Spider refurbishment

[betabuoy]

Awesome work Stuart. These are really tricky and complex areas...impressive stuff!

[WestonE]

Hi Stuart

Impressive work that brings back memories of doing the Montecarlo sills 14 years ago!

Cheers

Eric

[peteracs]

Hi Stuart

Marvellous stuff, keep it up!

Peter

[mangocrazy]

Fantastic work, Stuart. I'm blown away by the quality of your work.

Graham

[fred2660]

Nice work man, better than any carshop

[WestonTB]

Absolutely brilliant work, if I ever pull my spider to pieces I am sure I will face the same issues... only minus your skill & patience!

Confirms the excellent engineering in the Spider shell, no wonder there is no scuttle shake!  Keep up the good work

[HFStuart]

Winter always slows things down - sometimes I forget how much. I'm really going to have to push on to have this ready for Beta 50.

Anyway the last six months (!) have been the rear passenger side floorpan.

It looks OK but is wafer thin in places  - stick a torch underneath and you get starry night effect



So corners first - sections had to be made up





Much tacking



Middle bit



Welded and ground  - Happy with that!



Now the main floor - again part doner car part made up from scratch



Not too bad but look at the earlier ( like 2017..) work on the right, shabby



New piece made up now solid again

[HFStuart]

Next I need to replace the U section edge of the floor.

To do that the end of the cross member has to come out.



Mainly OK Underneath



I butchered the old one getting it out. I've got another but I need to replicate this bit for the captive nut



Two sockets and a bolt later



Bingo



U channel cut out



For some reason this was a right pig to weld.



New Cross Member end tacked in place



Et Voila




Next step the sill under the B pillar  - all this perforation is a result of a poor replacement 3/4 panel many years ago. New slapped on top of old creating a rust trap that just ate the top of the sill away.Thankfully the B pillar itself is very good. Shame I'll need to cut it really!

[peteracs]

Looking good, keep at it!

Peter

[WestonE]

Doing the job properly. Well done!

The Spring frenzy is nearly here.

Eric

[HFStuart]

Thanks as ever for all the encouragement, it helps a lot.  

Another 6 months has gone by so I'm overdue an update!

I left you with a pic of a sorry looking sill end.


Time to bite the bullet and cut it out


The back end of the inner sill was sort of still there!


A new corner piece was needed to link arch, floorpan, and inner wing. Out with the hammer


And it came out OK


A couple of local patches to the inner sill and an end closing plate






But what to do with this mess?


I used one of Mark's pattern sills for repair sections and them beat the whatsit out of it to get the right profile (2mm thick - heavy going)




This bit had to be made from scratch




Oops


Back on with the repaired sill


Looks good.


A new flange for the bottom of the B pillar


And in that went too


Again - happy with the result


That's the nearside sill & floor and A & B pillars done and hopefully good for another 40 years. Onto the offside rear.

[WestonE]

Brilliant work Stuart and frankly better than some so called restoration businesses. It is the layers of steel sections that make these cars a much harder repair proposition than old Fords, but also far stronger when they are made of metal!

Keep at it.

Eric

[peteracs]

Hi Stuart

Amazing stuff, probably seems a long road to the end, but will be worth it looking at the current work.

Peter

[mangocrazy]

I'm seriously impressed with the quality and accuracy of your work, Stuart. Those are seriously good skills on display there. I know that I wouldn't have a clue where to start if I was in your position.

[squiglyzigly]

Artisan quality work. Super impressive and I am rather jealous of such skills.
Unfortunately my VX HPE will not be done to this standard. ‘A’ I don’t have those skills, ‘B’ I don’t have enough patience, ‘C’ I tell myself ‘you can’t see it once the carpet goes down’ 
But I do put plenty of work in making it structurally sound, often with extra re-inforcement sections.

Bravo to you sir

[unclejam]

Looks great Stuart - there is no substitute for digging out all the rot and putting clean metal in!  Looking at your work makes me worry about the potential state of my sills / pillars / hidden crevices! 

[WestonE]

Buy a bore scope/ colour inspection camera if you dare. I did at the NEC show 2 years ago and looked inside all the box sections on my Monte. I was pleasantly surprised that the Dynatrol has kept it all in factory condition.

Eric

[unclejam]

Sounds like a useful investment - I may just do that.  I own more than one "water soluble" Italian car! 

[HFStuart]

Well now  - I've just started to type this and I get a warning to say 'not updated for 120 days'  !   Sadly for various family reasons (who'd be a teenager in the modern world) I've not been able to put any serious work into the car for 18 months however today was the day to get back in the saddle!

Not many pics but a god start  - I know how I'll fix this now.

So right hand A Pillar base  - doesn't look too bad apart from where someone had butchered the sill to fit coupe rather than spider wings:



Brave Pills and cut along the dotted line



To reveal this  - could have been worse TBH  - the nearside certainly wasn't this good!



Cut back to good metal and start putting back together  - this time with the seam joint that was removed by the guy that 'fixed' the A pillars last time



Progress at last!

[HFStuart]

Per my last post progress last year was slow but thankfully most of the problems are in the past and the welder has been out again.

Centre sill section replaced and the bottom of the internal A Pillar remade and tacked in place



Then the seam where the A Pillar and wheelarch was reinstated



And the outer A pillar replaced



Lastly the front of the sill replaced and checked to ensure it clears the wing  - something I forgot to do on the other side...





Then the last part of the U Channels to be replaced.





Last but not least the seat mounts had to be put back in. This time without being smacked which a large hammer to get them to line up which is what Zagato had evidently done!

I've not bent this  - it's exactly as it came off



The floorpan was thinner than I was happy with in the centre so:



Reinforcement plate from underneath


Bracket back in place


And with that the floors, sills A & B Pillars  - the whole central tub in fact is done!