I managed to get a good 5 hours on the car this weekend, and although I got a lot done, I can't say I've made much progress. I can say that the car now has less rust and has probably lost some weight as a consequence, thing is that rust isn't from where I was expecting it.
I started the day in the interior, stripping out the drivers side so that I could check the inner sill and inner quarter. I had thought this side was the better of the two, as the outer rocker seems solid, but I wasn't expecting what I found. The the carpet up and the rear seats out I started tapping with a screwdriver and lots started to fall out:
There was quite a bit of damage to the inner wheelhouse, inner sill and floor:
It's not quite as bad as it looks in this picture - the sharp pointy bit on the left is sunlight/shadow.
By the time I'd finished digging, there was a very large pile of rust to get rid of:
I also found a bit of damage to the top of the outer sill, but I am hoping that this can be patched:
After finding this, I took a closer look at the passenger side and dug a bit more rust out, finding it too was worse than I thought. I've decided to purchase the inner wheel house sections that will patch the vertical panels. The passenger side floor will be covered by the replacement pan I've ordered, but the affected area of the Drivers side isn't big enough (and covers 2 seperate panels) to warrant buying full panels, so I will fabricate some patches to fit.
After those depressing findings, I moved back to the outside and front of the car. Having done most of the prep work during the week, it was just for large nuts and the nose cone/bumber was removed:
The weight wasn't as big a problem as I had expected, but the sheer size of it was. It was too big to fit where I was expecting to put it, so for now it is going to live under the front of the car.
That revealed the core support and showed that there is some repairs needed to both lower corners, but it didn't look too bad overall:
With that removed I had better access to get to the battery tray and fender extension. I'd been using plenty of rust pentrant, but still ran into a number of seized bolts and snapped cage nuts. With a bit of a fight, I did eventually manage to remove the fender extension:
I changed tack on the battery tray and used some diferent tools, getting it out relatively easily. Give the amount of damage around it, it's in pretty good condition and should clean up nicely:
With the tray out of the way, I could clearly see the extent of the damage on the inner fender, and it was worse than expected. There is just an inch of metal holding the front piece to the main arch.
I figured I may as well take it out now. Had problems with a couple of the bolts into the fender, meaning the fender will need some attention later, but it came out with ease - actually it fell out of it's own accord once the last bolt was free:
I'm sure it's not supposed to bend like that:
With this being the 'good' side, and knowing the other side is completely separated, I decided that I would have to order the new replacements now. These bolt to the core support, in an area where the metal has rusted/gone, and I need a solid inner fender to match the repairs up to.
Thankfully I've got 3 days left before the shipment leaves the US, and NPD Florida had the 4 panels I want in stock. They should be there in plenty of time. I'm now wondering if I will be able to pick up all of these new panels in one trip when it arrives in the UK!!