Project Cliff - The Cherry Red Thirty by stretch tech

11 minute(s) of a 220 minute read

today we finally started the body work

this is what we are borrowing off of my dad's mate...



...it's the old curtain-sider body off the back of the recovery truck he lent us

so we started by using a plasma cutter to remove the front end, now you see it...



...now you don't...

unfortunately the inner wings seem very rusty and flimsy





and the bad news kept coming...the metal behind the front shock mounts had de-laminated and i pushed my fingers through on both sides





and the mounts have holes rusted through in the centre of them



( the other mount has a larger hole in it but i forgot to take a photo )

then we cut the scuttle ends off...



...to reveal more rust, the closure on the N/S has rusted away almost entirely

then we cleaned up the outer face of the N/S inner wing...



it turns out that it was mainly surface rust and that the inner wing is actually fairly solid it only needs a few patches...



...one on the shock mount...



...a small patch half way down the flitch panel...



...a large repair to the front of the inner wing and one under the scuttle closure

whilst my dad removed the scuttle and cleaned up the other inner wing and bulk head, i set about to make the repair patches...



this is the first time i have ever attempted any fabrication so fingers crossed...



this is a repair patch for the front of the inner wing where it joins the front panel



before and after...i think i made a fairly good job

small patch for the flitch panel



new backs for the shock mount brackets



plates to repair the shock mounts

plate to repair the top of the flitch panel/inner wing



the other inner wing and flitch panel was slightly worse









after we removed the scuttle and cleaned up the bulk head with the wire brush wheel, the rust in the centre of the wind screen doesn't look too bad and the upper dash rail is solid



the bulk head needs a repair patch on the pedal box cross member but apart from that it is solid too







then we applied some form of rust reverter all over the front bulk head (inside and out), inner wings, flitch panels, bonnet hinges, upper dash rail, and door steps which we are going to leave it until Monday

and this was the pile of rusty old metal we were left with...



that's all the progress for today, i don't think we are going to be able to do any work on the shell tomorrow so there will be more progress monday

Cheers

2-27-2012

we pulled back the curtains today after leaving cliff over Sunday and the rust reverter has completely stopped the rust

















first we welded on all the patches to the N/S of the bulkhead, N/S inner wing, flitch panel and scuttle closure











before repairing the shock mount, we filled the inside of the bulk head cross member with rust reverter



this was my first attempt at welding, i didn't even practice on off cuts first...



we used the new scuttle to line up the new closure





then applied some seam sealer





then we bit the bullet and cut out the N/S front floor pan, outer sill, subby mount, lower rear quarter and parts of the inner sill and jacking point









we ended up cutting off a lot more than we anticipated to find some solid metal it made me feel a little sick to see cliff like this



then we started to replace the panels with fresh metal...











...that's better

tomorrow we will finish welding on the new part of the inner sill, front floor pan, outer sill, lower rear quarter repair...the list goes on and on