Practically Classics Forum

Likewise repairs are required for offside bumper iron mounting point but before I sorted this I wanted to repair the accident damage to the inner wing - this had taken impact through the bumper iron and whilst the outer panels remained undamaged the inner wing was kinked in the lower sections and was 15 mm forward Difficult to see in the image but the panel kinks outwards in two areas, hydraulic body jacking systems are available - however someone loaned my jack & pump several years ago then did a moonlight with them - I did still have the remaining jacking tubes and fittings for the kit - so with a little thought I fabricated some brackets up out of 5 mm angle and mounted them up to the bumper iron & suspension mountings at each end of the panel With the employment of some heavy duty threaded bar that I had I could now apply the force by winding the nuts up the thread to push the panel back into shape

A little hammer & dolly work whilst the panel was still under tension got the panel back square A little more work is yet required with the hammer, then a clean up - the panel has actually split on the line of the kink at the base (kink followed the sand blasted line down to the base of the panel) and shall require some remedial work when I get round to this area with the welder

The lower edge of the inner wing had suffered the work of a bodger who had seen fit to smear body filler over the top of rust where the bottom edge of the panel meets the leading edge support Resembles rusty lace curtains

Peter (the cars owner) is over from Switzerland for the Easter holidays and has been cracking on with various jobs - all the loose painted metalware from the cars interior was shot blasted to bare metal This just a small amount of the vast number of painted interior metal trim Which was then put into primer before being carefully stored - the trim will be put into final colour at a later date

Peter also attending to getting the rear of bodyshell shotblasted

Along with stripping the paint from the loose panels & bodyshell Rather than score / dig into the metal a poly-carbon disc is used on a small angle grinder to remove the final traces of paint

Meanwhile - back to the weldathon Offside rear corner / bumper iron mounting - sort of looks ok - but a little cutting back reveals this

Which in turn ends up as this and this and produces this pile of rusty scrap

A new support rail is made up from some 2.5 mm plate and let in Along with repair sections to the tool tray floor

Bumper iron reinforcing section fabricated / tacked in Welded & cleaned up - closing section / support for the tool tray lid reattached Outer section let in - just the marked section where the metal is thin to chase out and fresh metal to let in before the bumper iron can be re-drilled & attached