Random Shenanigans - The big cat's back

With the lift now up in place i could make a start on some work for my grandad, some of you might recall about 2 years ago we did a considerable amount of work on the front end, feel free to flip back a few pages if you dont remember.
Ill be honest this lot of work was the final reason for getting a lift. He wants to be able to help out with the work on his own car but cannot get in and out of a pit anymore.

This time we are onto the back end and we have a deadline to hit. We have to be done before June as this will be my sister’s wedding car and that happens in June.
As you can imagine that pushes a few other projects backwards a little bit.


We had a bit of a poke around and decided there really isnt much that needs doing, the arches need some attention along with the ends of the sills but the chassis looked like it was ok and all the suspension will be dropped out for a full strip and rebuild.


With that in mind, we dropped the subframe and everything else out.


And stripped it down


Mostly everything looked good, almost all the bolts came out. We do have 2 that are seized into the shocks and will take a bit of removing.


And we found a hole in the lower A frame.


Which progressed a bit under more investigation


Continuing we pulled the rear bumper off. Which broke the mounts due to steel bolts through aluminium bushings.you would have hoped that they had learned this lesson a long time ago but nope. Its getting more and more common.


We also found the bumper skin had been bodged up in the past with a riveted on plate and load of filler



And to add to the steel and aluminium issues are these little spacers should be between the 2 steel plates.
This is all that was left


The reinforcement bar had been busted too im guessing at the same time as the skin was and not replaced.

Onto the car body then
The sill ends are starting to look crusty.


And would certainly fail an MOT


There is a bit of a blister on the rear drivers chassis leg.


And general crust around the arches.



Onto sourcing some parts and repair panels that are available.

Some more rust spots i found, in the same area as before but this time above the rear axle.
It didnt look like much to begin with, but im learning not to ignore a bulge in the panels.


Because this is underneath.


Same on the drivers side



So some more new pieces. Nice and easy again.
Welded in, Cleaned back, painted and then the next piece welded in aswell.



Onto something a little more tricky.


These sill end caps we decided to have a play at making.
Its 2mm plate so takes a bit of shaping.
I made a wooden form and clamped the steel onto that.

This let me fold the edge over to an accurate shape and without distorting the panel.
Then i can clamp it back on and chase the step in with a chisel


This will fit on nicely.


Other side was the same


Took about an hour per side to make the form and the panel doing it this way. And the panel comes out just how you want.
Its often worth taking time to make a form because it can same a lot of time and pain later on.
Im not welding them on just yet because im still waiting on the new outer arch panels to arrive.

Next up we started looking at the area at the bottom of the chassis legs and there was a few bits not looking great.


So i cracked on will removing that section


Its not looking great in there.
The other side wasnt any better.

Should be a fairly easy piece to make though so i think ill bash on with that next.
I see another wooden form coming up.

There is plenty more to come, this thing is like a rotten onion.

Some lovely work on this, makes my tiny incremental repairs look... errr... incremental... and tiny 

As others have said, some lovely work going on here.
Those sill end caps turned out very well 

You seem to be a maestro with the spot weld removal - what is your tool of choice ?