Full circle into a Marina again. My 73 Morris Marina Coupe
Discussion
Tyre Tread said:
I only found this thread late yesterday thanks to a reference to it by Shed Driver and I've just wasted a very enjoyable few hours working my way through it.
Firstly, thank you for taking the time to document your work. It's great to see.
Secondly, please make sure you somehow back up this record ans if it gets deleted or lost you will regret it (don;t ask me how I know).
Thirdly, keep up the good work. It really helps to see not only the work but your mistakes and learning process. I wish I could be as patient as you.
I was a first car Marina owner. A 1972 (K reg) 1.3 SDL Coupe in white bought from my brother for £100 in 1980 after I was hit on my motorbike by a drunk driver in a Ford Escort (have hated Fords ever since).
Second car (was a mistake but not for the reasons you might think) was an Allegro, which, after being much abused, was replaced by another 1.3 K reg 1.3 Marina SDL Coupe in Black Tulip (deep purple) bought from the back lot of a garage they'd taken as a trade in. The drive home (couldn't test drive it as it was blocked in by several cars) revealed a badly worn propshaft UJ. Guess who had a spare propshaft in the garage at home? Within hours of purchase I the replacement propshaft was fitted all was well. A couple of weeks later when checking the front brakes I found they were drums. The previous K reg Marina had front discs. I was horrified and proceeded to track down a set of discs and calipers from a scrapyard to update it.
I learnt a lot messing with those old Marinas. I feel your pain with the trunnions and much looks familiar from your pictures. At least most of it is fairly simple to understand and take apart.
I admire your approach and it's nice to see these once unloved and much maligned vehicles being brought back to life and will watch your progress with interest.
I doff my cap to you Sir.
(nearest I could find to a doffing cap smilie)
Thank you for your comments, I'm pleased you enjoy reading my posts.Firstly, thank you for taking the time to document your work. It's great to see.
Secondly, please make sure you somehow back up this record ans if it gets deleted or lost you will regret it (don;t ask me how I know).
Thirdly, keep up the good work. It really helps to see not only the work but your mistakes and learning process. I wish I could be as patient as you.
I was a first car Marina owner. A 1972 (K reg) 1.3 SDL Coupe in white bought from my brother for £100 in 1980 after I was hit on my motorbike by a drunk driver in a Ford Escort (have hated Fords ever since).
Second car (was a mistake but not for the reasons you might think) was an Allegro, which, after being much abused, was replaced by another 1.3 K reg 1.3 Marina SDL Coupe in Black Tulip (deep purple) bought from the back lot of a garage they'd taken as a trade in. The drive home (couldn't test drive it as it was blocked in by several cars) revealed a badly worn propshaft UJ. Guess who had a spare propshaft in the garage at home? Within hours of purchase I the replacement propshaft was fitted all was well. A couple of weeks later when checking the front brakes I found they were drums. The previous K reg Marina had front discs. I was horrified and proceeded to track down a set of discs and calipers from a scrapyard to update it.
I learnt a lot messing with those old Marinas. I feel your pain with the trunnions and much looks familiar from your pictures. At least most of it is fairly simple to understand and take apart.
I admire your approach and it's nice to see these once unloved and much maligned vehicles being brought back to life and will watch your progress with interest.
I doff my cap to you Sir.
(nearest I could find to a doffing cap smilie)All my threads for the most part are copied from posts I make on my blog, so its all backed up there (and backed up locally from there too). There is a lot more automotive suffering on my blog, https://tasteslikepetrol.net/
Progress is slow but is happening in fits and starts. Most of the issue is that my other cars have been sucking up time, but also some mental health issues have made it hard to find the motivation to get into the garage. The Marina is a keeper though, so no matter what, it will get done.
Im glad I'm not the only one that started off with a Marina; I swear it makes you a better driver having to deal with the foibles. I would love a Marina (even a saloon) in Black Tulip, its such a lovely colour that you don't see around much anymore. I knew the early 1.3s had drums on the front, so I wonder if someone had already done the upgrade on the white coupe? The discs are ok for the age, but the drums must be interesting!
People scoff at Marinas like they are trash, but they are a lot of fun to drive (the wayward handling is part of the fun), they're fast enough to keep up with traffic around here, and they are dead easy to work on and keep on the road (rust aside, but even then its only cutting and welding, like any other car). I hope we see more being brought back from the brink, now that they are getting properly rare and worth money.
Oh hello again, it's been a while. No one likes sagging, so let's fix it.
No, it's not work that anyone would have expected as my first update in months, but it's something I needed to do, especially whilst the car is in this orientation and I have good access (the car will soon be turned around to do the sill).
Since I got the car it has suffered from the very common saggy door issue, where the hinge pins wear out and cause excessive movement. This mainly shows itself as a door that is hard to open or close, and thumps up and down when lifted. This will not pass a WOF.
The easiest way to fix this is to find a good pair of hinges without wear and swap them in, and stick to regularly lubricating them. This will last a good while but it's getting harder to find good hinges as it was such a common issue.
Fixing the issue in the first place is the better option, and in this instance, I've done it to one hinge, out of necessity rather than choice.
There are two ways to fix it. One, is to get a steel tube that has a slightly larger internal diameter than the outside diameter of the pin and weld it between the two ears on the bracket, like so,
I didn't have a tube handy, so went with the other, easier option; weld two nuts to the ears.
Thanks to the relevant Marina Club members for the above photos, and the inspiration to fix instead of bin.
Before I could get onto the welding bit, I had to get the hinges off the car, which meant removing the door. Thankfully it's on the side that has no door card, so that was easy. Three nuts to remove on each hinge (as well as a washer on each stud and a spreader plate), and the door shell can be removed. I used a jack to support the back of the door until all the nuts were removed.
Much room for activities. Yes, there is still a hole in the floor; I'll get to that at some point. Hopefully during the next burst of motivation.
The bottom hinge was easy to remove from the A pillar, as all three nuts are visible, so off that came.
The upper hinge was proving to be a real pain though. I couldn't see it until I removed it, but the studs were slightly longer which meant my socket was blocked from completely sliding on the nuts, thus they were rounding when I tried to remove them.
In the end, I grabbed a drill and drilled the heads off the studs and used a punch to push them into the car, nuts and all.
Thankfully the forward nut came off easily, so I only had to do the rearward two. To get a clear shot at those I disassembled the hinge on the car, by hammering the pin out
The top hinge was the worst one as this takes most of the weight of the door, and clearly had not been lubricated since it left the factory.
The pin should be a snug fit in the hole
And that's before you even get to the wear on the actual pin
Thankfully I had sourced a good top hinge, in the correct colour, so all I needed to do, after freeing the seized hinge, was to thoroughly lubricate it and fit it.
The lower hinge wasn't so lucky. I did get a replacement but for some reason, it's completely different (two bolts instead of three and a completely different design). This forced my hand into fixing the hinge I had.
I knocked out the pin to separate the halves
There is some wear on the pin, but it's minor
The holes were slightly slogged out. This was nowhere near as bad as the upper hinge, but still had enough play that I couldn't just refit it.
I found a couple of nuts that were just slightly too small to fit over the pin and drilled the hole out a little bigger, until they slipped on the pin with minimal play.
I cleaned the surface up with a flap disc on the grinder and then zapped the nuts into place with the welder turned to 11.
It's not pretty, but it ain't going anywhere
A quick coat of black zinc should protect it for a while
Once mostly dry, the nuts were packed with grease and reassembled. The pin was rotated backwards to how it was previously fitted, so the wear was on the opposite side of the pin.
The nuts have two functions here. First, they support the pin along a larger surface area, instead of just the small area that wears away, which should hopefully mean the pin lasts longer and the current wear no longer matters. Secondly, it centers the pin again and stops it from moving in the worn-out holes. The tube would do the same thing, just along a longer surface.
This fix works for both hinges as they are of similar construction, the only difference is that the upper hinge has the detent roller and spring to get in the way.
With the hinge reassembled it was time to refit the hinges. They were easy enough to refit, trying to line them up with the existing dirt/witness marks. Interestingly, there are no gaskets to stop water from coming in behind the hinges, just hopes and dreams. If the doors come off again in the future I will make some gaskets, but in the meantime, I used heavy grease behind the hinges as a water repellent (and to reduce the chances of rust buildup behind the hinges; it was clean behind them with minor surface rust, but little to no paint).
Refitting the door was about as hard as removing it, just remembering to support the back end of the door with the jack and wiggling it onto the hinges far enough to get the spreader plates on and start a couple of nuts.
Aligning the door took a few tries, and it's probably still not perfect, but it is a BL product after all...
The difference with the new hinges was obvious immediately. The door swings so much easier now, and the detent works correctly; it previously sagged so much that the detent roller didn't touch the spring. The door also opens and closes easier now too. It doesn't need a slam to close and doesn't thump into place before catching. There is zero play in the hinges.
It's not amazing progress; it's still not finishing the rust work that I keep putting off, but it's progress nonetheless. Hopefully another burst of motivation will hit me soon and more will happen.
No, it's not work that anyone would have expected as my first update in months, but it's something I needed to do, especially whilst the car is in this orientation and I have good access (the car will soon be turned around to do the sill).
Since I got the car it has suffered from the very common saggy door issue, where the hinge pins wear out and cause excessive movement. This mainly shows itself as a door that is hard to open or close, and thumps up and down when lifted. This will not pass a WOF.
The easiest way to fix this is to find a good pair of hinges without wear and swap them in, and stick to regularly lubricating them. This will last a good while but it's getting harder to find good hinges as it was such a common issue.
Fixing the issue in the first place is the better option, and in this instance, I've done it to one hinge, out of necessity rather than choice.
There are two ways to fix it. One, is to get a steel tube that has a slightly larger internal diameter than the outside diameter of the pin and weld it between the two ears on the bracket, like so,
I didn't have a tube handy, so went with the other, easier option; weld two nuts to the ears.
Thanks to the relevant Marina Club members for the above photos, and the inspiration to fix instead of bin.
Before I could get onto the welding bit, I had to get the hinges off the car, which meant removing the door. Thankfully it's on the side that has no door card, so that was easy. Three nuts to remove on each hinge (as well as a washer on each stud and a spreader plate), and the door shell can be removed. I used a jack to support the back of the door until all the nuts were removed.
Much room for activities. Yes, there is still a hole in the floor; I'll get to that at some point. Hopefully during the next burst of motivation.
The bottom hinge was easy to remove from the A pillar, as all three nuts are visible, so off that came.
The upper hinge was proving to be a real pain though. I couldn't see it until I removed it, but the studs were slightly longer which meant my socket was blocked from completely sliding on the nuts, thus they were rounding when I tried to remove them.
In the end, I grabbed a drill and drilled the heads off the studs and used a punch to push them into the car, nuts and all.
Thankfully the forward nut came off easily, so I only had to do the rearward two. To get a clear shot at those I disassembled the hinge on the car, by hammering the pin out
The top hinge was the worst one as this takes most of the weight of the door, and clearly had not been lubricated since it left the factory.
The pin should be a snug fit in the hole
And that's before you even get to the wear on the actual pin
Thankfully I had sourced a good top hinge, in the correct colour, so all I needed to do, after freeing the seized hinge, was to thoroughly lubricate it and fit it.
The lower hinge wasn't so lucky. I did get a replacement but for some reason, it's completely different (two bolts instead of three and a completely different design). This forced my hand into fixing the hinge I had.
I knocked out the pin to separate the halves
There is some wear on the pin, but it's minor
The holes were slightly slogged out. This was nowhere near as bad as the upper hinge, but still had enough play that I couldn't just refit it.
I found a couple of nuts that were just slightly too small to fit over the pin and drilled the hole out a little bigger, until they slipped on the pin with minimal play.
I cleaned the surface up with a flap disc on the grinder and then zapped the nuts into place with the welder turned to 11.
It's not pretty, but it ain't going anywhere
A quick coat of black zinc should protect it for a while
Once mostly dry, the nuts were packed with grease and reassembled. The pin was rotated backwards to how it was previously fitted, so the wear was on the opposite side of the pin.
The nuts have two functions here. First, they support the pin along a larger surface area, instead of just the small area that wears away, which should hopefully mean the pin lasts longer and the current wear no longer matters. Secondly, it centers the pin again and stops it from moving in the worn-out holes. The tube would do the same thing, just along a longer surface.
This fix works for both hinges as they are of similar construction, the only difference is that the upper hinge has the detent roller and spring to get in the way.
With the hinge reassembled it was time to refit the hinges. They were easy enough to refit, trying to line them up with the existing dirt/witness marks. Interestingly, there are no gaskets to stop water from coming in behind the hinges, just hopes and dreams. If the doors come off again in the future I will make some gaskets, but in the meantime, I used heavy grease behind the hinges as a water repellent (and to reduce the chances of rust buildup behind the hinges; it was clean behind them with minor surface rust, but little to no paint).
Refitting the door was about as hard as removing it, just remembering to support the back end of the door with the jack and wiggling it onto the hinges far enough to get the spreader plates on and start a couple of nuts.
Aligning the door took a few tries, and it's probably still not perfect, but it is a BL product after all...
The difference with the new hinges was obvious immediately. The door swings so much easier now, and the detent works correctly; it previously sagged so much that the detent roller didn't touch the spring. The door also opens and closes easier now too. It doesn't need a slam to close and doesn't thump into place before catching. There is zero play in the hinges.
It's not amazing progress; it's still not finishing the rust work that I keep putting off, but it's progress nonetheless. Hopefully another burst of motivation will hit me soon and more will happen.
Thanks for the kind words, everyone 
Its been months of struggling with little to no motivation, but the welding on the floor is finally done. Still need to tidy up under the car and then seam seal it, but that can happen another day. Once thats done I can turn the car around, and start work on the B pillar and outer sill. Then that will be the worst of the rust sorted (and the rust that could cause WOF issues).
Its been months of struggling with little to no motivation, but the welding on the floor is finally done. Still need to tidy up under the car and then seam seal it, but that can happen another day. Once thats done I can turn the car around, and start work on the B pillar and outer sill. Then that will be the worst of the rust sorted (and the rust that could cause WOF issues).
Started this old girl up for the first time since Feb. Took a lot of cranking to fill the carb with fuel, but after a couple of coughs it fired straight up and ran great. Took it up the drive and spun it around so I have better access to the passengers side, so i can finally tackle the rusty outer sill.
It'll sound stupid, but god i love this car, it just makes me happy, even if its just firing it up to go up the drive and back.
The current fleet of toys (excluding the daily Honda)
It'll sound stupid, but god i love this car, it just makes me happy, even if its just firing it up to go up the drive and back.
The current fleet of toys (excluding the daily Honda)
The Marina is very much in the marmite camp, people either love it or hate it, Which is fine. People are allowed to not like it; there are plenty of cars I don't like either. Though it can be disheartening when you get told that it should be scrapped, or that it would look better with a piano on the roof. The haters are a vocal bunch.
There's no doubt that by 1979 the Marina was getting well past its best before date; it was borderline when it was new in 1971, so there is no surprise that almost anything more modern was better. For its time though, it was no worse to drive than any other early 70s car.
It does amuse me somewhat though that both the Marina and the SD1 (albeit in S1 guise) were available new at the same time, and they couldn't be more different.
There's no doubt that by 1979 the Marina was getting well past its best before date; it was borderline when it was new in 1971, so there is no surprise that almost anything more modern was better. For its time though, it was no worse to drive than any other early 70s car.
It does amuse me somewhat though that both the Marina and the SD1 (albeit in S1 guise) were available new at the same time, and they couldn't be more different.
Wow, it's almost been a year since Part 1, this project really has been on the back burner.
To be fair, a lot of other projects have come and gone in the meantime, and one in particular (not naming names, Lucas) has taken up months of my time, space and money. That has sucked, when all I want is to drive the Marina.
Well, its a new year, so Happy New Year and all that, and 2023 is the year the Marina will be back on the road for the first time since about 1996.
Anyway, it appears I missed an update. Months ago, back in May 2022 or so, I did actually move onto the Drivers side floor, starting with chopping the whole damn thing out. I decided on this side that instead of doing smaller patches, I would just replace the biggest sections I could. This was the right choice, it's so much easier.
Just as a note, this side has the fuel and brake pipes running under it, so I used a block of wood to space these off the floor so I wouldn't cut or heat them.
I started making up some patches
Everything got a good going over with the flappy wheel of death, and the first patch was started. There were dozens of holes to plug weld to the underfloor supports.
After much plug welding, the first patch was welded in
The sill patch followed. More plug welds, and welding to the inner sill. This had a couple of different angles I needed to match, as the floor slopes upwards at the rear.
I was obviously happy about having some progress after a couple of months of nothing
A month or so later, the final patch was welded into place
A grinder and paint made me the welder I ain't
And with that, the RH side was seam sealed. I still had some touch-ups to do on the LH side, so that hasn't been sealed yet. I did this months ago, so it's pretty dirty now, like the rest of the car.
There we have it, the floors are more or less done.
Due to all the other projects needing work, this was left untouched for a couple more months, until finally, I had nothing else in the garage and dug deep to find some motivation.
It was finally time to address the rather perforated LH sill, as it was never going to pass a WOF in that state.
I had been putting this job off because it's a big lump of pretty serious work. It needs to be strong, and it needs to look tidy. It was daunting.
I purchased a sill panel months ago from a seller down south that custom makes them on professional rollers, so at least I don't need to try and make my own panel.
My workplace is on a shutdown over the Christmas period, so what better time to get off my butt and get chopping?
And that's just what I did.
First, the LH door has to come off. This is easy, six nuts on the hinges and the whole lot comes off. Not even a single cable to remove from the door.
Thankfully the A-pillar area is in PERFECT condition. I have seen some shockers in the UK for rust here.
I got out the air saw and started the cut. I used some spare box section to brace the door aperture, just in case.
I needed to keep that first top step so I could weld the new sill to it.
Opening the sill up showed just how crusty it was. It was packed with rust flakes
I vacuumed the chunks out so I could see what I was working with
The air saw once again made short work of the bottom of the sill
I then used a combo of a sharp dill bit, a flap disk, a grinding disk and a flatblade screwdriver to break all the spot welds for the lip that was still attached. I used a flap disc to take that paint off and expose the spot weld locations, which I then drilled until there was a definite indent. I then finished it off with the grinding disk, until I could lever the strip with the screwdriver and break the spot weld. Some of the factory spot welds were... a bit askew, and barely on the inner sill at all.
I do have one of those fancy spot weld cutters, but it's s
te. No matter how much I punch or drill first, the damn thing just wanders all over the place instead of cutting around the spot weld.
The inner sill looks worse than it is. There was a hole at the very end, and I found another weak spot that failed the poky-poky-screwdriver test.
The rest of the sill faired well and is just covered in surface rust and some pitting.
I started with the small hole near the seatbelt anchor bolt. I cut the area out
And then decided the pitting to the right of the hole was looking at me funny, so cut that out too
An appropriate size patch was made up and welded in (excuse the shiny photo, this was after I had covered everything in Brunox)
As you can see above, the rear of the sill was also cut out. I chose to overlap this on the jacking point, for some extra strength.
Before wrapping up for the night I wire brushed everything and gave it a couple coats of Brunox, which is an epoxy rust killer. I'll tell you what, once set it's like brown stuff on a blanket, really hard to get off.
A couple of days later, I set off to the garage with a plan; Cut the bottom of the rear quarter panel off so I could access the inner sill step, which I would need access to when I weld the new outer sill on.
For once I was smart, I thought "hey normally I just cut and away I go, but today, I will grind back all the paint so I have a nice clean surface to work with around the cut". It didn't go to plan.
I started grinding away and immediately struck bog. Lots of bog. Damn.
As it turns out, the whole lower area ahead of the arch was made of bog
Even the arch "lip" was bog
This wasn't your usual repair, using something to back the bog where there is a hole. Oh no, this was "stuff the hole with bog until it's solid". In the middle of the circle, someone had torn a hole, folded the edges back and filled it with handfuls of bog (you could see it looking down inside the inner guard, I missed it the first time though).
Something had hit the arch, bent it in, and left a nice dent. Instead of fixing it properly, that's what they had done.
Initially, my brain just fell to bits, my whole plan was derailed and my toys weren't in the cot anymore. Eventually, there was nothing else for it; get cutting.
I dug the rest of the bog out, cleaned a bigger area of the panel back, marked a couple of lines and got cutting.
Inside, it wasn't bad. The arch lip was bent and twisted
But the rest of the area was fine. The damage is mostly contained to the small section of guard that I removed
The piece I removed was pretty ugly
I don't know how yet, but somehow I have to remake that, including the arch section missing from that piece. It might look basic, but it's got a couple of different angles and a body line in the middle of it. Guess it's time to watch some more YouTube.
Otherwise, removing the small section at the bottom of the guard did give the access I was hoping for
The plan now was to keep moving, and doing what I had intended to do; fix the inner sill and fit the new outer sill. Once that's fitted I can work on the missing section of guard.
As a quick morale booster, I offered up the new outer sill to see how it fits
It looks like it should fit quite nicely with some trimming.
I welded in a new section for the rear of the inner sill, and make a little piece to replace the upper stepped section I had to remove due to rust
And that's where I have ended for today. I gave everything a coat of weld-through zinc primer, and the next step is to make the outer sill fit properly, and weld it in place. It would be exciting if it weren't for the rest of the work that still needs to be done.
As they say, it's got to get worse before it can get better. I hope it gets better. God I hate bodywork.
To be fair, a lot of other projects have come and gone in the meantime, and one in particular (not naming names, Lucas) has taken up months of my time, space and money. That has sucked, when all I want is to drive the Marina.
Well, its a new year, so Happy New Year and all that, and 2023 is the year the Marina will be back on the road for the first time since about 1996.
Anyway, it appears I missed an update. Months ago, back in May 2022 or so, I did actually move onto the Drivers side floor, starting with chopping the whole damn thing out. I decided on this side that instead of doing smaller patches, I would just replace the biggest sections I could. This was the right choice, it's so much easier.
Just as a note, this side has the fuel and brake pipes running under it, so I used a block of wood to space these off the floor so I wouldn't cut or heat them.
I started making up some patches
Everything got a good going over with the flappy wheel of death, and the first patch was started. There were dozens of holes to plug weld to the underfloor supports.
After much plug welding, the first patch was welded in
The sill patch followed. More plug welds, and welding to the inner sill. This had a couple of different angles I needed to match, as the floor slopes upwards at the rear.
I was obviously happy about having some progress after a couple of months of nothing
A month or so later, the final patch was welded into place
A grinder and paint made me the welder I ain't
And with that, the RH side was seam sealed. I still had some touch-ups to do on the LH side, so that hasn't been sealed yet. I did this months ago, so it's pretty dirty now, like the rest of the car.
There we have it, the floors are more or less done.
Due to all the other projects needing work, this was left untouched for a couple more months, until finally, I had nothing else in the garage and dug deep to find some motivation.
It was finally time to address the rather perforated LH sill, as it was never going to pass a WOF in that state.
I had been putting this job off because it's a big lump of pretty serious work. It needs to be strong, and it needs to look tidy. It was daunting.
I purchased a sill panel months ago from a seller down south that custom makes them on professional rollers, so at least I don't need to try and make my own panel.
My workplace is on a shutdown over the Christmas period, so what better time to get off my butt and get chopping?
And that's just what I did.
First, the LH door has to come off. This is easy, six nuts on the hinges and the whole lot comes off. Not even a single cable to remove from the door.
Thankfully the A-pillar area is in PERFECT condition. I have seen some shockers in the UK for rust here.
I got out the air saw and started the cut. I used some spare box section to brace the door aperture, just in case.
I needed to keep that first top step so I could weld the new sill to it.
Opening the sill up showed just how crusty it was. It was packed with rust flakes
I vacuumed the chunks out so I could see what I was working with
The air saw once again made short work of the bottom of the sill
I then used a combo of a sharp dill bit, a flap disk, a grinding disk and a flatblade screwdriver to break all the spot welds for the lip that was still attached. I used a flap disc to take that paint off and expose the spot weld locations, which I then drilled until there was a definite indent. I then finished it off with the grinding disk, until I could lever the strip with the screwdriver and break the spot weld. Some of the factory spot welds were... a bit askew, and barely on the inner sill at all.
I do have one of those fancy spot weld cutters, but it's s
te. No matter how much I punch or drill first, the damn thing just wanders all over the place instead of cutting around the spot weld.The inner sill looks worse than it is. There was a hole at the very end, and I found another weak spot that failed the poky-poky-screwdriver test.
The rest of the sill faired well and is just covered in surface rust and some pitting.
I started with the small hole near the seatbelt anchor bolt. I cut the area out
And then decided the pitting to the right of the hole was looking at me funny, so cut that out too
An appropriate size patch was made up and welded in (excuse the shiny photo, this was after I had covered everything in Brunox)
As you can see above, the rear of the sill was also cut out. I chose to overlap this on the jacking point, for some extra strength.
Before wrapping up for the night I wire brushed everything and gave it a couple coats of Brunox, which is an epoxy rust killer. I'll tell you what, once set it's like brown stuff on a blanket, really hard to get off.
A couple of days later, I set off to the garage with a plan; Cut the bottom of the rear quarter panel off so I could access the inner sill step, which I would need access to when I weld the new outer sill on.
For once I was smart, I thought "hey normally I just cut and away I go, but today, I will grind back all the paint so I have a nice clean surface to work with around the cut". It didn't go to plan.
I started grinding away and immediately struck bog. Lots of bog. Damn.
As it turns out, the whole lower area ahead of the arch was made of bog
Even the arch "lip" was bog
This wasn't your usual repair, using something to back the bog where there is a hole. Oh no, this was "stuff the hole with bog until it's solid". In the middle of the circle, someone had torn a hole, folded the edges back and filled it with handfuls of bog (you could see it looking down inside the inner guard, I missed it the first time though).
Something had hit the arch, bent it in, and left a nice dent. Instead of fixing it properly, that's what they had done.
Initially, my brain just fell to bits, my whole plan was derailed and my toys weren't in the cot anymore. Eventually, there was nothing else for it; get cutting.
I dug the rest of the bog out, cleaned a bigger area of the panel back, marked a couple of lines and got cutting.
Inside, it wasn't bad. The arch lip was bent and twisted
But the rest of the area was fine. The damage is mostly contained to the small section of guard that I removed
The piece I removed was pretty ugly
I don't know how yet, but somehow I have to remake that, including the arch section missing from that piece. It might look basic, but it's got a couple of different angles and a body line in the middle of it. Guess it's time to watch some more YouTube.
Otherwise, removing the small section at the bottom of the guard did give the access I was hoping for
The plan now was to keep moving, and doing what I had intended to do; fix the inner sill and fit the new outer sill. Once that's fitted I can work on the missing section of guard.
As a quick morale booster, I offered up the new outer sill to see how it fits
It looks like it should fit quite nicely with some trimming.
I welded in a new section for the rear of the inner sill, and make a little piece to replace the upper stepped section I had to remove due to rust
And that's where I have ended for today. I gave everything a coat of weld-through zinc primer, and the next step is to make the outer sill fit properly, and weld it in place. It would be exciting if it weren't for the rest of the work that still needs to be done.
As they say, it's got to get worse before it can get better. I hope it gets better. God I hate bodywork.
Jhonno said:
Nice work! I'm not shocked to see you found previous bodgery when you opened her up! Can you get a repair panel to cut up to sort the lower 1/4?
Unfortunately not, no one reproduces them and there aren't any coupes being chopped up. It's the downside of the coupe, everything forward of the B pillar is shared with the saloon, everything back is coupe specific. Did more cutting, hitting, welding and grinding today to fill the holes.
Not 100% happy, there is a high point here, where the patch is joined to the original guard. Not sure if i had the guard out of alignment or something warped when welding (likely the former). Not sure how to fix it, but I'm thinking cut the join, hammer it all back into alignment, weld up again?
Not 100% happy, there is a high point here, where the patch is joined to the original guard. Not sure if i had the guard out of alignment or something warped when welding (likely the former). Not sure how to fix it, but I'm thinking cut the join, hammer it all back into alignment, weld up again?
At times it feels like I'm playing Whack-A-Mole with the rust, but I am steadily knocking rust on the head and putting new steel in.
I know it's probably not particularly interesting to most, but it is what it is. Once the bodywork is done, I can return to the fun mechanical stuff.
I left off the last post with the no sill, and a blimmin' great hole in the quarter panel.
The first step was to get the new sill on and return some strength to the car.
A quick test fit of the sill, with the door on, showed that it fit nicely
It sits a little high with it only clamped at the bottom, so should pull down a bit when welded. The door is adjustable if I need to tweak the gaps.
Next was to spend the next few minutes punching holes in the flanges. There were dozens of holes, and all of them needed to be punched out and welded. I'm glad I have a proper punch, and I wasn't drilling these one by one.
And finally, after some tweaking of the placement, it was all welded into place. I ended up using a jack under the lower flange of the sill to help align it with the inner sill, since it appears that wasn't welded straight from the factory (which explains why the old sill I removed was barely spot welded along the bottom)
A quick skim of filler along the top edge should make the repair invisible
And some filler to shape the front edge too. In hindsight I should have angled the edge so it matched the guard line, but oh well.
This is where I took a bit of a break from the sill/guard area, as I had found a donor arch section for the rear (from a sedan), and was waiting for it to arrive.
Instead, I moved on to one other area that needed attention; the window frame.
Before venturing further into the story, it occurred to me that I completely forgot to mention that a few months ago I removed the rear QTR glass, because I knew there was a rust hole in the B pillar.
This was a bit of a faff. Being a Deluxe, it didn't get the pop-out windows the TC did, which are easy to remove, so I had to lever the old, hard, rubber seal off and try not to break the irreplaceable window glass.
I started with getting just that section over the lip, and one by one moved the screwdrivers further along until the window finally started to pop out.
Once it started to come out it was quite easy to remove.
This revealed the horrors hiding under the seal
This is the hole I knew about
But there was also rust at the rear of the window
Interestingly, this also confirmed that the B pillars of the lower spec models are already provisioned with the holes for the hinge blocks for the TC pop out windows, albeit with the top one covered in tape
I cleaned the B pillar hole up and bit, and its quite sizeable
So yes, that's been like that for a few months. Moving along, I wanted to repair both of the holes.
I started with the one in the B pillar, as it was more straightforward. I stripped it back until I found good metal, and then using my best friend, the air body saw, I cut a nice square hole
Made up a nice patch for it
Welded it in, and ground it back.
I did have one shocking surprise when welding that in. I didn't realise, but the joint with the quarter panel had been lead loaded, which is where they fill and shape the joint with lead, instead of bog/filler. I only found this out when the lead got superheated by my welding near it, and blew molten lead all over me when I used the air gun to cool the welds. Thankfully I had my welding mask down, and the rest of the lead just peeled off my clothes.
The same was also present near the rust at the rear of the window, so I made sure to grind it all back to bare steel (wearing appropriate PPE, of course; powered lead cant be good to breathe).
The rear rust was much harder to do. I cut it back until I had solid metal, revealing a large hole
And welded in a couple of patches (one for the flange, the other for the curve). It was really hard to grind the welds back, so it's not pretty, but nothing a skim of filler won't fix.
I was laughing with my wife about how hard it was to weld this, as previously all my welding had been low down and I could just put the light I use to see what I'm welding, on the floor or wedge it against something. Because this was up high, and my light is massive and heavy (cordless Ryobi foldable light) there was nowhere to put the light. I mentioned I had been holding the light between my legs, or pressed against the side of the car. My wife looks at me, and asks "why don't you get a little magnetic light?".
It's so simple. I bought one the next day and life has been better since.
Another tool that has improved my life is this power file/finger sander. It's amazing. Way better access than my grinder, and grinds welds down like butter.
I took the recommendation of a local forum to get some "green zirconia" belts for it. I had been using the ones that came with it and they were good, but sure enough, the green ones tear through anything and will wear out before they snap (which is a common issue; The other spares I bought with the tool snap within seconds of trying to grind welds down. They were cheap, but they're useless).
The next day the arch section arrived.
I bought this from a seller that was wrecking a sedan. The coupe shares the same basic arch profile with the sedan, even if the quarter in front of it is different, because there is a door where the coupe doesn't have one.
I started by drilling out the spot welds, to separate the inner and outer arch sections, as all I needed was the lower outer arch
I finally got the spot weld cutter to work. I used a 2.5mm drill bit to drill through the middle of the spot weld, and this pilot hole holds the cutter in place and stops it from slipping around. I did go right through on a couple, but I wasn't trying to save the inner arch anyway
Unfortunately, I did find this arch also had filler in it. Not as bad as my old one, but enough that it was annoying.
I only really needed the very bottom of the arch, so I kept going anyway
After some tidying up, and lots of measuring and tweaking, I welded the arch section in.
I trimmed down the end of the sill, and pulled the top edge outwards, to match the shape of the arch
This meant I could cap the end of the sill. I used the donor sill to get a basic template, and made the panel
Welded into place
After grinding everything down
Next was the hard part, making the filler panel to fix the large square hole. I measured and cut this a few times, and I'm still not 100% happy with how it turned out.
Next, I made the last patch. I had originally planned to reuse the section I cut from the guard, but it was easier to just make a nice fresh new section. I also plug welded these new patches to the top of the sill, from the inside of the car.
And there we have it, all welded in. I had agonised about the damage, and how hard it was going to be to fix, but at the end of the day, although the donor arch helped massively, the rest of the job went quite smoothly.
The only issues I have are that the bottom folded edge of the two patches don't line up (filler will fix this), and there was a raised high point where the panels joined
It is hard to see in photos, but was really obvious in person; it looked like a big raised peak. I wasn't sure how to fix it, so I just took a hammer and dolly to it and now it's about 80% better
The main thing is that I have retained the seam between the sill and quarter, and the swage line above that seam is somewhat straight. I spent ages with tape measures and straight edges making sure that the swage line would be near straight.
That's it, other than some filler and paint, the sill is finally done.
Next on the chopping block was this rust
But on the way there, I poked at the inner guard, behind the wheel... Yes, I should know better.
Well now, I couldn't just leave that as it is.
I also poked around at the rust I was meant to be doing, and made it much worse
Looking at the inner guard, the only option I could think of to fix it properly, was to unfortunately cut the lower edge of the arch off, so I could access the full section
Remember, measure once, cut thrice
But now I could see the whole thing
Which made slicing and dicing it much better
I barely had to cut down the sides, it was that rusty
I cleaned it up
And used the old rusty section as a template to make a patch
The only thing left was to weld in the section of arch I cut out. This was a real mission as the metal was super thin here. Beware, it's ugly.
Awesome folding magnetic light that has made life better. It's wearing a little nappy to stop metal shavings from getting jammed around the magnet on the base
Much better. Just needs some sealer down the side (as it was from the factory)
Now it was time to finally deal with the rust I came here to fix
I did some poking around, and made the target area bigger
Using the air saw I cut the area back to good metal, and carefully split the seam where it was spot welded to the outer quarter.
I made another patch, and clamped it into place for test fitting
And then welded it in. I welded it in from the top as it was easier than welding on my back. Look at that penetration though, and not a single blown hole.
I plug welded the new seam to the old one to make a nice solid flange. I also plug welded a right angle into place to support the spare wheel
Job done. Probably one of the quickest and easiest repairs on the car so far.
While I was there, I wanted to weld up the surplus holes in the rear panel. The car had previously had towbar wiring bodged onto the rear panel, via a couple of holes drilled into it. There were also three misc vertical holes on the RH side by the light
I got rid of the plug ages ago, so it was only the holes left to fill. The towbar might stay, I'm not sure yet, but I don't really intend to tow anything with the car, so I won't be reinstating the wiring for now.
I ground all the paint around the holes back (using spare welding gloves to protect the chrome bumper from weld spatter)
I made a small "round" filler for the big hole from scrap and held it in place with a magnet
A few presses of the trigger later, all the nasty holes are gone
The three remaining holes above the big hole are for the Morris badge.
A quick squirt of some epoxy primer to keep it happy in the meantime, and we are done for the day.
Speaking of, I recently found out that painting over zinc-based weld through primer can be problematic and not recommended. This is a pain, as I have painted over EVERYTHING I have done with zinc-based primer, to protect it. Now I will need to go back and strip it all to bare steel again and paint it with epoxy primer. The zinc primer is good for inside spaces, or between two bits of steel, and that's really all it should be used for. Oh well.
I'm getting really close now. I have to cut out and fix the rear valance, which is very rusty, and then the major rust work is done. After that, it's the boot seal flange, and a couple of "cosmetic" areas that need work, but they can be done at any time, even after a WOF check.
Lucas will be at British Car Day on the 12th Feb, but unfortunately the Marina just isn't quite there yet as I'm a couple of months behind where I wanted to be. Such is life, but I'm happy I'm finally making progress again.
I know it's probably not particularly interesting to most, but it is what it is. Once the bodywork is done, I can return to the fun mechanical stuff.
I left off the last post with the no sill, and a blimmin' great hole in the quarter panel.
The first step was to get the new sill on and return some strength to the car.
A quick test fit of the sill, with the door on, showed that it fit nicely
It sits a little high with it only clamped at the bottom, so should pull down a bit when welded. The door is adjustable if I need to tweak the gaps.
Next was to spend the next few minutes punching holes in the flanges. There were dozens of holes, and all of them needed to be punched out and welded. I'm glad I have a proper punch, and I wasn't drilling these one by one.
And finally, after some tweaking of the placement, it was all welded into place. I ended up using a jack under the lower flange of the sill to help align it with the inner sill, since it appears that wasn't welded straight from the factory (which explains why the old sill I removed was barely spot welded along the bottom)
A quick skim of filler along the top edge should make the repair invisible
And some filler to shape the front edge too. In hindsight I should have angled the edge so it matched the guard line, but oh well.
This is where I took a bit of a break from the sill/guard area, as I had found a donor arch section for the rear (from a sedan), and was waiting for it to arrive.
Instead, I moved on to one other area that needed attention; the window frame.
Before venturing further into the story, it occurred to me that I completely forgot to mention that a few months ago I removed the rear QTR glass, because I knew there was a rust hole in the B pillar.
This was a bit of a faff. Being a Deluxe, it didn't get the pop-out windows the TC did, which are easy to remove, so I had to lever the old, hard, rubber seal off and try not to break the irreplaceable window glass.
I started with getting just that section over the lip, and one by one moved the screwdrivers further along until the window finally started to pop out.
Once it started to come out it was quite easy to remove.
This revealed the horrors hiding under the seal
This is the hole I knew about
But there was also rust at the rear of the window
Interestingly, this also confirmed that the B pillars of the lower spec models are already provisioned with the holes for the hinge blocks for the TC pop out windows, albeit with the top one covered in tape
I cleaned the B pillar hole up and bit, and its quite sizeable
So yes, that's been like that for a few months. Moving along, I wanted to repair both of the holes.
I started with the one in the B pillar, as it was more straightforward. I stripped it back until I found good metal, and then using my best friend, the air body saw, I cut a nice square hole
Made up a nice patch for it
Welded it in, and ground it back.
I did have one shocking surprise when welding that in. I didn't realise, but the joint with the quarter panel had been lead loaded, which is where they fill and shape the joint with lead, instead of bog/filler. I only found this out when the lead got superheated by my welding near it, and blew molten lead all over me when I used the air gun to cool the welds. Thankfully I had my welding mask down, and the rest of the lead just peeled off my clothes.
The same was also present near the rust at the rear of the window, so I made sure to grind it all back to bare steel (wearing appropriate PPE, of course; powered lead cant be good to breathe).
The rear rust was much harder to do. I cut it back until I had solid metal, revealing a large hole
And welded in a couple of patches (one for the flange, the other for the curve). It was really hard to grind the welds back, so it's not pretty, but nothing a skim of filler won't fix.
I was laughing with my wife about how hard it was to weld this, as previously all my welding had been low down and I could just put the light I use to see what I'm welding, on the floor or wedge it against something. Because this was up high, and my light is massive and heavy (cordless Ryobi foldable light) there was nowhere to put the light. I mentioned I had been holding the light between my legs, or pressed against the side of the car. My wife looks at me, and asks "why don't you get a little magnetic light?".
It's so simple. I bought one the next day and life has been better since.
Another tool that has improved my life is this power file/finger sander. It's amazing. Way better access than my grinder, and grinds welds down like butter.
I took the recommendation of a local forum to get some "green zirconia" belts for it. I had been using the ones that came with it and they were good, but sure enough, the green ones tear through anything and will wear out before they snap (which is a common issue; The other spares I bought with the tool snap within seconds of trying to grind welds down. They were cheap, but they're useless).
The next day the arch section arrived.
I bought this from a seller that was wrecking a sedan. The coupe shares the same basic arch profile with the sedan, even if the quarter in front of it is different, because there is a door where the coupe doesn't have one.
I started by drilling out the spot welds, to separate the inner and outer arch sections, as all I needed was the lower outer arch
I finally got the spot weld cutter to work. I used a 2.5mm drill bit to drill through the middle of the spot weld, and this pilot hole holds the cutter in place and stops it from slipping around. I did go right through on a couple, but I wasn't trying to save the inner arch anyway
Unfortunately, I did find this arch also had filler in it. Not as bad as my old one, but enough that it was annoying.
I only really needed the very bottom of the arch, so I kept going anyway
After some tidying up, and lots of measuring and tweaking, I welded the arch section in.
I trimmed down the end of the sill, and pulled the top edge outwards, to match the shape of the arch
This meant I could cap the end of the sill. I used the donor sill to get a basic template, and made the panel
Welded into place
After grinding everything down
Next was the hard part, making the filler panel to fix the large square hole. I measured and cut this a few times, and I'm still not 100% happy with how it turned out.
Next, I made the last patch. I had originally planned to reuse the section I cut from the guard, but it was easier to just make a nice fresh new section. I also plug welded these new patches to the top of the sill, from the inside of the car.
And there we have it, all welded in. I had agonised about the damage, and how hard it was going to be to fix, but at the end of the day, although the donor arch helped massively, the rest of the job went quite smoothly.
The only issues I have are that the bottom folded edge of the two patches don't line up (filler will fix this), and there was a raised high point where the panels joined
It is hard to see in photos, but was really obvious in person; it looked like a big raised peak. I wasn't sure how to fix it, so I just took a hammer and dolly to it and now it's about 80% better
The main thing is that I have retained the seam between the sill and quarter, and the swage line above that seam is somewhat straight. I spent ages with tape measures and straight edges making sure that the swage line would be near straight.
That's it, other than some filler and paint, the sill is finally done.
Next on the chopping block was this rust
But on the way there, I poked at the inner guard, behind the wheel... Yes, I should know better.
Well now, I couldn't just leave that as it is.
I also poked around at the rust I was meant to be doing, and made it much worse
Looking at the inner guard, the only option I could think of to fix it properly, was to unfortunately cut the lower edge of the arch off, so I could access the full section
Remember, measure once, cut thrice
But now I could see the whole thing
Which made slicing and dicing it much better
I barely had to cut down the sides, it was that rusty
I cleaned it up
And used the old rusty section as a template to make a patch
The only thing left was to weld in the section of arch I cut out. This was a real mission as the metal was super thin here. Beware, it's ugly.
Awesome folding magnetic light that has made life better. It's wearing a little nappy to stop metal shavings from getting jammed around the magnet on the base
Much better. Just needs some sealer down the side (as it was from the factory)
Now it was time to finally deal with the rust I came here to fix
I did some poking around, and made the target area bigger
Using the air saw I cut the area back to good metal, and carefully split the seam where it was spot welded to the outer quarter.
I made another patch, and clamped it into place for test fitting
And then welded it in. I welded it in from the top as it was easier than welding on my back. Look at that penetration though, and not a single blown hole.
I plug welded the new seam to the old one to make a nice solid flange. I also plug welded a right angle into place to support the spare wheel
Job done. Probably one of the quickest and easiest repairs on the car so far.
While I was there, I wanted to weld up the surplus holes in the rear panel. The car had previously had towbar wiring bodged onto the rear panel, via a couple of holes drilled into it. There were also three misc vertical holes on the RH side by the light
I got rid of the plug ages ago, so it was only the holes left to fill. The towbar might stay, I'm not sure yet, but I don't really intend to tow anything with the car, so I won't be reinstating the wiring for now.
I ground all the paint around the holes back (using spare welding gloves to protect the chrome bumper from weld spatter)
I made a small "round" filler for the big hole from scrap and held it in place with a magnet
A few presses of the trigger later, all the nasty holes are gone
The three remaining holes above the big hole are for the Morris badge.
A quick squirt of some epoxy primer to keep it happy in the meantime, and we are done for the day.
Speaking of, I recently found out that painting over zinc-based weld through primer can be problematic and not recommended. This is a pain, as I have painted over EVERYTHING I have done with zinc-based primer, to protect it. Now I will need to go back and strip it all to bare steel again and paint it with epoxy primer. The zinc primer is good for inside spaces, or between two bits of steel, and that's really all it should be used for. Oh well.
I'm getting really close now. I have to cut out and fix the rear valance, which is very rusty, and then the major rust work is done. After that, it's the boot seal flange, and a couple of "cosmetic" areas that need work, but they can be done at any time, even after a WOF check.
Lucas will be at British Car Day on the 12th Feb, but unfortunately the Marina just isn't quite there yet as I'm a couple of months behind where I wanted to be. Such is life, but I'm happy I'm finally making progress again.
Edited by KelvinatorNZ on Friday 27th January 08:37
Thanks for the comments everyone. Unfortunately ground to a halt on the welding as I'm out of gas, and there is a national CO2 shortage. I'll get back into the welding as soon as I can. In the mean time, I'm going to start work on the filler and primer for the parts I have fixed already.
I've seen that one listed. They're asking top dollar (its been offered out for $9000 NZD, 4500 quid), but it looks like an exceptionally clean example. Its been stored in a museum for a decade or so, which has helped preserve it. The price is Marinas is on the rise, and I'm glad I got mine when i did, for what I did, despite the issues its given me.
How good does it look in yellow though?!
Fairly big update coming soon on mine too, just wrapping some work up before tapping out the words.
How good does it look in yellow though?!
Fairly big update coming soon on mine too, just wrapping some work up before tapping out the words.
Having run out of MIG gas, which then nuked my momentum and motivation on the bodywork repairs, I decided to change path, and do something I actually enjoy; mechanical and electrical work.
Ages ago, gosh, back in 2021 now, I flushed and cleaned out the cooling system. This was pretty nasty, with lots of brown sludge.
I removed the radiator and reverse flushed it with the hose, which got a lot more sludge out. As it turned out though, the radiator was trash. The core was all rotting away, and I ended up poking a hole in it with a screwdriver when doing up a hose clamp
After looking at various options, of which there were... none, I ended up having the original radiator recorded at great expense by a local firm. A recored radiator means the radiator is rebuilt using a new center core (with the fins and pipes) and reuses the existing end tanks and mounting straps.
Along with the new core, I had them add a bung under the top radiator hose (the hottest point in the radiator) to fit a temperature sensor for my electric fan controller
I did some quick measurements and decided to go with a 10" fan, which was far too small. I later changed to a 12" fan.
I've had this sitting in a box for months, waiting for me to get my A into G and make more progress. One thing that was stopping me, was that I needed to fit an electric fuel pump and remove the old fixed engine-powered fan (not even a viscous clutch fan, this bad boy spun at engine RPM no matter what; I don't have that much faith in 50 year old plastic).
The fan was easy, it's just bolted to the front of the waterpump with a spacer. I removed the fan and spacer, cut some new bolts shorter to hold the pulley on and not hit the waterpump, and that was done.
The fuel pump was a bit harder. I needed to find a suitable location to mount the pump and then run the hoses.
The pump I went with is a Fuelflow 015 piston pump. It's happy to be mounted almost anywhere, at any angle and has the low pressure output required for the SU carb. Its a nice neat little unit; it even has rubber mounted feet
My plan was to mount it on the inner guard, on the Lh side of the car, running the hose feeding the pump under the radiator. Before I started any of the mounting, I grabbed some hose and ran it more or less how it would be once fitted, and directed it into a jug, just to make sure the pump could pull fuel all the way from the tank, through the filter and pump it up higher than the engine.
The answer was yes, easily.
I drilled a couple of holes in the inner guard, and mounted the pump with a couple of rivnuts
And ran the hose along the radiator support, using a pair of rubber-lined P-Clips to secure it (also using rivnuts - I love rivnuts)
The outlet hose was run from the pump to the carb inlet
And a fuel filter was fitted on the other side, before the pump (as per the instructions). Oh, and a nice new drive belt was fitted, probably for the first time in 15-20 years, maybe if ever.
The next step was to remove the old mechanical pump. It lives up under the alternator on these early 1750 engines (later ones are mounted up on the valve cover)
It's held to the sump with two studs. Yes, like the oil filter, it's mounted to the side of the sump.
Be careful when removing the pump to catch the pushrod that drives the pump (and if you're refitting the pump, make sure it's fitted). It's the straight rod on the right in the above photo. There is also a spacer block, which has gaskets on either side of it.
The old pump was literally leaking everything, from everywhere. You can follow the trail down the sump to the back
Using an old gasket I carefully removed, I copied it to some scrap steel and made a blanking plate
Which I painted black with the quickest shot of black paint. A pair of new gaskets were cut from gasket sheet; one to go on either side of the spacer. You could do without the spacer if you spaced the nuts on the studs since the studs aren't threaded to their base, but it's easier to just fit the spacer. Technically you don't need two gaskets either, just the one between the spacer and sump should suffice.
I still needed a couple of washers to space the nuts out anyway
The stud closest to the filter needed an extra washer, as someone had stripped the thread. Probably why the fuel pump leaked.
One bonus to removing the mechanical pump is getting rid of the dodgy fuel hose that used to run across the front of the sump
I replaced this hose very early on, but I still didn't like it there. According to the manual, it should have a hardline from the pump, not a hose, which makes a lot of sense, but obviously someone "fixed" this at some point.
The last thing to do was to wire the pump, but I wanted to get the radiator in first so I knew where the wires could run.
A note before talking about the radiator. A while ago, while the radiator was getting recored, I flushed the block. There is a block drain at the back of the block above the starter
I used a small funnel in the thermostat housing to pour water straight into the head. I got a ton of brown sludge out this way, and flushed through litres of water until it ran clear
I did this because I really didn't want to risk filling the new radiator with sludge from the block.
The radiator was quite straightforward. Fit right into the factory mounting points, and the 12" fan clears everything (or would have if I had mounted it slightly to the right. As it was, it just touched a bend on the top hose. I cut a few mm off the thermostat end of the hose to move it away from the fan).
I hated the old bottom hose and really didn't want to refit it. Because the car is running the more available Maxi/Allegro water pump, which has the outlet on a different angle, you cannot run the standard bottom hose. The previous owner had done his best to cobble together something that worked, and to be fair, it did, but it was ugly.
The outlet is almost level with the radiator inlet, but is pointing almost straight downwards. The radiator and waterpump are also different sizes...
As it turns out, Dayco makes the 81081, which can be ordered via RockAuto. This has the correct size ends; 32mm and 38mm, and is a suitable length. It took some wrangling to get the stiff hose into the right place, but it fits well and clamps on fine.
With the top hose fitted too, it almost looks like a car again
At this point, I hadn't wired the fan in, but I did run the pump power wire and hotwired it to the switched side of the fuse box. This meant I could give it a kick in the guts and see how it was on the new pump.
Being able to prime the fuel system makes all the difference in starting the car after months of being laid up. With the old mechanical pump, which only pumps when the engine is turning, it would take minutes of cranking to get enough fuel through to fill the filter, then the carb bowl and finally start. Now I can switch the key to ON, wait a few seconds, and away we go.
Now, obviously having the pump hard-wired to run when the key is ON, is not ideal. A lot of people are happy to run it like that, but I don't want the risk of the pump running if I'm in an accident. Yeah, I probably have bigger problems if I crash this car, but I'd also rather not burn to death because the pump fed a fire.
This meant some wiring work. The plan was to have a separate fuse box that the fan controller and fuel pump run through. This would be powered by a relay, which is triggered by the original switched wiring (so all the load runs through the relay, instead of the 50 year old wiring). The pump would be isolated by an inertia switch, just like a modern car.
I started by locating a suitable place for the fan controller and mounting it with a pair of rivnuts.
Now, before anyone mentions it, yes, I hate the primer patches everywhere too, but I'm very much subscribing to the "don't get it right, just get it running" mentality now. I will come back and tidy it up later, but for now, I just need to wind the scope back and make the car go.
A suitable location for the additional fuse box was found
I did toy with the idea of replacing the old fuse box that uses glass fuses, but it works, so I'll leave it well enough alone (other than replacing it with a new one of the same style, when that arrives, just so I can have nice new untarnished terminals).
The fan controller was wired in
And once the relay was wired in,
I powered it up
The readout gives a live coolant temp reading in celsius. This particular controller can switch two fans, hence the two relays, but I'm only using one.
The fuel pump was next. In order to make it safe in a crash, I fitted an inertia switch to the front panel. When this switch detects an impact (or sudden deceleration) it trips the switch, cutting power. It can be reset by pressing down on the top and can be bypassed completely if needed.
This was then also wired back to the fuse box
A few minutes with some fabric tape made the wires look a bit less ugly
The final part of the system was to wire in the fan override switch. The controller is designed so that if you feed 12v onto this particular wire (the AC trigger wire, technically), it will instantly turn the fans on (if they are off), but will not interrupt the automatic switching, so it cannot be used to turn the fans off unless the temp is under the switching threshold. Basically, I can use it to turn the fans on and keep them on, if the coolant isn't up to temp yet. Could be good in traffic, but it's mainly a failsafe I hope I won't need.
To mount the switch, a made a small steel bracket that mounts under the dash using existing holes.
Its definitely function over form
I had an idea where the switch would light up when the fan was on, and as it turns out, you can buy toggle switches that have LEDs in the end, for this purpose
It blends in a bit nicer with some wrinkle black
And when used, it makes the fans go brrrrr
With that done, the radiator was filled with water and tested for leaks. So far, it hasn't lost a drop. I need to run the engine up to temp and then drop the water out and then refill it with proper coolant, which I will try to do this weekend.
With the cooling system and fuel pump done, that signals a turning point where the car is drivable again. Sure, it's missing a door and still has a couple of holes I need to weld up, but we're getting there.
Ages ago, gosh, back in 2021 now, I flushed and cleaned out the cooling system. This was pretty nasty, with lots of brown sludge.
I removed the radiator and reverse flushed it with the hose, which got a lot more sludge out. As it turned out though, the radiator was trash. The core was all rotting away, and I ended up poking a hole in it with a screwdriver when doing up a hose clamp
After looking at various options, of which there were... none, I ended up having the original radiator recorded at great expense by a local firm. A recored radiator means the radiator is rebuilt using a new center core (with the fins and pipes) and reuses the existing end tanks and mounting straps.
Along with the new core, I had them add a bung under the top radiator hose (the hottest point in the radiator) to fit a temperature sensor for my electric fan controller
I did some quick measurements and decided to go with a 10" fan, which was far too small. I later changed to a 12" fan.
I've had this sitting in a box for months, waiting for me to get my A into G and make more progress. One thing that was stopping me, was that I needed to fit an electric fuel pump and remove the old fixed engine-powered fan (not even a viscous clutch fan, this bad boy spun at engine RPM no matter what; I don't have that much faith in 50 year old plastic).
The fan was easy, it's just bolted to the front of the waterpump with a spacer. I removed the fan and spacer, cut some new bolts shorter to hold the pulley on and not hit the waterpump, and that was done.
The fuel pump was a bit harder. I needed to find a suitable location to mount the pump and then run the hoses.
The pump I went with is a Fuelflow 015 piston pump. It's happy to be mounted almost anywhere, at any angle and has the low pressure output required for the SU carb. Its a nice neat little unit; it even has rubber mounted feet
My plan was to mount it on the inner guard, on the Lh side of the car, running the hose feeding the pump under the radiator. Before I started any of the mounting, I grabbed some hose and ran it more or less how it would be once fitted, and directed it into a jug, just to make sure the pump could pull fuel all the way from the tank, through the filter and pump it up higher than the engine.
The answer was yes, easily.
I drilled a couple of holes in the inner guard, and mounted the pump with a couple of rivnuts
And ran the hose along the radiator support, using a pair of rubber-lined P-Clips to secure it (also using rivnuts - I love rivnuts)
The outlet hose was run from the pump to the carb inlet
And a fuel filter was fitted on the other side, before the pump (as per the instructions). Oh, and a nice new drive belt was fitted, probably for the first time in 15-20 years, maybe if ever.
The next step was to remove the old mechanical pump. It lives up under the alternator on these early 1750 engines (later ones are mounted up on the valve cover)
It's held to the sump with two studs. Yes, like the oil filter, it's mounted to the side of the sump.
Be careful when removing the pump to catch the pushrod that drives the pump (and if you're refitting the pump, make sure it's fitted). It's the straight rod on the right in the above photo. There is also a spacer block, which has gaskets on either side of it.
The old pump was literally leaking everything, from everywhere. You can follow the trail down the sump to the back
Using an old gasket I carefully removed, I copied it to some scrap steel and made a blanking plate
Which I painted black with the quickest shot of black paint. A pair of new gaskets were cut from gasket sheet; one to go on either side of the spacer. You could do without the spacer if you spaced the nuts on the studs since the studs aren't threaded to their base, but it's easier to just fit the spacer. Technically you don't need two gaskets either, just the one between the spacer and sump should suffice.
I still needed a couple of washers to space the nuts out anyway
The stud closest to the filter needed an extra washer, as someone had stripped the thread. Probably why the fuel pump leaked.
One bonus to removing the mechanical pump is getting rid of the dodgy fuel hose that used to run across the front of the sump
I replaced this hose very early on, but I still didn't like it there. According to the manual, it should have a hardline from the pump, not a hose, which makes a lot of sense, but obviously someone "fixed" this at some point.
The last thing to do was to wire the pump, but I wanted to get the radiator in first so I knew where the wires could run.
A note before talking about the radiator. A while ago, while the radiator was getting recored, I flushed the block. There is a block drain at the back of the block above the starter
I used a small funnel in the thermostat housing to pour water straight into the head. I got a ton of brown sludge out this way, and flushed through litres of water until it ran clear
I did this because I really didn't want to risk filling the new radiator with sludge from the block.
The radiator was quite straightforward. Fit right into the factory mounting points, and the 12" fan clears everything (or would have if I had mounted it slightly to the right. As it was, it just touched a bend on the top hose. I cut a few mm off the thermostat end of the hose to move it away from the fan).
I hated the old bottom hose and really didn't want to refit it. Because the car is running the more available Maxi/Allegro water pump, which has the outlet on a different angle, you cannot run the standard bottom hose. The previous owner had done his best to cobble together something that worked, and to be fair, it did, but it was ugly.
The outlet is almost level with the radiator inlet, but is pointing almost straight downwards. The radiator and waterpump are also different sizes...
As it turns out, Dayco makes the 81081, which can be ordered via RockAuto. This has the correct size ends; 32mm and 38mm, and is a suitable length. It took some wrangling to get the stiff hose into the right place, but it fits well and clamps on fine.
With the top hose fitted too, it almost looks like a car again
At this point, I hadn't wired the fan in, but I did run the pump power wire and hotwired it to the switched side of the fuse box. This meant I could give it a kick in the guts and see how it was on the new pump.
Being able to prime the fuel system makes all the difference in starting the car after months of being laid up. With the old mechanical pump, which only pumps when the engine is turning, it would take minutes of cranking to get enough fuel through to fill the filter, then the carb bowl and finally start. Now I can switch the key to ON, wait a few seconds, and away we go.
Now, obviously having the pump hard-wired to run when the key is ON, is not ideal. A lot of people are happy to run it like that, but I don't want the risk of the pump running if I'm in an accident. Yeah, I probably have bigger problems if I crash this car, but I'd also rather not burn to death because the pump fed a fire.
This meant some wiring work. The plan was to have a separate fuse box that the fan controller and fuel pump run through. This would be powered by a relay, which is triggered by the original switched wiring (so all the load runs through the relay, instead of the 50 year old wiring). The pump would be isolated by an inertia switch, just like a modern car.
I started by locating a suitable place for the fan controller and mounting it with a pair of rivnuts.
Now, before anyone mentions it, yes, I hate the primer patches everywhere too, but I'm very much subscribing to the "don't get it right, just get it running" mentality now. I will come back and tidy it up later, but for now, I just need to wind the scope back and make the car go.
A suitable location for the additional fuse box was found
I did toy with the idea of replacing the old fuse box that uses glass fuses, but it works, so I'll leave it well enough alone (other than replacing it with a new one of the same style, when that arrives, just so I can have nice new untarnished terminals).
The fan controller was wired in
And once the relay was wired in,
I powered it up
The readout gives a live coolant temp reading in celsius. This particular controller can switch two fans, hence the two relays, but I'm only using one.
The fuel pump was next. In order to make it safe in a crash, I fitted an inertia switch to the front panel. When this switch detects an impact (or sudden deceleration) it trips the switch, cutting power. It can be reset by pressing down on the top and can be bypassed completely if needed.
This was then also wired back to the fuse box
A few minutes with some fabric tape made the wires look a bit less ugly
The final part of the system was to wire in the fan override switch. The controller is designed so that if you feed 12v onto this particular wire (the AC trigger wire, technically), it will instantly turn the fans on (if they are off), but will not interrupt the automatic switching, so it cannot be used to turn the fans off unless the temp is under the switching threshold. Basically, I can use it to turn the fans on and keep them on, if the coolant isn't up to temp yet. Could be good in traffic, but it's mainly a failsafe I hope I won't need.
To mount the switch, a made a small steel bracket that mounts under the dash using existing holes.
Its definitely function over form
I had an idea where the switch would light up when the fan was on, and as it turns out, you can buy toggle switches that have LEDs in the end, for this purpose
It blends in a bit nicer with some wrinkle black
And when used, it makes the fans go brrrrr
With that done, the radiator was filled with water and tested for leaks. So far, it hasn't lost a drop. I need to run the engine up to temp and then drop the water out and then refill it with proper coolant, which I will try to do this weekend.
With the cooling system and fuel pump done, that signals a turning point where the car is drivable again. Sure, it's missing a door and still has a couple of holes I need to weld up, but we're getting there.
rickygolf83 said:
Great work as always man. 
Thanks Since that last post, I have now run the car up to temp with the water in the system, cycled the fan twice (which worked perfectly), and then dumped the water. It was still coming out quite brown, but not sludgy. I flushed the system with more fresh water, including the block drain.
After flushing the system until it ran clear again, I refilled the system with a proper coolant mix. I ran the car and cycled the fan again to bleed all the air out. So far, touch wood, there are zero leaks and everything seems quite happy.
The temp gauge seemed to only just creep above cold and no higher, and I know the gauge works (goes to full when grounded), so I have ordered another temp sensor to see if that will fix it.
This weekend I have booked in a full day in the garage to try and get on top of the bodywork. I mainly want to finish the welding, and do enough finishing work to be able to get the door back on.
ReformedPistonhead said:
Nice job, lovely to see you doing everything properly.
I may grab one of those fan controllers myself for an old MGB.
Thanks.I may grab one of those fan controllers myself for an old MGB.
Its quite a nice simple little controller. It's a Davies Craig 0445, although the 0444 is also available, which just lacks the screw-in sensor (uses a thermistor in the hose or between the fins instead).
It's taken five months or so, but I've finally finished welding the rear valance. It needs a good skim of bog, and the number plate will hide a multitude of sins, but it's done.
Just a couple more areas to weld and that job will be done for now. Life would be so much easier if I had repair panels...
From
To
Just a couple more areas to weld and that job will be done for now. Life would be so much easier if I had repair panels...
From
To
Winter sucks. Not only is it cold and dark, but it also makes working in the garage a somewhat unappealing prospect. That, and having other projects on the go, caused a bit of a slowdown with the Marina.
But finally, Lucas is gone, so no more time needed to be spent there, and we're in spring now, so it's getting warmer and lighter.
With that in mind, I took some time off work to finally dedicate some time to the Marina, as it's been so good just sitting there waiting, while everything else gets the attention.
First though, let's step back in time to June, which was the last time I worked on the Marina.
To finish off the door opening area of the sill I used a thin skim of filler just to even out the low spots where the plug welds are, and to tidy up the front edge of the sill where it meets the guard
The window opening also got a skim of filler to smooth out the work I had done there. That rear curve was a real pain to do.
You may have also spotted in that first photo that the floor pans were also seam-sealed. I did this to both the top, and under the car. It's not the tidiest; it's brush on and the goal was to get a good coating and not worry too much about how it looks since it will be covered by carpet anyway.
Once that was done, since I had managed to acquire a new bottle of gas for my welder, I got stuck into the rear valance again. As some context, I started this valance way back in January.
To get to the valance I first had to remove the tow bar. I don't really want this car to be towing anything, so it's unlikely this will go back on again. I'd previously removed the wiring and holes for that, too.
It looks like Old Mate took a few tries drilling the holes before getting it right...
But it came off after a bit of a fight
This gave me clear access to the valance. A quick whip over with the strippy wheel, and this is what I had. Damn.
It's pretty well contained to the LH side though
amongst the rust there are also some old holes for what I presume were a different screw pattern number plate. They will get filled too.
I started cutting
And found a couple of spots where the inner panel was rusted through too, so out that came
To be replaced with a couple of bits of nice fresh new metal, all folded up to suit
With the inner ground back, The first section of the outer went in. This little filler section was mainly to keep the upper section and lower lip in place so I didn't lose the profile.
The real patching started with this random little hole off to the side
Which extended into filling the rest of the gaping hole with new metal
It's not the prettiest, and to be honest the primer makes it look worse than it is, but its nothing a skim of bog won't tidy up later
And that's about where I ran out of welding gas.
So, six months later, more gas in hand, I got back into it. With a fresh new perspective, I cut the rest of the lower lip off (it wasn't going to survive) and a new lower section was welded in place. This was also plug welded to the inner section I had previously replaced.
A couple of smaller holes on the RH side got the filling treatment
I folded this section up, stuck it in place with some magnets
And metal glued in
I cut out and welded up the other smaller patches, and once it was ground back a coat of epoxy primer protected it
I would've loved to have a new valance panel like the Brits have, but the shipping cost would be prohibitive, and they just aren't available here. Instead, we'll make do with what we have.
And that brings us up to date. Three months later, here we are.
The first job of the day for yesterday was to cut the rear quarter panel up again, as I just wasn't happy with it. When I originally welded the new section in, I didn't leave enough of a gap, and when I welded it it resulted in a pointed high spot where the two panels met. I tried to hammer it out, and made it better, but just moved that metal to somewhere else in the panel.
I also wasn't happy with the gap between one small section of the quarter, and where it met the sill. The gap was larger than the rest of the panel. I tried to fix this with filler, but I wasn't happy.
So I cut it.
I cut the bottom section out to fix the gap, and the big vertical cut released a lot of tension in the panel, allowing me to hammer it back into alignment. Opening this up also allowed me to tweak the arch section of the panel, which always sat slightly recessed from the sill.
Once it was all welded back in, it was much better. Theres still a lot of finishing work to be done, but I wont be contending with a massive high peak in the middle and a deep low at the end
I also completely finished the sill. There were some plug welds missing from the end, and I had to make and weld in a plate on the back of the sill to join it to the inner sill.
I seam sealed the gap, which in hindsight I shouldn't have done until after using filler, but oh well
With that done, the next goal was to finally refit the passengers door. It has been off the car since December last year.
It's almost a car again
The panel gap between the door and the new sill isn't perfect, It's a little tight at the front of the door, but it's not touching, so it's good enough. The door does need to come back a bit, but it's maxed out on its adjustment. Looking at photos, it's always been like that, so I'll need to shim the hinges, or slot the mounting holes a bit. That's a job for another time.
It does open and close lovely though, even with a test door seal in place.
The final task for the day was to give all the areas I had welded and seam-sealed a top coat of enamel paint. The floors were coated top and bottom
Yes, I would have rather had satin or matte, but they only had gloss. The carpet will cover it, and the underside will be undersealed anyway.
I also did the little strengthening ribs in the rear too, since this is where any water is likely to pool if it did get in.
The rear inner boot pocket I fixed got coated too. This will likely get over-coated in yellow at some point
With one full day's work under my belt, I went into day two with a list of things I wanted to try to get done.
The first was to cut out and fix the seal lip on the boot opening. Most of this came off with the seal when I removed it.
I had been putting this job off as it looked complex, but it ended up being a lot easier than expected, just really time consuming.
I started by cutting out a small section and welding a patch in, just as a proof of concept, but it worked well, so off we went
I worked my way along, using scraps from the work bench. Measure the scrap against the body, cut the rust out, clean up and weld in.
And keep moving, patch by patch
I left the scrap bigger than I needed, so I could trim it size afterwards
There was one small spot where the actual vertical panel had a pinhole in it, so that was carefully cut out and a patch welded in there too
This corner section was interesting. I hand-shaped the replacement section until it perfectly matched the profile of the original, and then cut and welded it in.
The final section was welded in. Many hours later.
Yeah, there are still a couple of frilly areas, but it's all under the seal and they were pretty solid otherwise, so I'm not worried.
After some touching up with the grinder, it all got a coat of epoxy primer
After spending so much time fixing that, I moved on to one of the other jobs I hate, filler.
The valance didn't need too much, but the quarter is a bit wobbly and might need a couple of goes.
I'll sand it back tomorrow and see how good I can get it. It's not something I look forward to.
This has been a huge boost towards having the car on the road again. Other than some cosmetic work, like fixing the dent/rust in the boot lid, and fixing the heater box, this signals a huge milestone; all the welding is done.
But finally, Lucas is gone, so no more time needed to be spent there, and we're in spring now, so it's getting warmer and lighter.
With that in mind, I took some time off work to finally dedicate some time to the Marina, as it's been so good just sitting there waiting, while everything else gets the attention.
First though, let's step back in time to June, which was the last time I worked on the Marina.
To finish off the door opening area of the sill I used a thin skim of filler just to even out the low spots where the plug welds are, and to tidy up the front edge of the sill where it meets the guard
The window opening also got a skim of filler to smooth out the work I had done there. That rear curve was a real pain to do.
You may have also spotted in that first photo that the floor pans were also seam-sealed. I did this to both the top, and under the car. It's not the tidiest; it's brush on and the goal was to get a good coating and not worry too much about how it looks since it will be covered by carpet anyway.
Once that was done, since I had managed to acquire a new bottle of gas for my welder, I got stuck into the rear valance again. As some context, I started this valance way back in January.
To get to the valance I first had to remove the tow bar. I don't really want this car to be towing anything, so it's unlikely this will go back on again. I'd previously removed the wiring and holes for that, too.
It looks like Old Mate took a few tries drilling the holes before getting it right...
But it came off after a bit of a fight
This gave me clear access to the valance. A quick whip over with the strippy wheel, and this is what I had. Damn.
It's pretty well contained to the LH side though
amongst the rust there are also some old holes for what I presume were a different screw pattern number plate. They will get filled too.
I started cutting
And found a couple of spots where the inner panel was rusted through too, so out that came
To be replaced with a couple of bits of nice fresh new metal, all folded up to suit
With the inner ground back, The first section of the outer went in. This little filler section was mainly to keep the upper section and lower lip in place so I didn't lose the profile.
The real patching started with this random little hole off to the side
Which extended into filling the rest of the gaping hole with new metal
It's not the prettiest, and to be honest the primer makes it look worse than it is, but its nothing a skim of bog won't tidy up later
And that's about where I ran out of welding gas.
So, six months later, more gas in hand, I got back into it. With a fresh new perspective, I cut the rest of the lower lip off (it wasn't going to survive) and a new lower section was welded in place. This was also plug welded to the inner section I had previously replaced.
A couple of smaller holes on the RH side got the filling treatment
I folded this section up, stuck it in place with some magnets
And metal glued in
I cut out and welded up the other smaller patches, and once it was ground back a coat of epoxy primer protected it
I would've loved to have a new valance panel like the Brits have, but the shipping cost would be prohibitive, and they just aren't available here. Instead, we'll make do with what we have.
And that brings us up to date. Three months later, here we are.
The first job of the day for yesterday was to cut the rear quarter panel up again, as I just wasn't happy with it. When I originally welded the new section in, I didn't leave enough of a gap, and when I welded it it resulted in a pointed high spot where the two panels met. I tried to hammer it out, and made it better, but just moved that metal to somewhere else in the panel.
I also wasn't happy with the gap between one small section of the quarter, and where it met the sill. The gap was larger than the rest of the panel. I tried to fix this with filler, but I wasn't happy.
So I cut it.
I cut the bottom section out to fix the gap, and the big vertical cut released a lot of tension in the panel, allowing me to hammer it back into alignment. Opening this up also allowed me to tweak the arch section of the panel, which always sat slightly recessed from the sill.
Once it was all welded back in, it was much better. Theres still a lot of finishing work to be done, but I wont be contending with a massive high peak in the middle and a deep low at the end
I also completely finished the sill. There were some plug welds missing from the end, and I had to make and weld in a plate on the back of the sill to join it to the inner sill.
I seam sealed the gap, which in hindsight I shouldn't have done until after using filler, but oh well
With that done, the next goal was to finally refit the passengers door. It has been off the car since December last year.
It's almost a car again
The panel gap between the door and the new sill isn't perfect, It's a little tight at the front of the door, but it's not touching, so it's good enough. The door does need to come back a bit, but it's maxed out on its adjustment. Looking at photos, it's always been like that, so I'll need to shim the hinges, or slot the mounting holes a bit. That's a job for another time.
It does open and close lovely though, even with a test door seal in place.
The final task for the day was to give all the areas I had welded and seam-sealed a top coat of enamel paint. The floors were coated top and bottom
Yes, I would have rather had satin or matte, but they only had gloss. The carpet will cover it, and the underside will be undersealed anyway.
I also did the little strengthening ribs in the rear too, since this is where any water is likely to pool if it did get in.
The rear inner boot pocket I fixed got coated too. This will likely get over-coated in yellow at some point
With one full day's work under my belt, I went into day two with a list of things I wanted to try to get done.
The first was to cut out and fix the seal lip on the boot opening. Most of this came off with the seal when I removed it.
I had been putting this job off as it looked complex, but it ended up being a lot easier than expected, just really time consuming.
I started by cutting out a small section and welding a patch in, just as a proof of concept, but it worked well, so off we went
I worked my way along, using scraps from the work bench. Measure the scrap against the body, cut the rust out, clean up and weld in.
And keep moving, patch by patch
I left the scrap bigger than I needed, so I could trim it size afterwards
There was one small spot where the actual vertical panel had a pinhole in it, so that was carefully cut out and a patch welded in there too
This corner section was interesting. I hand-shaped the replacement section until it perfectly matched the profile of the original, and then cut and welded it in.
The final section was welded in. Many hours later.
Yeah, there are still a couple of frilly areas, but it's all under the seal and they were pretty solid otherwise, so I'm not worried.
After some touching up with the grinder, it all got a coat of epoxy primer
After spending so much time fixing that, I moved on to one of the other jobs I hate, filler.
The valance didn't need too much, but the quarter is a bit wobbly and might need a couple of goes.
I'll sand it back tomorrow and see how good I can get it. It's not something I look forward to.
This has been a huge boost towards having the car on the road again. Other than some cosmetic work, like fixing the dent/rust in the boot lid, and fixing the heater box, this signals a huge milestone; all the welding is done.
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