Westy’s GTOs. So much rust.

[westy]

So we’re plugging away at the white (red) car. Fortunately I have the silver car as a donor. I took the roof off because the white (red) roof has 3 areas of rust and looks like someone has jumped on it. The silver car has 2 areas of rust but is at least straight. Winning(?). But before that goes back on I need to replace the left rear quarter cause

She’s pretty fkd. And the rust under it you know is teasing you. This car may have served as a paddock basher at some stage. 

[westy]

This is the guard from the silver car. Doesn’t look wonderful but it’s a shit load better than the other. We’re not worried about the arch cause flares and the lower has to be replaced either way so…

So that means I might as well take the other side off too cause we’re in this deep so might as well keep digging. 

[westy]

Also, this is a bit of humour. 
 

 

Every time I roll it over more sand pours out. Some buckets worth so far. 

[westy]

Also, also I need to get better at more than 1 pic per post. 

[westy]

Rain!!  I’m not working in that. To the shed. 
 

Couple of small rust repairs and a whole lot of clean up and it’s in epoxy. 

[westy]

Huh. Well that ain’t so bad. 
 

 

That bit shouldn’t be bent over but 

 

[westy]

Hmm well this bit’s pretty bad

 

But before that I need to attend to this

 

One of the reasons I took the roof off. 
Again from the other car. 

 

Clean ‘er up

 

[westy]

 

Weld it in 

Bit of work towards the front of the opening which I didn’t get a pic of except of the patch I had to make 4 times ffs 

First cause I made it in 1mm instead of 1.2.
Second cause I made it inside out. 
Third cause it was 5mm too short. 
Forth to get it right. Sheesh. 

[westy]

Next is the sill. Here’s a glimpse of the horrors awaiting. 
 

 

Spent the afternoon removing the sill from the other car which looks promising but that’s it for this weekend. 

[westy]

Yeah that’s not great. 

This one’s not perfect but it’s a shitload better

Easily the most tedious task in all this is getting the rust off pieces I want to use. All the abrasive type methods soak up hours on end and I don’t have hours on end so I’m running a chemistry experiment with the citric acid and sodium bicarbonate solution that seems to be the current hotness. 

Probably should have used something a bit more hardy as a liner but yeah. 1 day in and it’s looking promising  

 

[westy]

So while that brews I can get on with other stuff like, oh I dunno, patching more rust

[westy]

Well bugger me. 

2 days and it’s pretty much spotless. 

[westy]

So I wasn’t really keen on this rust seeing as that’s the seatbelt anchor. 

So I kept cutting and pretty soon there was nothing left to cut

Soaked the inner sill from the other car in the citric acid bath and glued that in. Amazingly it needed no holes filling. Well, except for spot weld holes. 

 

[westy]

This bit is the inside of the A piller that gets sandwiched between the inner and outer sills. Has holes too

Then the outer sill goes back on after filling some, you guessed it, more holes  

 

[westy]

Which leaves the outer A piller 

And the door jamb

Which also had holes 

 

There’s a reinforcement bracket still to go at the bottom of the door jamb but I’ll need to get the sand blaster out and clean some stuff up first. 
Feels like progress. Till I remember I have to do this all again on the other side. 

[westy]

So fitted the bracket

Then this mess

 

Then a big cleanip

 

 

[westy]

Aaaannnnd

Ta da!! 
That’s been some work. 
So what’s next?

Sigh

[westy]

So I’ve already done this area on the other side so I kinda knew what was coming. The inner panel is in pretty good shape. Or was until I tried to get the weird little bracket thingie out

Oops

It’s was rooted anyway. So I made another new one. 

 

[westy]

The outer panel, well….

So after some umming and ahhing I came to the obvious conclusion that I knew from the beginning. Gotta make a new one. 

 

[westy]

And wholly shit it fits

Quite fkn pleased with myself. Probably the trickiest panel I’ve made so far. There’s some brackets and bolts to weld on for the guard then hopefully I can get it in epoxy today.