Complete strip, evaluation and full restoration of the tub, bonnet, doors and boot lid.
| Drivers footwell looks reasonably solid, which is a surprise! |
| Passenger footwell is also fairly solid. |
| Floor not too bad, a couple of small holes, but, plenty of rust. |
| Drivers side better than passengers, seat fixings sheared when trying to remove - I think I will investigate adding extra fixing positions into the floor to allow the seat to fix further back - this may help with my long legs. |
| This looks like the worst part so far. |
| This side slightly better, although outer sill has holes. Plenty of surface rust underneath that will take a while to clean and treat. |
| The boot floor sections and inner wings are also full of holes - but repairable, not as bad as initially thought!. |
| The boot lid is free from holes! This is a first for this car! |
| Framework bolted into door gaps to stop body sagging when sills removed - courtesy of BazJaguar - many thanks. |
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| Body removed from chassis for full inspection & repair.
Chassis is in excellent condition, but, sadly the tub is very poor - but OK to fix.
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| Under rear wheel arch - typical surface rust all under car, fortunately it has not eaten in too badly and generally just brushes off.. |
| A better view of the worst rust now chassis and suspension is out of the way. |
| Tub supported on wheeled angled frame to bring welding area up higher and allow movement around the garage. The door gaps are rigidly bolted with cross frames and providing I keep the tub clamped to the frame and only work on one area at a time the tub should hold its shape - that's the plan! Supports from frame to tub fixing points not shown in this picture - more pictures to be taken and if successful a drawing of the frame. |
| Side view of supporting frame and condition of underside of tub. |
| Underside view again. |
| Passenger sill being removed by angle grinding welds and drilling spot welds with Cobolt drill. Datums taken for placement of new panel.. |
| Underside frame supports in position with body bolted down through chassis mounting points. These supports will be repositioned in angled frame when other side is worked on. |
| Passenger sill nearly removed. Drilled through spot welds half way with special spot weld drill and ground away all the tack welds. Note that base of A panel is also holed - templates taken to allow manufacture of new lower edge for this area. |
| Sill strengthener underneath outer sill has also failed and will have to be replaced as well - same process to remove this. |
| Inner sill is still in excellent condition with limited surface rust so will be left in to help with datums for new panels. Floor has a few holes that are repairable so weak side edge has been ground down to allow fitting and welding in of new angle edge and sill strengthener. |
| Part of A panel cut away to remove the rotten area. Note, did not remove whole width due to concern of distortion in structure with the weight of the front section. This repair will be in two parts.. |
| Home made panel
trial fitting - looks OK. Areas underneath cleaned back with surface
rust and bare steel treated with POR15 from Frost.
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