of spike was rammed through but surrounding damage is extremely limited so I dunno!
- Is this really a bullet hole? I dunno, looks like it could be!
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Stripping off the rest of the panels paints revealed yet more expanses of heavy filler covering dents and creases in the skin which simply didnt need to be so thick so it was all removed back to bare steel and the whole lot steadily built up in thin layers to get the shape back with minimal filler depth.
Weeks have now passed and the roof is begging to have its paint removed, and so the scraper is re-employed to shear off the top layer before litres of paint stripper remove and soften the underlying layers.
I must have removed about 15kgs of paint from this car so far and all of it was poor.
No issues of any worth found on the roof panel made me happy!
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With that attended to, the boot area needed attention.
I'd always known the car had suffered from a rear impact but at one point I thought I could possibly fix the damage by carefully pulling it out.
Not going to happen-ever unfortunately.
The whole rear end had gone in, concentrated on the offside.
The upper corner and light aperture on the driver side was full of filler at about 10 to 15mm depth, shape was totally wrong and looked it.
I later found out it had oodles of spatter type weld to fill it all in as well, absolutely horrible.
The boot lid wouldnt sit squarely with the height differences between each corner being obvious, also the lineup with the edges and the lower sections of the boot lid meant it'd never have been right so I decided to get a new rear valance from Pete at quattrocorner rather than pay out for a second hand item thatd need even more prep and had no guarantee of straightness.
Getting the new part showed me just how difficult it would have been to straighten out what I had, it simply was so badly damaged and distorted that it would never have worked.
- Boot lid is a new old stock item and is straight, the top lineup of the light aperture is less than satifactory .
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- Hammered to bits by monkeys!
The steel has been blowtorched, splatterwelded and stuffed with filler.
Just lovely, a real work of art. - P1060025.jpg (142.06 KiB) Viewed 33269 times
- Pigeons make such a mess.
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So with my new panel aquired it took a day of hard work to carefully split the spot welds, preserving the flanges on the body panels and remove the old junker.
- New rear valance cost me 450 quid due to lack of manufacturer availability but saved me a whole headache and looks the business.
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- Not pretty at all.
At this point I'm thinking "what have I got myself into?". - P1060306.jpg (290.47 KiB) Viewed 33269 times
It took another couple of days to get the locations cleaned and trued up to accept the new panel for test fits.
- Looking better....
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It wasn't a million miles away as it happens but far enough out to warrant more work, especially to that drivers rear light aperture and corner area where the old one was so buckled the light unit wouldnt sit flat at all and it overhung the panel. It was nasty looking and was just plain nasty.
I briefly considered fabricating a replacement but thought better of it, just too much hassle to do it.
- Not bad at all.
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- Not too good.
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- Definitely an improvement over what was on there.
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The difference between what was on and what I was putting back is quite obvious between the next two photos, ones hammered to pieces and I didnt do it!
- Old and damaged/distorted.
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- New, expensive but lovely.
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By now im deep into this one and getting deeper so I looked around for a rear corner panel I could cut up, Dave at audicoupeparts came up with one and I spent the best part of 3 to 4 days cutting, trimming, checking, test fitting and trimming again to get it mm perfect in terms of lineup- a right pain in the posterior regions I can tell you with the distortion of the existing panel, but at least the shapes right, theres no rust there anymore and it looks pretty good.
- Offside rear light aperture, this part took more effort than I would have believed to fit correctly.
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- Ooops!
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- Distorted and rusted section gone.
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- Closer but still no cigar.
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- Backing strip ensures flush sitting panels and minimal filler skims and less distortion when welding in.
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So with more cajoling, drilling holes for spot welds and fretting about the fit I started the job of welding it all in.
The corner and light aperture part had to go on second due to the lower panel having a return formed in it that was left after I removed the light aperture it came with.
That aperture was eventually dispensed with as I found it impossible to get a good lineup with it attached, so the original panel from Pete was used and doing it that way made it easier to get it fitted correctly, or as close as it could go given the whack the rear had taken.
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- Infinitely better, no rust no misalignment.
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It then took another few days of multiple test fits, drilling the positions for new spot welds and yet more test fits and I finally got the rear panel on properly.
One thing I had noticed when test fitting was that it was going to be hard to push the panel into position at the bottom due to flex and misalignment in the original panelling on the car, so I utilised my ratchet straps and a couple of wood blocks and with an eye bolt welded to a long bolt screwed through the fuel tank bracket which locates on the rear turret, the other end hooked into the subframe to gently encourage it to position before I set about tacking and welding it all in.
- 5 ton tie down is a bit overkill!
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With more time gone out the deadline and lots of grinding down of welds to make it right, that led to finally applying the seam sealer underneath and the use of some polyurethane seam sealer for the ends of the panel as per the original item.
Once set, the whole seam edges inside the boot were blasted with weld thru primer (high zinc content) so it would find its way between the two sheets and preserve them for years to come, although I'd already sprayed them days before as further insurance, then the inner panel overlaps were treated to a coating of Upol grey stripe brush on seam sealer which smells bad but does the job nicely so it looks rather good.
Then to finish off, a couple of sound deadening panels were installed to cut down on drumming noise.
I had previously test fitted the boot lid, its seal and the lock mechanism, but no way would it work and it took Mr Brain a few moments of confusion to notice that the idiot that is me had installed the striker on backwards...doh!
In my defence it had been 3 years since it was removed....
Once that was put on correctly and adjusted it all sat fine.
It's not 100% concours "perfect" but compared to how it was when I first had it, its 99 % right.
- Sitting pretty.
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