Red Rallye resto

[Ben_w]

Cold. Very cold. Too damn cold. Today was a 2 jacket day. And a hat day. I don't wear hats. Unless I'm robbing banks or its cold. It was cold, and windy. A combination as friendly as Charles Bronson out for a walk with his pet Lion.....

I digress. I'm still not fully educated as to how to remove the subframe. I've looked at lowering it enough to give the clearance needed to remove the heat shield. I still need to disconnect the steering column to drop the subframe just a bit. Means undoing a pinch bolt and them column should just slide out. A good soaking in WD40 was as far as I got with that particular job today. Might need the gear linkage undoing as well. I'll attempt that later this week once I've read a bit more on the ins and outs. This is the bolt....



I found the rest of the bolt I drilled out too. Impressed with the accuracy of my drilling but you can see from the thread how rusted up it was. Not surprised it sheared.





Moved onto the bits by the bump stops that did yesterday. First thing this morning, I deox gelled the area I'd cleaned up. After an hour and a half (and another cup of tea), I went back and cleaned off the gel. It had removed most of the rust but I noticed there's were a few bits of underseal in corners I'd missed and not noticed. Teach me to work in the dark...anyhow, removed the underseal and there was some more surface rust. Move on.

So I got busy with the wire brush in the drill. Section at the very back of the chassis where the bumper sits had some peeling paint. Not any more. Was time for lunch and another brew at this point....



Next, it was time for the passenger skirt to come off.



Until I stick the rear beam back on and the wheels, I can't do the drivers side as the car is too tight up against the side of the house to open the door wide enough to get to the two rivets nearest the A pillar. The rivets are a complete pain as I'd get half way through drilling them out and they started rotating. A smaller drill bit down the middle, followed by a bigger one sorted it but they are a proper pain. Pretty clean underneath with no real bits of rust other than where the paint was peeling where it had been lifted in the wrong place on the sill. It also gave me better access to another mashed section of sill. Managed to get it opened out, cleaned up and reshaped ok.





Bare metalled and I mixed up another batch of thinned down Electrox and got busy painting the sill and the bit at the back I'd done. Also redid a few bits I did yesterday as I'd missed a couple of bits.







Apologies for the rubbish pics, don't know what's up with my phone.....