Front door repairs

Some of the repair panels being welded in place.
 

Front door repairs

Doors been chemically stripped to show the full extent of the corrosion, nice clean metal left to weld to.
 

Front door repairs

Last thing to come off the door is the top leatherette trim, this is held in place with a two piece finisher which clip together. As always being dissimilar metals, stainless steel on mild steel, a fair amount of corrosion occurs between the two. In hindsight a soak with wd40 eases the separation. A small gasket scraper does the job nicely to ease away the top stainless trim to reveal 7 pozidrive screws which secure the base of the trim. Once removed the leatherette can be pulled away from a glued strip of felt in the recess. It also revealed the usual stress fractures in the top corners of the door skin.

Removing top trim

Stress fractures

All that remains is the door lock mechanism secured by 3 screws, the lock barrel held in place by a horseshoe clip and the exterior door handle with 2 m6 nuts.
Off now to be chemically stripped and phosphate coated before repairs start.

New balls please!

During the door repairs I noticed the front suspension going a bit stiff. A straight forward replacement of the front suspension spheres sorted this out. The 59bar nitrogen gas in the top half of the sphere had lost pressure through a deteriorated diaphragm. Always good practice to replace the hydraulic seals when a component is refitted, at the most you would have to replace four here as there is a little extension piece which fits between the sphere and the suspension cylinder and invariably comes off with the sphere. Cleanliness is paramount during this operation, clean all the loose build up of crap from around the top of the cylinder before removal, the last thing you need in your hydraulics is some grit floating around. (I used compressed air, but watch your eyes and use goggles)

From Wikipedia:

Pressure flows from the hydraulic circuit to the suspension cylinders, pressurizing the bottom part of the spheres and suspension cylinders. Suspension works by means of a piston forcing LHM into the sphere, compacting the nitrogen in the upper part of the sphere; damping is provided by a two-way 'leaf valve' in the opening of the sphere. LHM has to squeeze back and forth through this valve which causes resistance and controls the suspension movements. It is the simplest damper and one of the most efficient.

N/S/F suspension sphere

O/S/F suspension sphere, the extension piece can be seen here

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,