Time for an update on this one i think.
In fact i have not been the worlds laziest bastard and just allowed this to drag onwards, ive actually been on it most every day up until 10 pm and having loadsa funs with it.
Since my last update id made a decision to complete the main bodywork issues and get the car in primer in 6 to 8 weeks, a bit of a tall order now i look back at it.
Sounds like a long time and it is when everything is done by hand on your own in cramped conditions although the time soon counts down in rapid fashion.
It gets even longer when further metalwork issues jump into the fray and give you even more work to complete, a veritable domino effect.
However my determination to get this one done has/is paying/paid off.
After completeing the strip back to bare metal of the bonnet, the wings and the door apertures, the passenger door got the same treatment including some attention to a little surface rust on the foldover lap joint underneath it.
Heading rearwards the dire state of the paint and underlying prepwork became obvious, with the discovery of around 10 to 12mm of filler on the rear quarter panel behind the passenger door trailing edge and further filler on the arch itself.
The whole lot had been simply trowelled on and run down with a DA sander leaving a shape that didnt exactly match the original but looked close enough, the fact that it wasnt necessary shows how crap a job had been done by various parties over the cars chequered past..
It took close to a week of solid effort to get the bare minimum skim installed and get the shape right on that passenger arch but the effort was in my opinion worth it to remove the unecessary filler and reinstate the shape to the damaged areas.
Vacancy for a stripper. Loads of paint on this car, up to 1mm thick in places.
Once that was completed the drivers side got the same treatment and more effort due to the further discovery of more filler in the sill area which covered yet more damage.
I spent the best part of week fettling that area and fixing the jackup damage ( dents) but its as good as it can be for a non professional like me.
Also I found what appears to be a bullet hole in the upper part of the rear quarter close to the A pillar.
Fairly neat hole with a few rips and tears to the edges, looks too irregular to be most anything else unless some sort of spike was rammed through but surrounding damage is extremely limited so I dunno!
Stripping off the rest of the panels paints revealed yet more expanses of heavy filler covering dents and creases in the skin which simply didnt need to be so thick so it was all removed back to bare steel and the whole lot steadily built up in very thin layers to get the shape back with minimal filler depth.
Weeks have now passed and the roof is begging to have its paint removed, and so the scraper is re-employed to shear off the crappy top layer before litres of paint stripper remove and soften the underlying layers.
I must have removed about 15kgs of paint from this car so far and all of it was crap.
No issues of any worth found on the roof panel! Happy!
Audilorean.
With most of that that attended to, the boot area needed attention.
Id always known the car had suffered from a rear impact but at one point I thought I could possibly fix the damage by carefully pulling it out.
Not gonna happen-ever.
The whole rear end had gone in probably around 1 to 1.5 inches, concentrated on the offside.
The upper corner and light aperture on the driver side was full of filler at about 10 to 15mm depth, shape was totally wrong and looked it.
I later found out it had oodles of birdshit weld to fill it all in as well, absolutely horrible.
The boot lid wouldnt sit squarely with the height differences between each corner being obvious, also the lineup with the edges and the lower sections of the boot lid meant itd never have been right so I decided to get a new rear valance from Pete at quattrocorner rather than pay out for a second hand item thatd need even more prep and had no guarantee of straightness.
Getting that part showed me just how difficult it would have been, impossible actually, to straighten out what I had, it simply was so badly damaged and distorted that it would never have worked.
So with my new panel sorted it took a day of hard work to carefully split the spot welds, preserving the flanges on the body panels and remove the old junker.
Took another couple of days to get the locations cleaned and trued up to accept the new panel for test fits.
Wasnt a million miles away as it happens but far enough out to warrant more work, especially to that drivers rear light aperture and corner area where the old one was so buckled the light unit wouldnt sit flat at all and it overhung the panel. Nasty looking and was just plain nasty.
I briefly considered fabricating a replacement but thought better of it, just too much hassle to do it.
By now im deep into this one and getting deeper so I looked around for a rear corner panel I could cut up, Dave at audicoupeparts came up with one and I spent the best part of 3 to 4 days cutting, trimming, checking, test fitting and trimming again to get it mm perfect in terms of lineup- a right pain in the arse I can tell you with the distortion of the existing panel but at least the shapes right, theres no rust there anymore and it looks pretty good.
So with more cajoling, drilling holes for spot welds and fretting about the fit I started the job of welding it all in.
The corner and light aperture part had to go on second due to the lower panel having a return formed in it that was left after I removed the light aperture it came with.
That aperture was eventually dispensed with as I found it impossible to get a good lineup with it attached, so the original panel from pete was used and doing it that way made it easier to get it fitted correctly, or as close as it could go given the whack the rear had taken.
It then took another few days of multiple test fits, drilling the positions for new spot welds and yet more test fits.
One thing I had noticed when test fitting was that it was going to be hard to push the panel into position at the bottom due to flex and misalignment in the original panelling on the car, so I utilised my ratchet straps and a couple of wood blocks and with an eye bolt welded to a long bolt screwed into the fuel tank bracket, the other end hooked into the subframe to gently encourage it to position before I set about tacking and welding it all in.
More time gone out the deadline and lots of grinding down of welds to make it right led to finally applying the seam sealer underneath and the use of some polyurethane seam sealer for the ends of the panel as per the original item.
Once set, the whole seam edges inside the boot were blasted with weld thru primer ( high zinc content) so it would find its way between the two sheets and preserve them for years to come, although id already sprayed them days before as further insurance, then the inner panel overlaps were treated to a coating of Upol grey stripe brush on seam sealer, stinks bad but does the job nicely so it looks rather good.
Then to finish off, a couple of sound deadening panels were installed to cut down on drumming noise.
I had previously test fitted the boot lid, its seal and the lock mechanism, but no way would it work and it took Mr Brain a few moments of confusion to notice that the dickhead that is me had installed the striker on backwards...doh!
Once that was put on right and adjusted it all sat fine.
Its not 100% "perfect" but compared to how it was when I first had it, its 99 % right.
After filling the repair panel with a very thin skim due to weld distortion I set about refitting the boot liners and carpets.
Amazing how much better it all looks when its cleaned and fitted nicely, not to mention it gets them out of storage and secured inside where they belong.
Theres a new carpet section to glue in over the boot loading "ledge" area shortly too.
After roughly masking off the boot and light apertures I could set about regaining the shape of the panel and getting rid of the slight uneveness caused by welding it in.
Its not much but a flat of the hand shows it up like a sore thumb.
Once a few hours passed it was ready for its first squirt of etch primer which exposed a few feather edges and little marks which ill sort out on the next pass.
So next job to complete is to finish around the sunroof aperture and strip the drivers door.
Two weeks left on my deadline too so should make it. :tup:
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