1969 Maserati Ghibli - The Resurection
Discussion
Apologies for the tardy posting, life's been a bit busy of late but in a good way - every spare minute I've been flat out on the car. It gets you that way some time.
Anyway a quick update from the last photo's.
Exploration into the near side inner sill.
Previous repair on the rear offside lower arch
The near side rear arch was as bad as the off side so the offensive previous repair was chopped out along with the lower front portion of the wing and the outer sill.
How many more pictures of rust do you guys want?
This was also the largest area of original paint on the car - you like?
Anyway a quick update from the last photo's.
Exploration into the near side inner sill.
Previous repair on the rear offside lower arch
The near side rear arch was as bad as the off side so the offensive previous repair was chopped out along with the lower front portion of the wing and the outer sill.
How many more pictures of rust do you guys want?
This was also the largest area of original paint on the car - you like?
McClure said:
How's it going Chad?
Hi McClureThanks for the bump, progress is slow at the moment as the current task requires fair weather and we haven't had much of that. Remiss of me not posting sooner though, the photo's so far show progress up to about 2007 so I'll get my act together.
Chad
Stripping the body of paint and filler had revealed corrosion and past bodges so extensive that I really had no option but to send the shell away for professional surface treatment. I’ll cover this soon but whilst the body was away I tackled the doors.
I knew all was not well when I removed them from the shell, admittedly they still had the glass and all other attachments but I could hardly lift them. I recon the must have weighed about 50kg each! Removing the trim, glass, locks, lift mechanism and motors still didn’t reduce the weight as much as I thought so I attacked the outer skin with the grinder and wire twill brush. Both doors had previous repairs consisting of brazed in lower repair sections beaten back (hammer blows clearly visible) and filler upto an inch thick plastered over the whole door.
Previous brazed repair section and an inch of filler
I decided to make new door skins so removed the old ones and set the frames to one side (they would also need a lot of work as well). At first glance the skins looked quite simple but in true Maserati fashion they are slightly convex along the waist line crease by about 10mm. After a bit of head scratching I made a steel former to form the curved crease over, it meant drilling holes through the skin that would require welding up later on but that was simple enough.
Door skin bolted into steel former and dressed over, you can just see the curve.
Wooden formers were made from the door frames to get the curves and creases in the right place. It all worked our pretty well, the only hitch was as I removed the skin from the steel former they sprung back a little, undetectable to the eye and even difficult to spot with a 1 metre straight edge so I settled for it. Its one of those things, no one else will see it but I know its not quite spot on.
Wooden formers make sure curves and creases are in the right place.
Finished door skin made from 0.9mm Zintec steel and phosphoric acid/zinc phosphate washed.
New and old
Door skin fitted to repaired frame, note replaced frame sections. The frame repair took as long as making and fitting the skins.
I knew all was not well when I removed them from the shell, admittedly they still had the glass and all other attachments but I could hardly lift them. I recon the must have weighed about 50kg each! Removing the trim, glass, locks, lift mechanism and motors still didn’t reduce the weight as much as I thought so I attacked the outer skin with the grinder and wire twill brush. Both doors had previous repairs consisting of brazed in lower repair sections beaten back (hammer blows clearly visible) and filler upto an inch thick plastered over the whole door.
Previous brazed repair section and an inch of filler
I decided to make new door skins so removed the old ones and set the frames to one side (they would also need a lot of work as well). At first glance the skins looked quite simple but in true Maserati fashion they are slightly convex along the waist line crease by about 10mm. After a bit of head scratching I made a steel former to form the curved crease over, it meant drilling holes through the skin that would require welding up later on but that was simple enough.
Door skin bolted into steel former and dressed over, you can just see the curve.
Wooden formers were made from the door frames to get the curves and creases in the right place. It all worked our pretty well, the only hitch was as I removed the skin from the steel former they sprung back a little, undetectable to the eye and even difficult to spot with a 1 metre straight edge so I settled for it. Its one of those things, no one else will see it but I know its not quite spot on.
Wooden formers make sure curves and creases are in the right place.
Finished door skin made from 0.9mm Zintec steel and phosphoric acid/zinc phosphate washed.
New and old
Door skin fitted to repaired frame, note replaced frame sections. The frame repair took as long as making and fitting the skins.
MarkwG said:
McClure said:
And that (together with the subject matter) is why this is the best thread on PH.
Keep the thread updates coming
Paul
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