Front door repairs

On with the bodywork now so first job is a dry fit of all doors and wings front and back, boot and bonnet to check the alignment. The initial alignment is pretty good, I will need to do some fine adjustments after everything has been repaired and welded. This post will only cover the front doors.

O/S/F door showing extent of corrosion before stripping door down

Removing the door panel is quite straight forward, first remove the window winder handle by pushing down the black plastic trim piece with a couple of screwdrivers then tap out the securing pin with a small punch

The door panel is now easily removed it is held in by push in clips and a couple of metal tags. This door panel has been off before, there is a spring missing behind the winder handle and the panel access covers are missing

Repair panels in place to see if they will cover the extent of the corrosion, here we have the inner panel with rubber seal holder and end plate closing panels

Outer door skin in place, more than enough here to repair the door so on with stripping down

Some careful measuring to make sure the door stays the same size and the swage fold stays in the same place, thanks to Graham Morton for this tip. If you've not worked it out yet the swage is 165mm from the bottom of the door 

Window regulator removal, this is held in place with four bolts, to remove the glass from the regulator there are a couple of folded over spring clips and a horseshoe type clamp which all clamp the glass in place with felt pads. The glass slides out of the top when the top seals have been removed and the regulator comes out of the access holes

Glass runners removed, each held in place with a two M7 nuts accessed from a couple of holes in the outside of the door

Interior door handle and facia are removed by undoing a 24mm chrome nut and turning the handle 90 degrees, the lock rod can now be unhooked

Road wheels

The 5 road wheels, out of a collection of 9, I will be using have had the old Michelin XAS's removed (which still had a good tread on them but were at least 30 years old!) The wheels have been sent away to be chemically stripped, de-rusted and primed. They will be painted in RAL7044 (Silk Grey) enamel paint which is a pretty good match to the original colour. Then It's off to Longstone Tyres for a new set to be fitted - this is gonna hurt my wallet!

In grey primer



 

First coat of silk grey

New Michelin XAS tyres fitted at Longstone Classic Tyres



Tax disc

Don't suppose I will ever see "Historic Vehicle" on a tax disc of mine anymore due to the recent changes. So good old eBay are selling replicas which look quite authentic - this is going in the windscreen,

Exhaust off again

The trouble with a restoration taking so long is that nothing really gets to operating temperature if at all. Consequently there is a fair amount of water in the exhaust and it started to wash away the sealing paste on the joint between the intermediate pipes and the rear silencer. So off it came, cleaned ready for re-sealing.

 

Bodywork

Made a start on striping down doors and wings for a 'dry' fit to see if they are worth restoring, some of them need more than a lick of paint!

N/S/F door requires new inner and outer lower repair panels

Just need to cut off the door bottoms off and weld this little lot in ;)

All new metalwork for door bottoms

Brake Accumulator Sphere

The brake accumulator sphere stores a reserve of pressure and gets number #1 priority over the other circuits. The diaphragm suddenly split releasing 40bar of Nitrogen into the hydraulic system it looked like the LHM reservoir had smoke coming out of it! Anyway a new one is on now with new seals and the bracket painted and the longeron painted and waxed.

New Brake Accumulator Sphere

Boot carpet

Boot interior finished in black carpet, now all purists please note I can't justify the cost of replacement original linings this option only cost me £9 and £7 for the glue. Here we see the rear parcel shelf finished in brown vinyl to co-ordinate with the interior, rear window glass was taken out to clean and refit the lower seal and paint the framework.

Boot carpet finished in black.

May updates

My apologies for not blogging too much this year as I have been so busy with the restoration work. Here are some images of recent work.

New boot floor welded in place, weld thru primer on all seams first, etch primed then zinc rich primer and seam sealed then black gloss.

Same treatment underneath with additional rubberised stone chip, black schutz and waxoyl.

Fuel tank cover / rear seat cushion support cleaned and prepped for paint.

Fuel tank degreased and emptied of stale fuel.

Fuel tank ready for pressure testing - only a couple of psi in this.

Washing up liquid and water solution shows up any leaks.

Internal fuel filter removed from tank for cleaning.

Clean fuel filter built up ready to go back in

Fuel tank painted with new sender unit in.

Tank back in the car, plenty of cavity wax on the floor first as this is technically outside the vehicle, tanks strap material glued in place and straps painted.

Snow shoes or front brake disc cooling ducts cleaned and painted aluminium ready for installation.

Rear suspension

Rear suspension pushrod delivered today, I can now start rebuilding the rear suspension on the N/S ready for re-fitting later. 

New rear suspension pushrod.

 

Old pushrod compared to new one... a disaster waiting to happen.
 



Complete cylinder built up with new piston seals and gaiters, new cup and ball greased up ready to be refitted.