getting there.

OK so. Hardly any pictures today. I made and welded in the angled area that was missing from just above the big cutout for the rear quarter panel (pic of it after being 'spot welded in'). The rest of the day was spent a) clearing out the mess that is between wheel arch and rear drivers door and b) making the plates to repair the drivers rear quarter cosmetic piece. (biggg).

Hopefully that'll be done before the weekend then i can get stuck into the passengers side.

my assistant did more sanding on the passengers side (revealing more rust problems --- goody). She also treated and Da'd the front drivers door and the front grill piece that goes inbetween the windscreen and the bonnet. They're sitting in epoxy primer now. ready to 'store' tomorow.

long day some visible progress...

OK

So i finally finished the support /wheel arch part man that is almost imposible to make freehand. The other side better not be as bad because its insanely time consuming. I also put a patch in the rear of the panel that seals the rear quarter panel underneath the trunk floor. Then i put sealer on all the welded area's (both sides) and then sprayed epoxy 2pac primer on those area's so when they're sealed up they're water proof.(Ill do all the 3m schultz at once) - during / after the bodywork stage when its all assembled.

Also my assistant finished sanding the boot (finally lol) so i treated the metal. sanded it and sprayed the rear drivers door and the boot with epoxy aswell. those will be ready to go into storage tomorow morning. When all the rust repairs are done and the whole lot is epoxy'd the car will get re-assembled and then FINALLY the body work begins in ernest.

The pics are all mixed up and im too damn tired to sort them out so view them 1 at a time.



first up we have a picture of the rear quarter internal area after being repaired and sealed and epoxy'd












Here is a picture of the boot and rear drivers door. you can see the dents protrouding through the epoxy. To be fixed during the bodywork stage.









Da'ing the boot panel with 80 grit after treating the metal. before cleaning and painting.










OH GOODy more rust. i spoted a tiny spot protrouding on the front of the wheel arch between it and the door. upon closer inspection <--- THERES A GOD ALLMIGHTY HOLE!. So now i have even more damn rust to fix. awesome.








Here is a view from the back of the car looking at the repaired section with sealer over the welds/joins before being epoxy'd.











A view from the side of the support / sealing panel after the welds have been finished and the area's sealed.

A view from the wheel of the area after its been sealed before being epoxy I still have to mount the bottom of the rear quarter too the repaired area.

The rear section after being repaired before being sealed or epoxy'd

The damage on the bottom of the rear left quarter hard to see from that angle but there is a 3-4inch hole lengthwise down the body thatll have to be repaired the rust here isnt as bad as the drivers side.

The rust at the front of the rear left quarter was just as bad as the drivers side which probably means the support and wheel arch area's will also be fried - awesome...

The front support after being 'rebuilt' with about 1/3 of the original to go from as a sample. The original litterally fell apart in my hands as i removed it. totally rotted out.







Thats it for today another 10 or so hours to do tomorow we'll see how it plays out hopefullly I get all the rust repairs on the drivers side finished and then i can start on the passengers side. In 1 week I will have had the car for roughly a month and its taken that long just to do the huge number of rust repairs and also to strip the old paint (10 layers thick including 10-20mm of bog) so i can start the bodywork from scratch and fix ALL the rust i find. (Which when you remove the cover-up paint job is a lot.

Slow going.

Ok so spent another 7-8 hours on her today. time vs progress is rediculously slow when you have to custom shape all the panels. I finished welding in a new plate for the wheel arch then cut out the very complex jigsaw puzzle (of which half is missing) piece that is the support for the bottom of the rear right fender. I've got to custom shape this part and fix the inside runner area before i can make and attach the new bottom (costmetic) rear fender piece. My target is by wednesday to have the whole bottom right area "done"

As I told Craig, If i can get all the rust repairs done within the next month ill be happy. its extreamly time consuming and theres a lot of it.


Anyway...

Here is a picture of the new plate in the rear right wheel arch area. as you can see there is a 2mm gap between it and the brace (the boot panel on its way from america has a lip that goes in there and gets 'spot' welded too the wheel arch and the trunk floor brace.

Here is a picture of the area after the rusted fender brace has been cut out. it also extends the quarter forwards and seals from behind so its quite a complex piece.

Here is a new piece tac-welded in being shaped to suit. After this piece is done i'll tac weld in the two parts which will make up the angled area which gives the wheel arch edge its shape. (and they're just the supports

When all that is done i'll have to cut and replace a little rust on the inside of the rear quarter sealing panel before i then finally make the cosmetic piece and weld that in. When thats done i'll spray it all with epoxy primer, seal it with sealer and then spray the back and inside of the panels with the 3m schultz. Then finally i can move onto other rust area's and do other repairs.

We also are planing to epoxy primer the 2 drivers side doors and boot panel tomorow so we can put them into storage until we're ready to start the bodywork when all the damn rust repairs are finally finished.

Day1 Long weekend.

Ok, So many hours spent today cleaning up the rear right side of the car. gota go backwards to go forwards.... Once i start welding in the new panels i've dummied up tomorow hopefully it'll start looking a bit more like a car are less like a rustbucket. I'm glad Craig's decided to order the boot panels (all 3) that's going to give a much better finish in the boot and also going to allow a much better seal all arround the outside which was rusted out and now i can replace.

Anyway I gotta go out so gona make this short only 3 pictures.

Here is the rust in the rear right wheel arch getting cut out. Behind it the rear left trunk floor panel connects to it (at the line where it's rusted out). and also a brace that connects the boot flow too the chasis rail (can see this brace in one of the next pictures.)

Ok this is the same area with the rusted metal cut out and the face of the rear brace cleaned up. as you can see it connects the area too the chasis rail. Unfortunatly water has been sitting in this but its ok. It'll get wire brushed. treated, and then painted with cold galv to stop it rusting anymore. (once again the bottom of the car will be getting coated with 3m Schultz (ruburised / bitchemised underbody car sealer)

This is a picture showing the ammount of affected metal removed so far from the rear right area. LOTS.

glimpse the future.

Nothing new done today except i brought some new tools to make the rust repair easier. a few more to buy on thursday got a huge day at work tomorow so no work probably then either but 4 day weekend coming up with solid time on it and i cant wait to make some real progress on all this rust ><

As a bonus craigs sent me a link of the engine and rims he's sourced for her when he gets her back. Oh and 'metalicar' as a demo of what she'll look like when finished, or at least what we're aiming for :P

after work party.

Good news!
The fuel tank isnt rusted - just dirty.

Bad news!

This is the bottom section of the rear drivers die fender that had to be removed due to massive rust.

This is the rust behind that section of panel that was removed. going all the way into the wheel arch. and into the boot cavity. fixing this will be time consuming.

Bottom of the inside of the panel that the part i removed was spot welded too. Also rusted and requiring replacement.

The drivers rear wheel arch area rusted through into both the inside bracket for the rear fender and the boot area. also requiring work.

This job just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. its insane. never the less no point doing it half assed all the rust will be cut out and fresh metal welded in. hoping to get all the supports for this rear fender and the skin welded on by friday then on sat/sun/mon/tue i can do some of the many other rust repairs.

Marco ... Polo.

Good news!
this section of the post will be nice and short, The drivers doors and front fender have been finished at least the rust removal and fresh metal installing part. They'll be epoxy primed shortly after being metal prepped. Then i'll spray the 3m schult on the backs and use sealer where necissary. Then those panels can go into storage until im ready to assemble the car for the bodywork stage.









Bad news!

Firstly we're going to be manufacturing the trunk floor from plate steel which means cutting off the support panels for the stock item then mounting those to the new plate and jigging up the new plate this is time consuming and a lot more effort for me :(

Secondly the bottom off the window sills is missing completely (see picture below). This is going to be fun....

The worst part of the boot pan is removed to i can get to the inside of the rear quarter, the rust has also grown into the wheel arch area and will need to be cut out and replaced :\...

Oh and the rust on the bottom of the rear quarter goes about 250mm up along the WHOLE LENGTH of the rear fenders. and also as you can see in the picture the rear support panel including inside wheel arch is absolutly rotted out. there was up to 20mm of bog in there and the adhesive pads and even some bronzing a lot of bandaid solutions which mean EVEN MORE WORK for me >< and delay for Craig. :\ as im going to have to redo the entire rear support panel aswell as the front cosmetic panel ... where both join the rear off the car and where they join the wheel arch.... huge... effort without a parts car.