Early Javelin Restoration

[Grumpy Northener]

So doors hung

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The reason for doing so at this point was that before I welded the outrigger to the chassis / sill - which in turn locates the final position of the B post - with both doors hanging from the post it is critical that the B post is in it's correct position - I had it central but should the post need to come away or towards the chassis then now is the time to sort it - I had braced both the B posts before removing the old outrigger so it should have been in it's original place. However, the car when it arrived had dreadful apperture gapping - you could drive a bus through some of them then again others were taking paint off the edge of the panel that they were closing against. First I removed any play out the hinges by changing the hinge bushes I then worked on getting the centre gapping between the two doors on the B post correct - this was always a wide gapping on the car from new - on the upper section the trafficator sits in the B post and operates between the door appertures - the car did not have these fitted as an option when new but we planning to fit a set on the car has part of the restoration upgrades

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[Grumpy Northener]

Happy with the B post / centre apperture I addressed the the outer appertures - in order to do so I had to drop this side of the car off the chassis tilter - the car mounts to the tilter through the front & rear bumper irons - and the iorns travel through the front & rear wings - the wings have to be fitted temporary to obtain the apperture gapping - so a couple of axle stands later and with the nearside wings fitted - this is typical of the gapping problems

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It's easy to panic with appertures but my tip is to be methodical - establish a starting point (in this case the central apperture / B post) and work away from it - address each area as a seperate section but take your time - adjusting one hinge may well effect the doors alignment with several others panels - so stand back and calcuate what adjustment will effect what - whilst it may resolve the gapping in the area that you are working - does it throw out the apperture gapping that was correct eleswhere - then again can the area that is now thrown out be reworked to attain the correct gapping whilst the original area can not

[Grumpy Northener]

I managed to ease the top of the door frame out slightly on the front door with a block of wood and closed the door frame to the apperture - same block of wood was deployed with a largish hammer in order to dress the roof gutter rail down slightly and in doing so closing the large apperture gap down to something more acceptable

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Moving on - the door / wing apperture which was corrected simply by moving the wing a few mm forward on it's fastenings - all the holes were originally elongated on the factory panels to allow such adjustments

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That just left a difference in the side alignment of the front door to wing - this can be packed out off the bracket on the A post when it comes to final panel fitting

[Grumpy Northener]

On the rear door the same methods were used to obtain the correct wing apperture but the waistline apperture was very tight - plan of action here was to dress / fettle the area to a good fit

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There was some original lead loading to area in question so with with a quick visit from the flapwheel on the angle grinder and little hammer work I soon got the required result

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One last bit of advice when fitting / apperture gapping doors / panels - always take into consideration - door seals / rubbers / locks / striker plates / trims etc - you may have a perfect fit / alignment / gaps etc - but its no good if when your nice fitting & shiny painted door will not lock when closed or that the door edge and weather seal do not meet and the first time you wash the car the interior fills with water / always check - loose / trail assemble trims / seals / locks etc because they may effect the opertaion of that panel and the appertures. Yes it's a pain but no where near the pain of of having done all that hard work to have a motor that with ill fitting panels in shiny paint and nice chrome etc (and it's the first thing that others will notice and freely point out to you)

[Grumpy Northener]

Now happy with the apperture gaps on the nearside - the central outrigger could be welded into place

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Whilst working my way arround the outrigger with the welds - I kept a check on the apperture gaps to ensure that no heat distortion was effecting the B post location - if you take your time and just alternate the area of welding you should have no problems - you can also use compressed air and a blow gun to cool the weld down if you need to run a long weld in the same area

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Some good progress - I have to admit that I thought that the door appertures were going to be a swine and had allowed a couple of weekends to sort them - so for them come together in one afternoon gave a very smug feeling (with apologies to any fellow restorer that is out there suffering - don't worry I'm sure there will be something that I think is simple that will end up taking me weeks to sort)

[Grumpy Northener]

Swiftly moving on to the rear I have this mess to deal with

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Welded plate over rust that looks like it's dedicated to a flock of seagulls and a rear outrigger fabricated out of copper and braised on

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There is a lot of strength required here the rear lower mounting for the axle mounts at the bottom of this section - three skins of steel come together at this point - the exhaust pases through a tube in chassis close by - so lots of warm - then lots of cold metal = condensation and 3 skins of metal - only one outcome 'More rust'

[Grumpy Northener]

To the inside upper of this section is the rear shock absorber mounting (which requires quite a bit of work) the tube through which the exhaust travels through in the chassis can be seen to the lower right of the image

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First cut of the over plate

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The single hole above the rusted out section is for the panhard rod and the larger mounting above it is for the rear torsion bar which travels horizontally behind the rear seat in the car.

[Grumpy Northener]

Cut back to sound metal

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New section fabricated and welded in

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Cleaned & dressed

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[Grumpy Northener]

Next was this previous repair on the chassis at the rear of the outrigger

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Although it looked sound heres the justifaction for it coming out

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Plated over rust

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Completed repair

[Grumpy Northener]

Before we got too much further I wanted to ensure that we removed the accessable surface rust in the area so with the help of this recent investment

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Off comes the rust with the help of 'Keith'

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Which gave this result

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Once I had blown all the dust and debris out of the chassis & surrounding areas I sprayed the area with a zinc rich weld through primer