Vanessa '68 2dr saloon

[GavinL]

Had a day off today so made some more progress. Welded in bracing prior to starting to cut out the rot.

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I've started cutting out the old repairs / at the near side front.

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So, I need to replace wheel arches / sills on both sides, and both front spring mounts are showing signs of coming through the floor, although the floor around the mounts appears to be sound

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Looking at the crossmember it appears to have been plated around torsion bar mounts and is showing signs of delaminating, so I'll probably replace. So the question I have is what order should I do things in - the spring mounts I will tackle when I mount The car on the rotisserie, can I do the sills a side at the time by supporting the car on stands under the spring mount and chassis legs ( which are new), can I leave the crossmember until after I have replaced the sills, when the car will be on the rotisserie - by leaving the crossmember in situ it gives me a reference for installing the sills?

[GavinL]

Bit more work today. Good news is that the passenger floor looks ok top and bottom and the inner sill is sound ( on the underside of the floor after removing the underseal the original paint is intact)

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Cut the rotten section of boxing plate out and it is evident the underside of the sill has been plated.

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I'm not so sure about the floor below the crossmember- the crossmember has rotted through on both sides where it attaches to the floor, so next job will be to cut off the bottom along the line on the photo so I can see properly what's going on.

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[GavinL]

Finished making the rotisserie / roll over frame so time to mount Vanessa on the spit. All went ok, with her mounted on a 2' water pipe she rolls over reasonably easily, I can just roll her on my own to 90 degrees with a little help from a chain hoist.

[GavinL]

Spent the day stripping underseal - after 50 years some of it is coming away so I'm stripping it all off and will apply new. Most of the floor is sound, with corrosion at the sides by the sills, and around the spring hangers. The cross member has been patched extensively so will be replaced.

[GavinL]

Received the first half of the replacement panels from ESM yesterday - basically the cross member and all the panels required for the nearside sill, rear wheel arch and front spring hanger, so no excuse now not to make a start on cutting bits off - bit scary! i've removed the remains of the panel below the rear seat so that i can get access to the top of the spring hanger, and so that i can replace the floor around it. From below the spring hanger didn't look too bad.

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But when i looked at it from above, it didn't look so good.

A question i have, is the panel I've removed from below the rear seat had a single large hole in the middle. does this serve any purpose, or can i omit it when i make a replacement panel?

i

[Mark Wilson]

If you mean the holes in the vertical panel, their purpose is to act as an overflow when the water level below the seat gets to more than two inches ..... No seriously, I don't think they achieve very much and may have been intended to assist the distribution of the coatings during the Rotadip process. They might provide a little more rigidity as they are dished, but I left them out and repaired using some heavy 2mm steel (which I happened to have) to make new panels and flanges. It is an important panel structurally, the seat box forming a cross member which transmits the load to the front spring hangers as well as supporting the floor.

Mark

[GavinL]

Made a bit more progress on cutting out the rot today. Before I started I made some measurements and recorded them for future reference. Main exercise was drilling out spot welds and working out how far back to cut. Also discovered that the floor beneath the rear seats is perforated, despite having intact original paint on the underside- it has rotted from the top, it has obvious had water sitting on top of it, under the seat.

[GavinL]

Spent a bit more time today with a knotted wire brush - discovered that the front floor is perforated where I thought it was solid. I've marked up all the areas that need repair / replacing. Lesson learnt is to fully strip the rust and paint before ordering panels, as I think the best bet will be to fit a 1/4 floor?

[GavinL]

Having had time to reflect, and to look at the floor more closely, I've decided to patch it rather than replacing wholesale, as the corroded areas are not actually that large.

Spent a bit more time thinking about how I repair the door pillar, which is solid from just above the bottom hinge. My plan is to replace the bottom half rather than the whole pillar, and after discovering that the pitch of the hinge holes in the replacement pillar are different from the existing and the door hinges themselves, I've made a ply jig taken from the hinges fixed on the door, which I will use to help locate the replacement section ( shock absorber bolts make convenient pins for holding this jig).

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Ive also recorded the distance from the face of the jig to the door pillar.

[GavinL]

Made a start on welding this weekend. First job was to attach L shaped patches to replace the lacy flange on the bottom of the sill box.

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The panels were bigger than required, but i wanted to ensure they were well attached to the good metal. Also one repair panel has a captive nut welded to it for the inertia reel seat belt. As a first attempt I'm quite pleased with these welds.

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[Mor$]

Great progress on this restoration. Keep up the nice work

[GavinL]

<r>After a bit of a break whilst i dealt with other car issues ( bought a 2004 MG TF as my daily car which needed a bit of fettling to get it as i wanted it) i returned to Vanessa, and started welding bits on. Started with the floor edge repair, which i'm pleased about so far.<br/>

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<br/>
<br/>
Whilst looking in the forum for reference pictures, came across this which struck a cord:<br/>
<br/>
<I><s></s>The cover panel was a commonly available folded repair section to go from the floor edge to the sill finisher to "repair" rusty sills very cheaply. It covered up any rotten sill structure without adding much to the structural intregrety of the car and are a good thing to look out for and avoid these days. Looks like a 2" deep box section by about 5" wide where the sill should be, often with very shallow pressed ribs along its length. (N doubt someone on here will have pictures of one. they were advertised in Practical Classics mag well into the 1980s as proper repair panels, though many people simply bodged up something similar).<br/>
<e></e></I><br/>
<br/>
For anyone who wants to know what one of these looked like, i've got one -</r>image.jpeg[/attachment]

[GavinL]

So I've had a break whilst I did a bit of decorating and dealt with a blown head gasket on my MG TF ( never complain about engine access on a Minor until you've worked on a mid-engined car ). Recommenced with welding the near side door pillar area. I'm struggling to work out the relationship between the flitch panel, boxing panel and inner sill.

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The boxing panel has a set in its corner - how does this relate to the rear edge of the flitch panel? Does the flitch go in front of the boxing panel, and the rear edge of the flitch dress into the set in the boxing panel?

[GavinL]

Got some time on Vanessa today, so made a start on welding the boxing panel in place.

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Next stage will be to add the inner wing lower repair panel and lower door pillar section.

[GavinL]

Door A pillar bottom half fitted and door hung, gaps equal all around.

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[GavinL]

Welded in my first attempt at a butt welded repair panel today in the passenger side floor pan - pleased with the result.

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[GavinL]

Next stage is to move onto the front rear spring hanger, for which I have made a jig to locate it, with a piece of angle fitted to the rear spring hanger, welded to the suspension bump stop, and 10mm threaded bar to ensure I maintain the lateral dimension between hangers.

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[GavinL]

Having double checked all the dimensions of the original spring hanger and having overlaid the repair panels, I've taken the plunge and cut out the and spring hanger, leaving a joddle margin.

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I've also noted the dimensions of the rivet holes used originally to locate the spring hanger.

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I'm considering drilling small holes through the replacement panel where the rivets would be, and using these to locate the bracket - is this a reliable way of locating the replacement panel?

[cococola]

Loving your work Gavin I had to do a lot of welding on my Traveller when I replaced the wood and learnt so much, keep up the good work.

[GavinL]

Having moved onto the front rear spring hanger and offered up the repair panel, it appears that the panel edge that is welded to the boxing panel extension needs significant modification and needs reprofiling to the white line. Has anyone else had this problem?

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