A good look at the sills

Today I finally managed to get the last of the kickplates/doors off to see how bad things were with the sills.

Nearside rear sill where it meets the rear wheelarch.

Thick packed mud has rotted away the rear wing and the floor.

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More of the same on the offside rear.

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For the record, those stupid "pig ear"indicators aren't original and are going in the bin eventually.

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Pretty much the same as last time, but on the other side

Today I removed the nearside door and tried to remove the kick-plate but it was welded in place by an old repair. The floor pan is badly rotten where it meets the doorframe, and someone in the past has welded a steel plate on the underside to hide the rot from the M.O.T man. When they welded the repair panel, they also welded it to the kick-plate, and the door finisher (the rail that runs below the doors) which made it a bit of a pain in the arse to get off.

I removed the door finisher with a bit of grinding, which gave me better access to the welded edge of the kick-plate. More grinding and a bit of wacking with a mallet, finally got the kick-plate off...

It's hard to tell from this photo, but the condition of the box section isnt bad.

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A tiny bit of corrosion towards the front, but its hardly anything. The door finisher removed is lying on the floor.

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View from underside of the floor. The welded repair is the more rust coloured panel along the edge of the floor underside.

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The nearside rear sill isn't too bad, considering the state of the kickplate that was covering it.

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Still, could be easy to repair - if its worth it.

An inspirational kick up the arse

Since I found the holes in the floor a while ago, I've spent my time basically doing nothing. I was so pre-occupied with sorting the cross-member ends, that I had stopped everything while I planned and replanned how I was going repair them. This just overfaced me and nothing got done.

An inspirational kick up the arse from my dad made me realise that there is plenty I could be doing, so for the past few weeks I've been busy with an angle grinder.

Both front wings are shot, and have to go. The headlight surrounds are made of chicken wire and filler, and both wings are rotten all up the A-post.

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The fixing bolts for the front wings are a little tricky to get to, and they're covered in over 50 years of muck, so I cut away large sections to give better access to the bolts.

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There is a little corrosion along the top of the inner wing, but nothing massive. These can probably be plated over.

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With the wing off, I could get a better look at the inner wing. The hole is where the jacking point for the car is supposed to be. Definitely need a new panel for this.

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The left side doesnt have any corrosion along the top of the inner wing, but the jacking point and door post cover are badly shot.

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Definitely need a new panel or maybe 2 for this.

Jacking point shot on this side too. A-Post cover plate very badly corroded too.

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Both front wings off the car, and the bumper removed. Space to work is pretty tight, so just removing these is a massive help.

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The silver (and rust) coloured plate is the kick plate. This covers a steel section that is important for the structure of the car, and is often corroded. I need to take this off to see what the state is.

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Not too bad. There's definitely corrosion along the bottom of the section, but it could have been much worse.

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Removed the drivers door to get a good look at the A-post. Everything looks alright as far as I can see, though I'll get a better idea when I remove the cover plate on the inner wing.

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After removing the wings, I kept the light lenses and metal surrounds as these are still good (though would need re-chroming). I want to keep as much original as I can, especially since a lot of new replacements are not as good as recycled originals. I also cut a few sections from the front wings. Might come in handy for practice welding, or for plating over small areas.

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...the rest waiting to be scrapped.