Ok, things have been a little slower than I would have liked, as always things get in the way but the big blow was the death of my old sip mig welder
on the upside it was never that great though.
So, 50 quid brought home an untried old Sealey Supermig 160, though ancient, once I had put the torch and liner etc from my old welder across to the "new" one she has been buzzing away well since.
At last a little more progress,
I finished the repair to the front panel and inner wing then cleaned things up and stone chipped this area
All good there it was time to get to the front rear spring hanger and associated areas. Horrors as expected awaited, silly little patches that were just hiding things and good metal took some finding.
Metal and rust dissapeared over a largish area, full removal of existing spring hanger
including the inner arch and shock damper mount
More metal disappeared though I didn't photograph that, but basically a chunk of floor and the front section of the inner arch next to the damper mout area shown.
Spring hangers work out about £60 each with vat and postage, so I figured I'd save some money and make one. Its actually quite a clever design as it puts the forces of the spring into the floor / kickboard / seat bottom and inner arch so spreading the load.
Anyway, one home made spring hanger
Which meant I could start trying to build up something similar to the original structure so a new bit of inner arch / damper mount etc went in, it needs grinding back to tidy but I've protected it for the time being and will come back to it
Spring hanger, some floor and more metal from the inner arch to tie things together, forgive those scruffy welds please as I couldn't get the torch in where I wanted it but everything is glued nicely
Then the rear kick plate from floor to seat base, seat base repairs etc and everything plug welded multiple times to the spring hanger sees this area complete. Not by any means the neatest job ever but considering what I had to work with and the fact it wont be seen I'm happy with it
So, I actually tidied the floor tonight ready for the rearmost spring hanger area, things are bad around there as well with more dodgy patches to the hanger, inner arch and boot floor along with some fibreglass in the quarter panel itself so I think it will turn into a big repair. My optimism isn't helped by the fact when I jacked the car up and placed an axle stand under the rear spring hanger it looked to deflect up into the car by around an eighth of an inch when I let the jack down.
I think this next area will be one of the most challenging, so fingers crossed, if I get that done ok that is about the halfway point for the structural repairs so if I don't make a dogs dinner of it the car shouldn't be able to throw up anything that I have not tackled already.