Red Rallye resto

[Ben_w]

So with the forecast for.today being awful, I hadnt got much planned. In the end, I think the forecast rain came early when it arrived late yesterday so today the weather was great so after bumbling around most of the morning, I nipped out to see a mate and borrow some spot weld drill bits. Got home, got busy.

It became apparent fairly quickly that removing this panel was exactly the right thing to do. Drilling spot welds around the section where it wraps around the main chassis leg was interesting....lots of rust coming out. I knew it wasn't great, this had me worried though.













I eventually drilled though enough spot welds (and the floor in a couple of places.....) to enable me to get a cold chisel between panel and chassis leg. The metal was so thin and brittle, it took next to no effort to split it and peel it back. Yuck. Chassis leg appears solid, although I won't know for sure until the panel is fully stripped off but the inside of this panel is rusty too. As said, I'm happy I've taken the decision to strip it off.









The other side of the car is worse. It's already been patched previously to me owning it. It's a tidy job but there is double skinned section very near a subframe mount which looks very rough indeed. It's a double skinned section and I can see the second layer....red circled bit...



Desperately need to find the panel for the other side. Craig is on the case but it's not readily available to him on his list of parts that he can see......there was one listed but wasn't there when called on. The search continues.