VIN 4267 comes to England

[Matt Clark]

Got to work cleaning up the front section to see how bad it was there; there's mountains of grime and black paint spray on everything. I ran out of time - there's a LOT of grot to get off, but would be interested in what people think of the state of the frame extension. Luckily there's still a lot of the epoxy on there, compared to the first image it looks a lot better!




There's a couple of small holes in the metal on this side:





My gut says that this is a crack or the weld coming away?



Is the upper section supposed to kink like this or is this impact damage?



Similar on the RHS:



The LCAs also look a bit rough? I can't see any cracks but I am definitely thinking about new ones:



Advice welcomed!

[Rich H]

The kinked bits on your crumple section are quite common. Clean, de-rust, paint.
The cracked areas need particular attention, some of them have travelled quite far. Grind back and weld, otherwise they will end up going all the way around the section.
The rusted through sections will need grinding back and patching.

Your LCAs are also unremarkable, I've seen worse. Just give them a thorough check to make sure there are no cracks, particularly around the bush that connects it to the chassis.

If you want to, you can take them off and hammer them flat, but there is little point and it's a lot of work.

Most importantly, check the condition of your anti-roll bar bushes inside the LCA and on the chassis.
Worn LCA bushes cause excessive forward-aft movement of the LCA, particularly under braking.
This leads to twisting of the LCA which causes the ripples you can see.

[DMC1983]

Most importantly, check the condition of your anti-roll bar bushes inside the LCA and on the chassis.

Worn LCA bushes cause excessive forward-aft movement of the LCA, particularly under braking.
This leads to twisting of the LCA which causes the ripples you can see.

Good to know. Ive noticed some "ripples" on my LCA however they arent quite as bad as matts. I do plan on either changing them or at the very least weld the plates to them and add the support brackets all from DGo

[Rich H]

Quote:changing them or at the very least weld the plates to them and add the support brackets

Which is perfectly OK - if a little extreme. Just don't treat the symptom until you've treated the disease.

[Rissy]

The holes you see in pictures 3 and 4 close up (applies to both sides) are the exterior face of what is essentially a water catcher from the inside of the frame. Water gets inside and the runs down the diagonal and into these "cups" where the water sits and waits for an opportunity to get into the metal through cracked epoxy and then rusts through as your car is exhibiting. Mine was the same, although a lot worse than yours. I literally cut away all that "cup" floor and left it open (extreme i know, but i had very little metal there anyway) years ago and i've never suffered any harm as a result of it. The point is, now those "cups" can't hold water. It simply runs away. I'd advise you to simply drill out these rusted holes to make them look a bit nicer and more uniform, and then paint and protect rather than weld the "cup" back into place. aka new drain holes the car has helped you create!

[Rich Hanlon]

(28 May 2019, 21:38)Rich H Wrote: Just give them a thorough check to make sure there are no cracks, particularly around the bush that connects it to the chassis.

Definitely this. I had this and it had gone around 1/3 of the way around the circumference of the inner bush. Welded up about 10 years ago and still fine now.

I also straightened then painted mine at the time and refitted having re-bushed this and the anti roll bar.

[Matt Clark]

Thanks guys!

(28 May 2019, 21:38)Rich H Wrote: Grind back and weld, otherwise they will end up going all the way around the section.
The rusted through sections will need grinding back and patching.

Your LCAs are also unremarkable, I've seen worse. Just give them a thorough check to make sure there are no cracks, particularly around the bush that connects it to the chassis.

Worn LCA bushes cause excessive forward-aft movement of the LCA, particularly under braking.
This leads to twisting of the LCA which causes the ripples you can see.

I think I'm going to look at new LCAs before I start driving this thing 'properly', so happy to leave them as they are for now. I did notice that the roll bar came out really easily - I didn't inspect the bushes but have them at home so will check in a bit, but I planned to get new everything.

Is the roll bar made of anything special or can I just do the usual grind/sand on the rust on them?

With the welding, that skill outside of my area so will get someone to do it. Is it worth doing now while the pipes etc are off, or can it wait until (if) the car is running?

(29 May 2019, 13:20)Rissy Wrote: I literally cut away all that "cup" floor and left it open (extreme i know, but i had very little metal there anyway) years ago and i've never suffered any harm as a result of it.

Sounds interesting, have you got a photo the work you did?

I managed to spend about an hour with the car this weekend, so I fitted my ebay find steering wheel as I really hated the Momo one that was on it.







Much better! I got a few messages on instagram saying this was an early wheel and quite rare, so this may yet come off again if I find a decent later wheel, as I'd rather the rare parts went to the right cars.

[Chris Williams]

Quote:I got a few messages on instagram saying this was an early wheel and quite rare

Yes, I never knew about these ones (without the leather wrap) until I started to do my book, you don't really notice as the old ones are textured.
Chris

[Chris P]

The bushes arn't expensive or difficult to fit...I'd just fit new ones... D go?. The anti roll bar is fine with a quick rub down and a couple of coats of paint. The Steering wheel is as fitted to the WH RHD cars...all being very early vins.

I set about my LCA's with a pair of mole grips...looks a lot better. Keep an eye out for cracks of course , ...but I've never had any on my previous (18) cars..

[Matt Clark]

Wow, lots to update on here - I keep a regular blog on my instagram and always forget to update this. Just done a post and the forum won't let me link outside images? It won't post with any BB code in it by the looks of it.

[Rich H]

Hmm. Interesting. There are no deliberate restrictions to posting that I am aware of. I'll go check.....

[Matt Clark]

(20 Jan 2022, 15:17)Rich H Wrote: Hmm. Interesting. There are no deliberate restrictions to posting that I am aware of. I'll go check.....

When I go to post anything with BB code in, instead of actually posting, the browser pops up a PHP download. I've tried on two browsers - it's a glitch phpBB forums get a lot (my old one used to have it) but absolutely no idea how to get around it.

[Matt Clark]

Ah, working now!

In the summer of 2019 I decided to pull the main body panels off - working on the back was a pain in the tiny garage and I wanted to see just how bad the crash damage was at the front. It was... a mess.



To me it looks like it's had two crashes - the first one looked semi professionally repaired, but both wheelarches had been repaired with bolts, which was a worry. I assume this was the crash in which it gained it's flat hood as a replacement. There was a large crack running through the luggage compartment.



The second crash looked like an attempt at a repair had been made - badly. There was metal strapping everywhere and globs of fibreglass on top of it that were delaminating, it was really bad.



With this in mind, in Jan 2020 I decided to send it to Chris N before I went any further with it. I put the hood back on and stuffed the wings and fascia inside the car and prepped it to go.




Chris N did an amazing job, making the inside of the compartment look like new, as well as fixing all the issues at the front of the nose. He also made a pass at repairing the fascia and wing - the wing particularly he did an amazing job of.




In Feb 2020, it moved into Chrispy's place so some lift-based jobs could be done on it.

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Then the world stopped with COVID and both Chris and spent the majority of that year dealing with other things, but over the summer we managed some work, I started collecting the various parts needed; I'd already ordered the new exhaust, fuel system etc a couple of years prior.




In my absence Chris was good enough to put on the new exhaust, as well as get some old fittings replated. Currently this is the shinest, nicest part of the car:



I was able to start doing 2-3 day trips up to Derby to work on the car with Chris, who was able to teach me on the job about how various parts of the car worked. Getting this experience from someone who has done it so many times before has been a massive help! I know you can find a youtube video for almost any car job, but when dealing with stuff like the brakes and fuel it's really good to go through it with an older hand. It also made those nightmarish one-person jobs a lot easier. Over that summer between us we were able to tackle the brake cylinders, both clutch cylinders, Chris got the water pump on, and I started to strip the interior as I suspect some electrical work and probably the HVAC will need attention.










And that was it for 2020...

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Looking back at 2021 I have no idea where the time went as we didn't get much done - I was working a lot but still, I'm surprised at how fast that year went. We got a puppy which is probably why I was so busy... In the summer was productive, though, as Chris and I managed to put both the water system and most of the fuel system back in place, with all-new parts.

I cleaned up the old fuel baffle which came up like new, and along with a new pump and hoses it was put into a new tank:





Descaled water pipes went back on:



As did a new closing plate:



And the upgraded radiator, condensor and fans, on new brackets as the old ones were damaged from the crash.



Most of the hoses up front were replaced as were the seals, and some fresh hardware. It was great to see this part of the car really feeling new:



This year, with the plan to have the car in good shape for our wedding in October, I planned to hit the ground running. I sourced a metering head from Dave H for a bargain price, and Chris was able to free the plunger by baking it in his Aga for a while. I bought the new set of fuel lines and injectors from DGo, as well as an accumulator that's yet to be fitted. I had the fun job of removing the old injectors while Chris sorted the metering head.

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The fuel stuff has been one of the more expensive parts of the resto - with the lines, injectors, accumulator and pump kit, I'm probably over £1000 into that - I was lucky to get a metering head for about an eight of the price of a restored one goes for.

The final thing I tackled was repairing the hood release as the hood latching itself had been a near miss too many times:




(keeping Chris' wire backup system in place for now)

So far this month I've sourced a NOS front wing and front fascia, which is great, because I'm really keen to give the car it's face back - seeing the front of it come together is huge motivation to deal with the rest of it. I've also bought new front/rear tyres, so, it's been an expensive few weeks, but it's good knowing so much of the running bits are new and possibly improved. At least check of the spreadsheet I was up to £26k (inc. £15k for the car & shipping it over). I likely have a full retrim to go so I'm hoping to come in at £35k or so but we'll see.

Big thanks to Chrispy for the garage space and the experience!

[Rissy]

All excellent work and detail! Well done. Thanks for sharing too!

[Guinney1971]

that's amazing work. I must admit I did enjoy having a nosey at the underneath of the car when we were at Chrispy's back in November, its coming on really well.

Hopefully we'll have space in our garage again soon to wheel the chassis out from underneath my car (its only been 7mths since the frame sep.....), and start working on it again. Last time I checked my spreadsheet, I think I'm up to just under £11,500 for my car - but then again when I bought it in 2002 it was 'only' £2865 plus shipping.......