Lets see what I have bought - May 2002 / Finding the Rot 

Rotten footwells

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Rotten doors, boot lid, valences: front, rear, sides and hood frame. The bonnet was really good unusually!!

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Bulkhead looked worse than it was

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Rotten footwells, treadplates and 'A' posts

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Rotten door bottom, note the chassis outrigger, this had a piece of angle iron welded straight on to it. Still it was easy to adjust the door gaps with a jack under here!!

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Huge plate covering rear seat base, when I took it off there was nothing underneath. A huge section was grafted in from a saloon I was able to cut bits from (being a saloon it was not rusty)

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Wheel arch rot! These are triple skinned sections that had swollen up, new thick gauge steel sections were fabricated and grafted in. There are NO plates on this car, all proper sections let in

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More wheel arch rust in the boot, both sides

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Rotten 'B' post bottoms

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New lip section was grafted in from the saloon donor car

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Boot mounts were terrible, nothing under the cover plates, more sections from saloon used once again

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Rotten spare wheel well

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Repairs begin / Body removed from chassis

 

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New drip channels welded on after repairs underneath

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New 'B' post bottoms and seat belt mounts welded in

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New 'A' post bottoms on both sides

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New treadplates both sides

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New boot mount section, side still to be welded in

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I put the tub on a homemade dolly so I could move it around easily

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Swollen wheel arch section removed, tricky shaping the double curvature section to weld in

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Any spot of rust was stripped off and temporarily treated with red oxide, until I was ready to strip the whole tub to bare metal, hence it looks like a dalmation!!

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Body tub repaired / Bulkhead repaired

 

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Top side repairs done

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Underside to be stripped

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Still stripping

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Underside had 2 coats of rust converter, 3 coats of red oxide, 2 coats of Hammerite and 2 coats of Waxoyl, hopefully it should last well this time

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New seam sealer applied

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New wheel arch lip welded on, no filler on this car, its all stee

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Bulkhead all finished after new 'A' post bottoms, footwells, drip channels and loads of small repairs to edges and lips etc.This got the same underside treatment as the rear bodytub had

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