So with the inner sill all fixed and shaped the previous day, the Sunday was all about fitting the panel. First test fit: And after welding in place: Note the neat, professional quality spot welds. 🙂 In spite of the mess, they’re strong as anything, that panel isn’t going anywhere. A bit of grinding and […]
After a bit of a longer wait than I’d hoped, the sill panel finally arrived last week. 🙂 So, with some good weather to play with, I headed down to get started on rebuilding the sill. I’d forgotten what a mess it was, I’d been waiting for the sill so I had a template before
It’s been almost a year now since my last blog on here. Oops! I’ve not given up though, and I haven’t been completely idle (although work has been a bit slow, other projects and hobbies have been taking up my time), it’s been more of a case of the work being fairly slow and fiddly,
As promised, I was down at the garage tonight after work (gotta love these long evenings), and took a few pics of the sill: It’s a mess alright! I figure maybe four new panels to make up and weld in, then make good all the rest, plus the new sill panel I’ll need to buy.
I did a whole load more stripping this weekend: It’s surprising how much surface rust there was hiding underneath the paintwork – or maybe not, it is a Speke car after all! Either way, it looks like I caught it just in time. It’s all surface rust, with none of it looking in any danger
Got the paint stripping started today. 🙂 I’m using nitromors at the moment, for no better reason than I had some sitting on a shelf. Start: During: Finish: Check out the rust on top of the wheelarch! It’s just surface rust though, nothing serious – apart from the seatbelt mount. I’ll weld a new plate
Now I’m mobile again, I got back to the ‘7 today. I’ve now got all the underseal off completely, and the underside is now ready for stripping and painting. Finally! The only bits I haven’t done yet are the gearbox tunnel (gearbox is still in the way; I’ll sort that out once I’ve pulled the
I’ve just spent a few hours over the last two days getting rid of the last of the underseal from the back end of the car. What a disgusting job! I’ve been thinning it out using white spirits, which is pretty effective, but turns it into a sticky, tar-like goop. It got in my hair,
I’ve now got most of the underseal stripped from under the car, the main problem areas were the wheelarches – the stuff was 1/2 inch thick in places! As I was suspecting, pulling the underseal off revealed a few areas of rust – Some worse than others: Apart from the rear sills and the seatbelt
I’ve now got all the rear end stripped out, the last thing was the fuel tank this afternoon. In spite of all the horror stories I’ve heard about tank removal, it was actually a breeze – although it probably helped to do the job without the axle in the way! I’d left all the bolts