Going a full circle into a Marina again. KwS's 1973 Morris Marina Coupe.

[kws]

And as proof that it doesnt always run like a bag of dicks, here it is after cleaning the plugs, giving it more petrol and letting it warm up a bit before taking it off choke.

 

[kws]

In what appears to be a trend now, here is the monthly update for the Marina.

Progress has been slow, but still ticking along. One major thing was to get the car back down onto wheels again. It's been up on stands since a couple of days after I got the car way back in February and that's where it sat, with the wheels off and under the car.

All the tyres on the standard wheels were poked. Ancient, with massive cracking and didn't hold air, so no good at all.

A while back I decided to bite the bullet and get the car rolling. I had sorted the brakes and driveline now, so there was little reason for it to keep hanging out on stands. A set of five new tyres were ordered in the slightly wider 175/70R13 that the TC cars had. Sure, they are cheapies, but I figure the car isn't going to be driven hard, and any new tyres are better than old rubbish ones.

The plan was to strip the old tyres off the standard steel wheels, clean the wheels up, paint them silver and have the new tyres fitted to the refreshed steelies.

Luckily a friend has access to a tyre machine, so after some stuffing about trying to remember how to use it, we managed to get the old tyres off all the wheels.

As you can see, a couple of the oldest tyres still had tubes in them! They are a particular prick to strip off the wheels, but we got there in the end.

You can see how badly rotted the old rubber was. I wouldn't trust these to hold air (which they didn't) let alone drive anywhere on them.

The whole lot got loaded into the back of the wagon, and all the rubber was generously left at the local refuse station.

I tried to clean a few of the wheels, but with the amount of rust they have in places I cant get to with a wire brush, I had to look at other options. Not having a sandblaster myself, I looked at having them blasted and powder-coated. This would've looked stunning and been very durable, but the total cost was about $700, which is far more than its worth just to run the steel wheels.

So, the next option was to look for some aftermarket wheels. Thankfully Trademe delivered on this and a set of 13x5.5 hotwire wheels in the correct 4x108 PCD were promptly purchased. 13x5.5 is the standard wheel size for the Marina, so no big flashy wide wheels and tyres here, but perfect for just upspeccing the car a little, still being period-correct and would also fit the tyres I had already purchased.

A quick test fit after picking the wheels up showed that they thankfully cleared the upright and brake calipers and looked cool. The standard nuts wouldn't work though as the wheels need deep shank nuts, which the wheels didn't come with.

Since I knew the wheels kinda fit now, the next step was to order some nuts and make 100% sure they were good before I had the old tyres on the wheels removed and the new tyres fitted. This is where another quirk of the AUS/NZ cars popped up; the UK cars have 3/8" UNF studs, whilst the AUS cars use bigger 7/16" UNF studs. Much like the 4x108 PCD which is shared with Fords of the time, so is 7/16" UNF.

A set of 7/16" UNF shank nuts in the correct size were ordered and when they arrived another test fit was in order. This confirmed the wheels fit, clear everything, and will work perfectly.

Looks pretty good, if I do say so myself.

I booked the wheels in with a place near home, which had previously done the tyres on the TVR for me, and had the tyres replaced with the new ones. The best stock steelie was also picked to have a new tyre fitted as the spare.

Once home the wheels were swiftly fitted to the car, but before lowering onto the ground I had to change the gearbox oil again.

It had been noted by others that in my previous post I had used a GL5 spec EP oil, which although is what my owners manual specifies, may not be OK for use in this gearbox due to risk of damage to the "yellow" metal parts, such as the synchros. I did as much research and asking around as I could before choosing that particular oil, but I was left feeling a little uncomfortable about the risk.

With that in mind I chose to change to the same oil the 4 speed in the TVR used, a GL4 spec EP 75W-85 by Nulon. This should be safe for the "yellow" metals, but is a fully synthetic EP oil.

With the gearbox oil changed again, I did some juggling with the jack and got the car down onto the ground for the first time in months. I won't lie, seeing it on the ground with the hotwire wheels, made me smile a bit.

But what good is a car in the garage, on its wheels, if you cant take it for a drive up the driveway?

No good, so I fixed that. For the first time in 25 years or so, the car moved under its own power. Sure, it was running rough as anything and misfiring due to previously only being started up cold and running for short periods of time, but it ran and drove. Please excuse the annoying beeping in the video, the exhaust fumes caused my Carbon Monoxide alarm in the garage to trigger a warning.

Misfiring wasn't the only problem, shortly after the end of the video the car stalled and wouldn't restart. It turned out it was out of petrol

I did finally manage to get some photos out of the garage, for the first time since the car arrived on the back of the truck.

As you can see from the end of the video, it did start to rain, so the car was swiftly rolled back down into the garage and tucked away for the night.

The next day I got another 20L of fuel, put that into the tank, cleaned the spark plugs and fired the car into life. It ran much better now, and when warm the engine ticked over lovely. It should sound good once I fix the hole in the exhaust.

It really needs a good Italian Tune Up, but there are a few things I need to do before I can take the car on the road for a shakedown.

Getting the car out again gave me a chance to turn it around so it faces the other way in the garage, which is a bit better as the lighting is placed for cars to be forward in, with extra lighting over the engine bay.

I think its a good looking shape. It's a shame the paint is so ruined, but I will eventually get to sorting that.

With the car safely outside and the exhaust away from my garage, I ran the car up to temp, and the needle hovered steadily around the 1/4 mark. A bit lower than I'd expect, but at least it didn't overheat. I still need to change the "coolant" again as it looks really unpleasant, but that will come in due course.

The engine does smoke a bit at high RPM, but it appears to be brown, so I'm guessing carbon buildup, fuel or simply just blowing the rust out of the exhaust. It's not black and certainly not blue or white, which is good.

The brakes do work, but as expected they need quite a shove as they are unboosted. The handbrake on the other hand needs adjusting as it barely functions. No surprise since I didn't adjust the cable and the whole braking system needs some time to bed in.

What's next? Lots. I need to pull the front uprights apart now and replace the ball joints and bushes, that should have the car almost ready for the road. I also need to get cracking on the rust repairs, but I need to build up some confidence before tackling that as it will be a huge job. Unfortunately, we are currently in a lockdown, so I cant buy the gas I would need to start welding either.

The goal is still to have the car on the road and at British Car Day 2022 in Feb 2022, under its own power of course.

[kws]

In typical old car fashion, what was meant to be a simple and easy job kinda spiralled out of control.

I had a plan. It was a good plan. Replace the bushes in the front end of the Marina, because they were all perished. I also wanted to replace the top ball joints and clean out the trunnions and grease them.

I knew the top shock eye bushes weren't in good shape. I had noticed them a while ago and knew I had to replace them as they wouldn't pass a WOF inspection like this

These are fairly important as they are joining the top of the upright to the shock (which doubles as the top arm). If these are worn or perished it can cause play in the top of the upright, which is no good at all.

The next bush that needed to be done is the eye bolt bush. These were also visibly perished. Apparently upgrading these to poly bushes makes for a good upgrade to handling. This bush is what locates the inboard end of the lower arm.

The final bushes are the pair on each of the tie bars. On most cars upgrading these is also a good idea since these bushes control forward and aft movement of the lower arm when accelerating or braking.

That's it for bushes in the front suspension. It's a very simple setup, but does mean that the bushes that are there are all crucial to suspension operation.

The plan was to replace the tie rod and eye bushes with polyurethane bushes and replace the shock eye bushes with an uprated kit that replaces the bushes completely with a steel insert.

Disassembly although messy, was quite straightforward. I started by splitting the tie rod end balljoint with one of the splitters in my kit.

It's a shame that I have to disconnect the brake hose from the caliper to remove the caliper (as the hose is mounted to the upright), but it's the only way to remove the hub and disk.

I then undid the eye bolt nut and removed the tie rod and front of the lower arm

To remove the upright you need to split it from the shock. This is done by undoing and removing the pad on the top of the assembly. This is screwed to the top of the balljoint that goes through the hole in the shock arm (and through those ugly perished bushes). I couldn't undo this on the car, so ended up removing the balljoint from the upright and leaving the balljoint in the shock. You do need to keep upwards pressure with a jack on the assembly during this, otherwise the torsion bar will keep trying to pull everything down and makes it harder/potentially dangerous when it gives way.

And that's the upright removed, in all its filthy glory.

Of note here is the fact that despite my car being a 73, it has the much more substantial upright, spindle and trunnion as used on the later six-cylinder Marina. Everything here other than the top ball joint is completely different to the UK cars.

This is where it all started to go pear-shaped. The trunnion wasn't looking too hot, covered in grease and dirt. It did spin freely on the upright, which was promising. The pin was stiff and seized though.

Removing the trunnion showed that although the grease was filthy and old, the thread on the upright was in good condition.

The threads had some wear on the upper threads as to be expected, but were tight with no play. You can see the wear as the peaks of the thread on the LH side are squared off a bit.

The problem was the trunnion. The cap on the bottom had been blown out and was missing. This was letting grease out, and dirt/water in.

I also managed to extract the pin and wasn't happy with what I saw.

The bushing in the trunnion wasn't looking great either

I tried cleaning the pin up, but it was a lost cause

All that was left was to move on and remove the shock

I jammed the locknut in the vice and used a hammer and spanner to knock the pad free

These are the bits removed from the shock. Lots of grease and perished rubber. The top pad is retained, but everything else is scrap now.

I planned to flush the oil in the shock and replace it with a mono grade 30W engine oil, which should stiffen it up slightly (but anything is usually better than the old oil in them).

The top cover is held on with a series of screws, and once removed gives access to the main chamber of the shock. Annoyingly I suspect someone had been here before, as the oil was full and although a lot of sludge had settled on the bottom, the oil was clean.

To flush and bleed these units you need to pump the lever arm up and down a few times. I couldn't do that. The arm was so stiff even with no valve or oil in the shock that it was almost impossible to move by hand. I ended up putting the whole shock in the vice and swinging off the arm to get it to move, and when it did, it was anything but smooth. It felt like needle bearings had pitted their race and you thumped over them, it was very jerky.

I closed it up and left it.

The final thing I wanted to do for the day was to remove the eye bolt holder so I could press the bush out. There is one nut to remove on top of the chassis rail in the engine bay, and then you should be able to knock the eye bolt holder through. It is held in with a tapered spline so it doesn't turn.

I suspect that tapered spline was my undoing. I couldn't get the thing to pop, no matter how hard I hit it or what fluids I soaked it in. I tried for a couple of days and then gave up.

So in total, I had one trunnion that was trash, a shock that was stuffed, and an eye bolt I couldn't remove to press the bush out. Not winning.

[kws]

I had a brainwave, and some good advice, which got me going again.

"It's just a rubber bush, and there is plenty of space around it. If I knock the arm back, surely I can press it out on the car?"

That's the thought that got me back on track, surely it can be done without removing the bushing holder. Sure enough, the idea worked.

I cleaned the splines on the torsion arm up and wire brushed it so there was as little resistance as possible for the arm to slide back on the spline. I then used a couple of quite large hammers to gently tap the arm back. I had to be careful to keep it on the spline or I would upset the ride height (which I should have measured or marked, but didn't).

The goal is as above, to knock the arm back far enough that it disengages the eye bolt, which is going through the bush we need to remove. With this disengaged the torsion bar and lower arm will drop out of the way.

I then cut the shoulders off the front side of the bush so they wouldn't get in the way of my balljoint press, and using the press and a big socket I proceeded to press the bush out. Quite easily too, I must say.

The extraction went very smoothly

Since the replacement poly bush is one piece, the key to a smooth and painless install is to make sure the inside of the eye bolt holder is clean and smooth. Mine had a lot of rust and pitting on the lower side, so I spent a while chipping rust chunks out and then running a wire death wheel inside it until there was nothing to catch on.

It took a few tries to find the right tool to press the bush in. I first tried some large washers and threaded rod but I just couldn't get it to go that last few MM and seat properly.

I even tried old mate balljoint press again, which was no help

The final, and best, solution was a pair of appropriately sized sockets and threaded rod. Quick, easy and seated all the way first time.

Freshly pressed

The last part of the bush is to press the steel sleeve through it. I employed the threaded rod and big washers for this, which pressed in very easily.

Done.

Now it's just a case of slipping the eye bolt back through, lining up the lower arm/torsion bar with the spline and knocking the arm forward.

With that success behind me, I moved on to the trunnion. I had been told via the Aus Marina Facebook group that an 11/16 x 13/16 x 2 bronze bush is a perfect replacement for the standard bush, so I ordered a pair from a local bearing supplier.

Heck, my trunnions were so filthy I couldn't even see where the steel stopped and the alleged bush started.

Some quick digging later and I could see the edge

I started by cleaning out the grease passage. It's no wonder the grease wasn't getting where it needed to, this was packed solid. I tried pumping grease into this when I first got the car but it just came out the ends of the pin instead, as the seals are missing and the pin is stuffed.

Then using a spare 9/16" socket, I pressed the old bush out. It took a lot of force to get moving and let go with a mighty pop.

Partway out. I used a cheap extension to push it completely out

I gave the trunnion a good clean with a wire brush. You can see the old and new bushes together. The old bush is also bronze, but had been slotted and a huge area ground out of it where the grease passage is. The old bush, like the new one, is completely smooth inside with no grooving for grease to get around (which the Uk ones have).

I drilled a large hole in the new bush for grease to get in

And then carefully pressed it into place.

I was a little stuck here as I was waiting for a pair of used Uk trunnions to arrive so that I could pinch the pins from them and use them in my trunnions.

To keep myself entertained in the mean time, I did a couple of other small jobs.

The first was to replace the utterly smashed rubber rebound stop. I had read on facebook that someone replaced their one with a pair of Mini ones (as the Mini ones are half as long as the Marina one), so I ordered a pair of the uprated polyurethane ones.

Since these are solid poly, not rubber, I chose to only use the one. I had to bend the flat tab up but otherwise it bolts straight in.

The other quick job was to chase my grounding issue. This car has always been a bastard to start, but adding a jump lead the other day as an additional grounding lead from the engine suddenly woke it up and it cranked over much better, indicating that the one single ground lead from the engine to the body wasn't up to the job.

This lead goes from the bellhousing to the body. The bolt on the bellhousing was fine, but check out the state of the bolt that was on the body side!

No bleedin wonder. Last I heard, rust wasn't a great conductor of electricity.

I cleaned out the captive nut in the body as much as possible, and refit the strap using a nice fresh new bolt and lots of copper grease.

To help the cause, I also added a second ground from the starter housing to the body. I initially used the shock mount bolts but since they basically go through painted steel I moved it to an existing hole in the body that I put a rivnut into.

Now the car cranks quickly and starts very easily when cold. No more of this struggling to turn over or having to charge the battery every time I want to start it. Massive improvement.

A few days later a big box of bits arrived. In that box, we had a pair of good early "big hole" shocks, a pair of used but usable UK trunnions and a battery hold down.

Since it's been bugging me, I started with the battery hold down. Being from a UK car, it's slightly different. The Aus battery clamp just goes out horizontally and squeezes the battery against the inner guard. The UK clamp goes diagonally and clamps on the edge of the top of the battery.

Aus

UK

The UK threaded hooks go into holes that aren't present on the Aus cars, and if you use the holes on the Aus car the rods are way too long. A few seconds with a grinder fixed that.

And a date with my nice new die to thread the rod again

And bam, we have a functional battery hold down.

Pretty chuffed with that.

Next was to build up the upright. I removed all traces of the old balljoint, sent the upright to the parts washer to spruce its self up a bit and then following the instructions in the kit, installed and set up the new balljoint.

The replacement shocks got drained (had almost nothing in them anyway, just some black sludge), flushed and then refilled with 30W engine oil

The arms on these are very smooth, and much freer to move.

Being another set of early shocks, these are the "big hole" arms. The later cars had smaller holes in the arms and didn't need bushes or sleeves for the balljoint. Since these are big hole style like my original shocks they still need the steel sleeve inserted to replace the bushes. This is greased and then tapped into place with a suitable socket and hammer.

Before I could fit the shock and upright I needed to attend to the trunnion. I cleaned and greased the donor pin and it was a perfect fit in the new bush; if a little tight to press through but rotates smoothly and freely. The donor trunnion also gave up some seals that were missing and better end washers than the Aus one had.

I also knocked the end cap (a steel disk) out of the donor trunnion to fit into my original trunnion. The problem was that the original disk is fitted and then the steel is either cast around it or peened over. The lip had been broken away. I'm trying some of this fancy epoxy putty that claims to be as hard as steel, but we'll see. I'm not convinced it's bonding to the cast iron housing that well and will probably fall off over time. I'll keep an eye on it.

The upright and trunnion got thoroughly greased and the trunnion spun on

The replacement shock was fitted and the upright attached to the lower arm

The lower tie rod was a pain to refit with the new solid bushes, but got there with some levering. It was worrying to note both sides were missing the big washer that is meant to sandwich the bushes into place and was relying on the nut alone. I found a large washer and fitted it.

The thread on the end of the tie rod was a bit rough and rusty, so I ran the die over that too.

The refreshed trunnion in all its glory. Everything that could, got new nuts, especially the nyloc nuts. For no reason in particular I used the big weird UK nut on one side. I think it's meant to be some sort of steering lock stopper?

The upright was then mated up with the shock and the top pad tightened. All that was left was to refit the backing plate and hub

And of course the caliper. I made a slight change to this though and using some alloy plate, I made a bracket to move the hose off the upright, so now if I have to remove the caliper I don't need to disconnect the pipe, just remove the bracket from the upright. Now, I'm a mechanic, not a fabricator, so these are very rough and ready, but do the job.

The hardline on the caliper dictated where the bracket sat, so it's angled a little inboard now.

I bled the caliper and it's all working as it should.

The car is back on the ground again, but I still need to repeat all of this on the other side now.

A difference is already noticeable when bouncing the corner of the car. It's much stiffer and controls bounce much better. It does sit a little higher, but I'm hoping that will settle a bit with driving. Bouncing one corner and the then other shows a huge difference between the side that's been done, and the other that hasn't.

[kws]

Wrapping up the suspension meant I could move onto another small job I needed to attend to; Flushing the cooling system.

The drivers side suspension went together more or less the same as the other side, with a couple of small exceptions. The first was that the trunnion pin would not go through the new bush. The other side was a tight but smooth fit, but this side just would not work.

To remedy this I purchased an adjustable hand reamer and reamed the brass bush out until it was a smooth fit on the pin

I also altered how I applied the epoxy putty on the end. On this one, I used a file to scuff up the metal on the end of the trunnion and left the epoxy a couple of days to set before continuing work. This seems to have worked as it's far better adhered than the other side, and has set harder. I may have to revisit the other side at some point.

In all its glory, with new bushes and joints.

With that out of the way and the car back on its wheels, I wanted to flush the cooling system. I knew it was pretty grotty from when I removed the heater hoses way back, but other jobs had got in the way until now.

The first task was to disconnect the lower radiator hose and drain the system. Due to the design, this was messy, but I did manage to catch most of it. The fluid that came out was anything but coolant though, it was a thick brown sludge.

I had a replacement thermostat to fit too. Thankfully the three bolts came out easily and with no issues. The old thermostat didn't have a bleed hole in it and was also very grotty.

With the thermostat removed it allowed me to use a hose to flush the system out. It took a huge amount of water through the system for it to start running clear. The big cutout at the top goes into the head/block and the central tube leads to the waterpump.

This is the waterpump, which I'm lead to believe is a FWD Maxi or Allegro pump as its slightly different to the RWD pump the car should have, hence the creative lower radiator hose.

To gain a bit more access and allow me to flush the radiator I had to pull the radiator out. I pressure tested it when I got the car and it held pressure fine, although looking closer it definitely needs a recore as the fins are all rotting away.

Flushing the radiator took a considerable amount of time. The amount of thick brown sludge that come out of it was horrific. It would start to run clean and then you give it a shake with some water in it and you get another torrent of brown sludge. I think it took about half an hour of constant flushing to get it to run clear.

Before refitting the radiator I cleaned up the thermostat housing. It had some remnants of an old gasket, but it wasn't in great shape.

The thermostat had been replaced at some point as it was an AC Delco part made in the USA.

The replacement is a Tridon part, with a new gasket. The replacement thermostat has a jiggle valve and a bleed hole which will hopefully make bleeding easier. I placed this at the front as the engine tilts backwards slightly, so that should be a high point.

Finally, before refitting the cleaned up top of the housing I ran a tap and die through the threads of the housing and the bolts. This was a course thread, and I had no replacement bolts that would fit so the cleaned up original bolts were used.

A quick smear of Hylomar, and the thermostat housing was reassembled with the new thermostat and gasket.

Unfortunately upon refitting the radiator I slipped with a screwdriver on one of the nearby hose clamps and punctured the core slightly.

I lowered the coolant level to below the leak, and using my tiny little gas soldering iron turned up to 11, I heated the area with the bare flame first, before using a wide soldering tip to blob some solder over the hole. Its far from perfect, and the radiator really needs a recore now, but it seems to be holding coolant for now.

I ran the car for a few minutes to get some heat into the system and bleed the system and all seemed to be well. The temp gauge didn't go over quarter, so I need to check that's working as it should, but it did move.

There are already two positives that I noticed; first, when shut off, the engine didn't diesel and run-on like it had previously. Secondly, when the engine was shut off it didn't make the loud popping and banging sounds from deep within the engine like it previously used to. Im guessing all the sludge was blocking passages and causing hot spots around the cylinders.

[kws]

It's been months since this poor old thing has had a looking at. The tomcat has taken far too much of my time, but today I did some things, and some things happened.

Like this

May not look like much, but that was hours of work to fix various issues and make all the rear lights work again.

[kws]

In a couple of weeks, I would have owned the Marina for a year. That's a reasonably long time for me to own a car, so I needed something to mark that milestone.

I had a goal. I had some time booked off work for the end of Jan, which was meant to be set aside to get the Marina ready for British Car Day. Since the show was canned this year due to a stupid pandemic that just keeps lingering like a bad smell, motivation to do work on the Marina has been low.

All the time the Tomcat has been taking up hasn't helped either. For a car that I had intended to only have short stays in the garage for servicing and minor repairs, that thing sure has wasted a lot of time and money.

Regardless, it was time to show the Marina some love. Heck, Project Marina wasn't even on the main page of TLP anymore, that's how long it's been sitting.

I last touched the car when I moved the Tomcat into the garage back in November. With my time off coming to an end, and only the Tomcat getting attention, I quickly pivoted and set myself a goal; for my Birthday, I wanted to drive the Marina. Not just back it up the drive again, but actually drive it, around the block.

Before I could do that I had to get the car a bit more roadworthy. The first port of call was to sort out the rear lights. I got them going a while back but the electrics were as flaky as anything, the indicators weren't working, and the lenses were full of rubbish.

I picked up a spare LH a while back, which turned out to be in better condition than the one on the car, so refurbished that and the old one was used as spares.

You can see just how dirty the inside of the lenses are. Unfortunately there are a few cracks too

After removing all the screws in the back of the housing and careful prying with a plastic trim tool, the lenses slowly popped off one by one.

Revealing the horrors within

Interesting to note Lucas painted the reflectors silver, not chrome or polish them

The lights have a plastic surround, that used to be silver coated on the inside but had worn away. This was also filthy.

The housing after a quick clean. I used a citrus-based household cleaner, a bucket of water and my old toothbrush.

I took this opportunity to knock some of the mounting studs out of the spare light unit and replace a couple of broken off ones in this housing. Someone had replaced one with a screw they had glued into place (and since broken free). The studs are pressed into a square cutout.

A cleaned lens on the left compared to the filthy one on the right. I'll need to replace that corner lens as it's been glued back together many years ago.

The plastic frame cleaned up well too. The missing bits were later glued back into place.

The standard bulb holders ground by touching the body of the light unit. If the surface they touch is dirty, you get a bad connection. I cleaned all the holes up with a file and sandpaper

After all the components were thoroughly cleaned and dried, the lights were reassembled.

A little useless fact; the orange corner lens on these is useless, it provides no light. The housing is marked but not drilled for an additional bulb in that location but none is fitted.

This bulb is fitted on some lights, but only in the US market on the Austin Marina, where it is used with a red corner lens, as a running lamp.

Some have drilled that hole out, fit a bulb holder and used it with the orange lens as an extra indicator, which I will probably do at some point in the future.

In order to make them a bit more future-proof, I ran a #10-32 tap through all the nuts and a die over all the studs. This cleaned them up nicely, removing years of rust and crud from the threads.

The next job was to actually fit them to the car. Using a combination of the large washers the lights came with, and some smaller ones that fit the space, the lights were mounted with the best gaskets I had.

Now I needed to look into the wiring

Ages ago, I did some research into grounded bulb holders and found that some Triumph 2500s use a three terminal, dual filament bulb holder of the same size and style the Marina uses (but standard only has two terminals). The three terminal holders have a dedicated ground terminal, so although they can ground through the housing like the Marina ones, a ground wire on that third terminal ensures perfect grounding to the bulb holder. I managed to pick a couple of these holders up, in good used condition.

Example photo, not my hand...
To use these bulb holders properly, I needed a dedicated ground. To do this I drilled out an existing hole on the boot catch support

And after removing a little paint around the hole, installed a rivnut into it

This allowed me to make up a couple of wires which would terminate at this screw

After a lot of testing with my test light, and reading of the wiring diagrams, I managed to get a tail light working

Which resulted in this lovely lit up lens

I carried that same work over to the other side too, and managed to get both tail and brake lights working.

Tail and plate lamp (lighting up the towbar)

And brake lights

It doesn't look it in the photos, but the brake lights are significantly brighter.

Next was to fix the indicators. These have a dual filament bulb standard, as one side is used for the indicator and the other for the reverse lights. Once again, after much prodding and probing, I had power but I couldn't get the bulb to flash. It turns out the previous owner had modified the wiring and instead of having one of the terminals to light up the reverse lights, he had changed that wiring to being a dedicated ground... but still using the two terminal dual filament bulb holders, which cant ground through that terminal.

I substituted a pair of single filament bulb holders instead. These ground through the second terminal only, not through the body of the lamp. This got the indicators working a treat. They still flash a bit fast, but I will look into the flasher unit later. Better fast than not at all.

Next on the list was to finally assemble and fit the cluster. This had been just sitting on place with no surround attached and the feed wire for the tacho running around the door jam into the engine bay, where it was clipped onto the coil with a crocodile clip.

I started by running this feed wire properly, using the proper coloured wire (white with black trace). I crimped a terminal on and attached it to the coil

And then tracing the path of the loom, ran it into the cabin

I also fed the speedo cable into the cabin. Turns out this needs to be on the LH side of the reinforcement in the dash with the three dial cluster, as it moves the speedo to the left.

Unfortuantely, I had an epic battle trying to fit the speedo cable to the cluster, until I realised that something was wrong. It just didn't go into the cluster far enough.

This is the speedo end of the cable. That grey section should be within the silver metal section...

So I thought, maybe the gearbox end wasn't seated properly, pushing the cable up at the other end.

I rolled under the car, undid the cable and tried to pull the cable inner down a smidge. Well, I pulled the cable down alright, down into my hand.

The square end on the left should be in the speedo drive in the gearbox, the other end should be a long cable that goes into the speedo dial. Damn. It had jammed and twisted completely off.

Thankfully a while back I saw a NOS speedo cable pop up on Trademe, so grabbed it as a spare

I tore that packet open good and proper

Mmmm fresh new cable. The instructions state to grease the cable lightly before fitting, so I pulled the inner cable out and ran a bunch of synthetic oil down the outer and wiped the inner liberally with it.

Feeding this through the car and securing it into the gearbox allowed me to try and fit the cluster again. This time it was a lot easier. With the cable on the left, I could reach in through the grille opening in the dash and screw it into the cluster that way.

For the first time since I got the car, and for the first time ever, it finally had a gauge cluster, and a triple dial one fitted, at that. I'm still waiting on some machine screws to arrive to screw it in, but that's secure enough for now.

Finally, I needed to fit the exterior mirrors. These haven't been on the car since even before I got it. The RH side mirror was cracked, so I had a local glass company cut and fit a fresh new piece of mirrored glass. These need a polish up, but they are a gorgeous period-correct accessory.  The LH one is mostly useless, but looks so cool out there on the wing.

One final check revealed one other issue. I had noticed the past couple of times I had run the car that there was a noise coming from somewhere a the front of the engine. I had bad thoughts that it might be a failing waterpump or alternator. Nope, turns out the drive belt was loose. Why? The adjustment bolt on the bottom of the alternator was missing. I popped a new bolt in, tensioned the belt, and it's been quiet since. To test this I had to start the car for the first time in months.

I reconnected the battery (which has been sitting disconnected but not on a charger). The fuel filter was dry, so it took a few turns, but cranked nicely and fired straight into life and settled into a nice fast idle at partial choke. Sorting the engine grounds has worked wonders, I never could have started it without jump packs and a fully charged battery before. With the filter full, it starts on the button, every time now.

So, there was nothing left to do but clear the car off, and get ready to take the car for its first drive in about 27 years.

 

 

 

Getting back, my wife said she hasn't seen me smile like that for a long time.

There was a bit of clutch shudder leaving the garage, but that seemed to go away with some more use and the bite was nice and progressive and at a good point. Otherwise, the car performed perfectly. The steering is well weighted, if a little off center (needs an alignment), but tracked straight and the suspension felt great; No vagueness, no wandering and no bouncing. The engine pulled down low, but felt a bit flat up top (I haven't touched the carb tune). The gearbox went through all the gears nicely, with only a couple of minor crunches when downshifting, to be expected for synchros that have been dry for 27 odd years. No grinding or hard shifts. The blowing exhaust does make a racket though.

Although I haven't had a chance to bed the brakes in since the work I did on them, they pulled up nice and straight and didn't require as much force as I was expecting for an unboosted system. The pedal feel is very good.

All the gauges were working, including the speedo with its new cable. You'll also note in the video, if you look closely, that the indicators, front and rear, and the brake lights are working as expected.

Words can't express how happy I am with how it drove. I expected it should've been fairly good on the road after all the work, but it blew me away with how good it was.

I'm hoping this is the push I need to do the serious work on it; the cutting and welding. With the Tomcat finally vacating the garage, there are no more excuses.

She's a keeper

[kws]

So, riding the high of driving the car, now its time to hit the low of the inevitable.... the rust repairs. I kinda wish I didn't start poking and prying at the plates of tin riveted to the floor, but it had to be done.

 

I've cut it all out now and started to weld some areas back in. I wont post photos of that until the grinder and paint have been along to fix things.

[kws]

The time has finally come. I couldn't put it off anymore. I needed to cut out the rust.

I have really been procrastinating on this work, as I have never really done bodywork like this before. The closest was fixing the rust on the Corolla, which was minor compared to the scope of this work.

The main goal was to cut out and replace the steel on any rust that could cause an issue come WOF time. There will still be some more bodywork to do down the track, but once the car is on the road that will be easier to do.

So that means I need to cut out the rust in the two front floor pans, the LH B pillar and LH outer sill. When you consider the car has been off the road for 26 odd years, and most of that stored outside, that's not bad!

The front floor pans had been badly patched years ago by a previous owner, using rivets, sealant and some tin.

The B pillar has a hole in it, behind the window seal, which means that the quarter window needs to come out.

And the outer sill is perforated the whole way along, especially toward the rear.

I started with the floor pans, as in theory, it should've been the easiest place to start and then build up to the harder sections.

The first job was to grab a hammer, screwdriver and chisel, tear off the patches that had been riveted on and see what they were hiding.

This big one on the RH side was the first to go. Instead of drilling the rivets out, I used the chisel to just cut through them

So, it was covering a patch of very thin metal, with a drain hole that has rusted out. The circle hole is meant to be there, as it is used during the manufacturing process but usually has a steel "paint tin lid" plugging it. Obviously, the hole rusted out, the plug fell out, and it was covered over from there.

There is also a recess pressed into the steel, which just acted as a rust trap over the years

There are a lot of other small holes and thin metal on this side, so I originally marked it out to cut the whole lot out, but I'm a bit hesitant as finding the spot welds is proving hard due to the rusty metal (and it's spot welded to a couple of different reinforcers under the car).

The LH side was a similar deal. A few patches... This one up against the inner sill gave me some concern as it has a big bead of sealant running down along the sill.

Sure enough, the steel under the plate is ruined, as is the section of the inner sill where it met the floor.

Another rusty drain hole, as well as a couple of screwdriver sized holes next to it (which had their own patch)

Toward the tunnel, there was a large patch made up of a couple of smaller ones, which was shaped to fit the indent in the floor panel

That one was bad. Big hole under it, and lots of holes poked in thin metal with a screwdriver. There are also a couple of other smaller holes I undercovered.

Out came the paint pen, highlighting the extent of the damage.

The only thing to do next was to grab the grinder and cutting disc

This little brace for the gearbox support was a bit of a surprise. It was also full of rusty chunks from the floor disintegrating.

The inner sill needed to be cut out too as that was barely holding together and was full of sealant. To access this better, I cut a hole in the outer sill (which is stuffed anyway)

It was pretty ugly in there

I carefully removed the inner sill section and peeled it off the jacking point brace

Now, a warning. I'm not a professional, heck, I'm barely a beginner at bodywork. I know the basics thanks to a course I took a couple of years ago, but that only covered the basics of welding, not cutting out rust, making patch panels and working with less than perfect steel. I am winging this.

I have a semi-decent welder, but had previously been using flux-cored wire, which I swore after welding the Corolla, I would not bother with again (it did the job, and it has a place, but it's just more work for the same result). This time I converted the welder to take a standard 0.6mm (as recommended to me for bodywork) solid wire, and shielding gas.

Anyway, so I bought the steel that was recommended to me for this sort of work, which turned out to be thicker than I really should be using; 1.2mm. The original steel is about 0.8 to 1mm. I figure the thicker steel cant hurt in the floor and sill areas, and I will use some thinner steel for other panelwork as needed.

The first patch I needed to make up was for the inner sill, as everything attaches to this. I did some CAD (Cardboard Aided Design) and cut the panel out so it was a reasonable fit. I left the bottom a bit longer, as that will get trimmed later when I do the outer sill.

I'm embarrassed to show these initial welds, but it's all part of the process. I had been having serious issues with my wire feed, which I fixed after this section was done. I went over this a couple of times to make sure it had penetration and then ended up welding both sides. It needed to be strong.

I know, I know, I needed to clean the surrounding metal better. The other issue I had was my gas regulator was DOA and the flow meter didn't work, so I just turned the gas up a bit and ran with it. The welding on the inside was marginally better.

I plug welded the brace to the new inner sill section, but also later went around and welded the edges right onto the panel too.

The front section of the inner sill is where I started to work out the issues with my machine, and more importantly, technique. There are some better welds here, but far from perfect. Due to the weird shape, I chose to lap weld this patch instead of butt welding it in.

Once the inner sill section was in place, the first floor section went down. More CAD, but this took a couple of tries to get a nice tight fit. This has a 90 degree bend on the side to meet the sill.

The welding is still a bit ugly, but it's strong and has decent penetration.

As the saying goes, "A grinder and paint make me the welder I ain't"

I carried on again today, and really started to get into the swing of things. The first patch was to join the previous one, up toward the rear of the car. This is a weird one, as it has to start off flat but curve swiftly up to join the existing floor.

I made this section slightly oversize with CAD, bent the flange on the side and then notched it

The notches allowed me to gently bend the panel in the vice. Once I was happy with the curve, it got welded in place. The next patch, the one that joins on next to it, was a real pain to make. This had to match the curve of the new patch I just welded in, but also match the curve of the existing floor both on the other side and above it. The easiest way to shape this was to make the biggest bends in the vice and then using a hammer and dolly, fine tune it into place. Some additional finessing was done once the panel was tacked in.

This welded in a lot better. I'm reasonably happy with it.

There is a small patch welded on next to these, which is just covering the small hole I cut out.

Finally, I made a large patch to start filling the area above the exhaust and torsion bar. This is plug welded to that gearbox brace, and then butt welded all around the edges. Unfortunately my poor cordless grinder ran out of batteries as I was cleaning up the welds on this patch, but some weld through zinc primer and that was me done for the day too.

I still have that one hole to fill, and then I'll move onto the RH side. I've learned a lot doing this side, so hopefully it will go a bit smoother, and quicker.

A second grinder will be added to the collection soon, as using the one grinder for everything is just a real pain in the bum and it's chewing through the batteries. Having a corded one at the workbench for just cutting will help immensely.

Having dialled the welder in a bit better, and ironing out some of my issues with that and my own technique, my welds are getting better. That last patch needed minimal cleanup with the grinder. Once that floor is completely welded I'll scuff the whole thing up, seam seal the welds and coat it in a zinc rich epoxy. Everything will be covered by carpet eventually. It will need undersealing under the car again too, but that will come once I have both sides done and can jack the car up to get under it.

[kws]

Just a quick update to show where I'm at with the Marina.

It's been slow progress, but don't worry, the Marina is slowly ticking along. Its been almost two months since I started the rust work, but I hit I big milestone today.

I left off the last post with a hole still in the passengers side floor, and a grinder that had eaten all the batteries. The grinder issue I fixed by buying a corded Makita grinder and wow, that thing has so much more grunt. The little cordless Ryobi is great for its portability and compactness, but the Makita is the king of just ripping through steel. It's handy having both as I can chop and change depending on what work I'm doing.

The hole in the floor? Well after everything getting in the way (life, cars, work etc) and the Marina being tucked off to the side for a few weeks untouched, I welded the section on the trans tunnel in yesterday after work. That was a real prick to make, since it bends in so many different directions. Its hard to tell in the photos but the floor slopes up towards the rear of the car, and also curves sharply up the trans tunnel.

The real progress though, was today after work, where I did this

That's the final patch on the passengers side floor done. I even seem to have the welder dialled in, and did some of my best welds on this patch.

After hitting it with the grinder and some zinc-rich paint, we have a solid floor.

It's looking a lot better than it was

I have learned some really valuable lessons/skills doing this work.

Firstly, is that the welder settings are crucial, and it takes a lot of experience to work out what setting is causing what issue. That feeling though, when you have it all dialled in and the welds come out good. Practising on some scrap steel of the same metal you are using for the repairs helps to dial in the welder to about where you need to be. I did find that ambient temps cause a lot of problems for me; when it's warm the welder is great but as the temps get lower I need to tweak the settings again to get more heat into the metal.

Secondly, in hindsight, I wouldn't bother with all the little patches. On the drivers side, I'm going to do as large patches as possible, instead of making a patchwork quilt. It takes too long and there is more work in trying to get all the patches lined up.

Thirdly, along with the last lesson, is to make the shapes as uniform as possible. Straight squares are good. I ended up cutting extra bits out of the floor just so I could make one big square patch, instead of two smaller ones or one unusual shaped patch.

Lastly, and a tip I keep forgetting, is to cut/trim the car to match the patch, not the other way around. I spent so much time trying to get the patches to perfectly match the hole, when instead it all went a lot smoother and faster when I made the patch to the approx size and shape needed, but then trimmed the hole to match the patch. It's a lot easier than running back to the bench to grind a bit more off the patch.

I still have a lot of work to do, but I plan to keep on plugging away at it. I will cut the drivers floor out soon and start working on that. I still have to do the LH B pillar and LH outer sill after that too. The next update will likely be once I have finished the drivers side, seam-sealed and then painted the floors.

This car will be going for a WOF sometime this year, so I'm working towards that. Once the rust work is done there are a few more things to do and then it should be ready to give it a try.

[kws]

Its been a while, but i scrounged up some motivation and found some time where one of my other cars didnt need for for once, and cut the floor out of the drivers side. In hindsight, this is how i should've done the other side too. Maybe I will revisit that again one day.

[kws]

Oh hello again, it's been a while. No one likes sagging, so let's fix it.

No, it's not work that anyone would have expected as my first update in months, but it's something I needed to do, especially whilst the car is in this orientation and I have good access (the car will soon be turned around to do the sill).

Since I got the car it has suffered from the very common saggy door issue, where the hinge pins wear out and cause excessive movement. This mainly shows itself as a door that is hard to open or close, and thumps up and down when lifted. This will not pass a WOF.

The easiest way to fix this is to find a good pair of hinges without wear and swap them in, and stick to regularly lubricating them. This will last a good while but it's getting harder to find good hinges as it was such a common issue.

Fixing the issue in the first place is the better option, and in this instance, I've done it to one hinge, out of necessity rather than choice.

There are two ways to fix it. One, is to get a steel tube that has a slightly larger internal diameter than the outside diameter of the pin and weld it between the two ears on the bracket, like so,

I didn't have a tube handy, so went with the other, easier option; weld two nuts to the ears.

Thanks to the relevant Marina Club members for the above photos, and the inspiration to fix instead of bin.

Before I could get onto the welding bit, I had to get the hinges off the car, which meant removing the door. Thankfully it's on the side that has no door card, so that was easy. Three nuts to remove on each hinge (as well as a washer on each stud and a spreader plate), and the door shell can be removed. I used a jack to support the back of the door until all the nuts were removed.

Much room for activities. Yes, there is still a hole in the floor; I'll get to that at some point. Hopefully during the next burst of motivation.

The bottom hinge was easy to remove from the A pillar, as all three nuts are visible, so off that came.

The upper hinge was proving to be a real pain though. I couldn't see it until I removed it, but the studs were slightly longer which meant my socket was blocked from completely sliding on the nuts, thus they were rounding when I tried to remove them.

In the end, I grabbed a drill and drilled the heads off the studs and used a punch to push them into the car, nuts and all.

Thankfully the forward nut came off easily, so I only had to do the rearward two. To get a clear shot at those I disassembled the hinge on the car, by hammering the pin out

The top hinge was the worst one as this takes most of the weight of the door, and clearly had not been lubricated since it left the factory.

The pin should be a snug fit in the hole

And that's before you even get to the wear on the actual pin

Thankfully I had sourced a good top hinge, in the correct colour, so all I needed to do, after freeing the seized hinge, was to thoroughly lubricate it and fit it.

The lower hinge wasn't so lucky. I did get a replacement but for some reason, it's completely different (two bolts instead of three and a completely different design). This forced my hand into fixing the hinge I had.

I knocked out the pin to separate the halves

There is some wear on the pin, but it's minor

The holes were slightly slogged out. This was nowhere near as bad as the upper hinge, but still had enough play that I couldn't just refit it.

I found a couple of nuts that were just slightly too small to fit over the pin and drilled the hole out a little bigger, until they slipped on the pin with minimal play.

I cleaned the surface up with a flap disc on the grinder and then zapped the nuts into place with the welder turned to 11.

It's not pretty, but it ain't going anywhere

A quick coat of black zinc should protect it for a while

Once mostly dry, the nuts were packed with grease and reassembled. The pin was rotated backwards to how it was previously fitted, so the wear was on the opposite side of the pin.

The nuts have two functions here. First, they support the pin along a larger surface area, instead of just the small area that wears away, which should hopefully mean the pin lasts longer and the current wear no longer matters. Secondly, it centers the pin again and stops it from moving in the worn-out holes. The tube would do the same thing, just along a longer surface.

This fix works for both hinges as they are of similar construction, the only difference is that the upper hinge has the detent roller and spring to get in the way.

With the hinge reassembled it was time to refit the hinges. They were easy enough to refit, trying to line them up with the existing dirt/witness marks. Interestingly, there are no gaskets to stop water from coming in behind the hinges, just hopes and dreams. If the doors come off again in the future I will make some gaskets, but in the meantime, I used heavy grease behind the hinges as a water repellent (and to reduce the chances of rust buildup behind the hinges; it was clean behind them with minor surface rust, but little to no paint).

Refitting the door was about as hard as removing it, just remembering to support the back end of the door with the jack and wiggling it onto the hinges far enough to get the spreader plates on and start a couple of nuts.

Aligning the door took a few tries, and it's probably still not perfect, but it is a BL product after all...

The difference with the new hinges was obvious immediately. The door swings so much easier now, and the detent works correctly; it previously sagged so much that the detent roller didn't touch the spring. The door also opens and closes easier now too. It doesn't need a slam to close and doesn't thump into place before catching. There is zero play in the hinges.

It's not amazing progress; it's still not finishing the rust work that I keep putting off, but it's progress nonetheless. Hopefully another burst of motivation will hit me soon and more will happen.

[kws]

Its been months of struggling with little to no motivation, but the welding on the floor is finally done. Still need to tidy up under the car and then seam seal it, but that can happen another day. Once thats done I can turn the car around, and start work on the B pillar and outer sill. Then that will be the worst of the rust sorted (and the rust that could cause WOF issues).

[kws]

Started this old girl up for the first time since Feb. Took a lot of cranking to fill the carb with fuel, but after a couple of coughs it fired straight up and ran great. Took it up the drive and spun it around so I have better access to the passengers side, so i can finally tackle the rusty outer sill.

It'll sound stupid, but god i love this car, it just makes me happy, even if its just firing it up to go up the drive and back.

The current fleet of toys (excluding the daily Honda)

[kws]

Right, with Lucas finally out of the dog house/garage, it was time to give the Marina some love. More to follow, but its finally happening.

Its sill replacement time.

[kws]

Wow, it's almost been a year since Part 1, this project really has been on the back burner.

To be fair, a lot of other projects have come and gone in the meantime, and one in particular (not naming names, Lucas) has taken up months of my time, space and money. That has sucked, when all I want is to drive the Marina.

Well, its a new year, so Happy New Year and all that, and 2023 is the year the Marina will be back on the road for the first time since about 1996.

Anyway, it appears I missed an update. Months ago, back in May 2022 or so, I did actually move onto the Drivers side floor, starting with chopping the whole damn thing out. I decided on this side that instead of doing smaller patches, I would just replace the biggest sections I could. This was the right choice, it's so much easier.

Just as a note, this side has the fuel and brake pipes running under it, so I used a block of wood to space these off the floor so I wouldn't cut or heat them.

I started making up some patches

Everything got a good going over with the flappy wheel of death, and the first patch was started. There were dozens of holes to plug weld to the underfloor supports.

After much plug welding, the first patch was welded in

The sill patch followed. More plug welds, and welding to the inner sill. This had a couple of different angles I needed to match, as the floor slopes upwards at the rear.

I was obviously happy about having some progress after a couple of months of nothing

A month or so later, the final patch was welded into place

A grinder and paint made me the welder I ain't

And with that, the RH side was seam sealed. I still had some touch-ups to do on the LH side, so that hasn't been sealed yet. I did this months ago, so it's pretty dirty now, like the rest of the car.

There we have it, the floors are more or less done.

Due to all the other projects needing work, this was left untouched for a couple more months, until finally, I had nothing else in the garage and dug deep to find some motivation.

It was finally time to address the rather perforated LH sill, as it was never going to pass a WOF in that state.

I had been putting this job off because it's a big lump of pretty serious work. It needs to be strong, and it needs to look tidy. It was daunting.

I purchased a sill panel months ago from a seller down south that custom makes them on professional rollers, so at least I don't need to try and make my own panel.

My workplace is on a shutdown over the Christmas period, so what better time to get off my butt and get chopping?

And that's just what I did.

First, the LH door has to come off. This is easy, six nuts on the hinges and the whole lot comes off. Not even a single cable to remove from the door.

Thankfully the A-pillar area is in PERFECT condition. I have seen some shockers in the UK for rust here.

I got out the air saw and started the cut. I used some spare box section to brace the door aperture, just in case.

I needed to keep that first top step so I could weld the new sill to it.

Opening the sill up showed just how crusty it was. It was packed with rust flakes

I vacuumed the chunks out so I could see what I was working with

The air saw once again made short work of the bottom of the sill

I then used a combo of a sharp dill bit, a flap disk, a grinding disk and a flatblade screwdriver to break all the spot welds for the lip that was still attached. I used a flap disc to take that paint off and expose the spot weld locations, which I then drilled until there was a definite indent. I then finished it off with the grinding disk, until I could lever the strip with the screwdriver and break the spot weld. Some of the factory spot welds were... a bit askew, and barely on the inner sill at all.

I do have one of those fancy spot weld cutters, but it's shite. No matter how much I punch or drill first, the damn thing just wanders all over the place instead of cutting around the spot weld.

The inner sill looks worse than it is. There was a hole at the very end, and I found another weak spot that failed the poky-poky-screwdriver test.

The rest of the sill faired well and is just covered in surface rust and some pitting.

I started with the small hole near the seatbelt anchor bolt. I cut the area out

And then decided the pitting to the right of the hole was looking at me funny, so cut that out too

An appropriate size patch was made up and welded in (excuse the shiny photo, this was after I had covered everything in Brunox)

As you can see above, the rear of the sill was also cut out. I chose to overlap this on the jacking point, for some extra strength.

Before wrapping up for the night I wire brushed everything and gave it a couple coats of Brunox, which is an epoxy rust killer. I'll tell you what, once set it's like brown stuff on a blanket, really hard to get off.

A couple of days later, I set off to the garage with a plan; Cut the bottom of the rear quarter panel off so I could access the inner sill step, which I would need access to when I weld the new outer sill on.

For once I was smart, I thought "hey normally I just cut and away I go, but today, I will grind back all the paint so I have a nice clean surface to work with around the cut". It didn't go to plan.

I started grinding away and immediately struck bog. Lots of bog. Damn.

As it turns out, the whole lower area ahead of the arch was made of bog

Even the arch "lip" was bog

This wasn't your usual repair, using something to back the bog where there is a hole. Oh no, this was "stuff the hole with bog until it's solid". In the middle of the circle, someone had torn a hole, folded the edges back and filled it with handfuls of bog (you could see it looking down inside the inner guard, I missed it the first time though).

Something had hit the arch, bent it in, and left a nice dent. Instead of fixing it properly, that's what they had done.

Initially, my brain just fell to bits, my whole plan was derailed and my toys weren't in the cot anymore. Eventually, there was nothing else for it; get cutting.

I dug the rest of the bog out, cleaned a bigger area of the panel back, marked a couple of lines and got cutting.

Inside, it wasn't bad. The arch lip was bent and twisted

But the rest of the area was fine. The damage is mostly contained to the small section of guard that I removed

The piece I removed was pretty ugly

I don't know how yet, but somehow I have to remake that, including the arch section missing from that piece. It might look basic, but it's got a couple of different angles and a body line in the middle of it. Guess it's time to watch some more YouTube.

Otherwise, removing the small section at the bottom of the guard did give the access I was hoping for

The plan now was to keep moving, and doing what I had intended to do; fix the inner sill and fit the new outer sill. Once that's fitted I can work on the missing section of guard.

As a quick morale booster, I offered up the new outer sill to see how it fits

It looks like it should fit quite nicely with some trimming.

I welded in a new section for the rear of the inner sill, and make a little piece to replace the upper stepped section I had to remove due to rust

And that's where I have ended for today. I gave everything a coat of weld-through zinc primer, and the next step is to make the outer sill fit properly, and weld it in place. It would be exciting if it weren't for the rest of the work that still needs to be done.

As they say, it's got to get worse before it can get better. I hope it gets better. God I hate bodywork.

[kws]

Got the new outer sill welded in today. Looks good.

[kws]

Did more cutting, hitting, welding and grinding today to fill the holes.

Not 100% happy, there is a high point here, where the patch is joined to the original guard. Not sure if i had the guard out of alignment or something warped when welding (likely the former). Not sure how to fix it, but im thinking cut the join, hammer it all back into alignment, weld up again?

 

[kws]

New page please

[kws]

Please