Wednesday 21 March 2012

Body Work Prep : Grinding & Rust Removal

Nephew Kie cleaning out the guttering with wire brush 
 Busy day today and roped my nephew in to helping out with some of the bodywork (total cost a plate of macoroni cheese: keeping it in the family keeps the costs down!) Kie managed to get the rear hatch door to open, that i had previously failed to release.

Geting the rear hatch opened certainly helped get access to some of those nooks and cranies

 We begun by removing the paint and rust around some of the more coroded and crumbly bits of the old girl. The engine hatch (see below) in particular needed a lot of attention. The early bay hatch is a hard to find item and my thinking is that if i can get a couple more years out of it will be a bonus and give me more time to hunt a replacement. 
Engine hatch preperation

After cleaning up the metal around the holes/rust spots i brushed 'Krust' rust killer paint on that immeadiatly turns the rust black and then i hammered in the metal around the hole into a concave 'rim'  ready to take the P40 and P38 body fillers

Most of these holes are pretty small but under the rear wheel arch below the bench passenger seats was a larger corroded area that required some more medival treatment with the grinder. This hole will require some wire mesh to support the body filler but as the area is hidden from view it needent be pretty  and i will probably just use the harder P40 and not bother with the top coat of P38 which sands down to a flat finish
Grinding on the wheel arches, notice all the safety precautions



Ended up running out of time to start mixing the filler and applying it, so that will have to wait untill the next post. So as the sun set we packed up, pleased that another couple of jobs were complete.

Keeping the unpaid labour working till sundown