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Polar White and Rust - a restoration epic, can it even be done?


IanMc
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Fair bit of body work. I've already replaced the front valence, springs and dampers, but the rear arches and a few bits of rust showing through the paint hint at more work. it's been relatively well looked after in the past and flies through the MoT. Past welding underneath is functional rather than pretty but that's a whole lot of tea to drink  before I tackle that

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3 hours ago, Maseflight said:

Fair bit of body work. I've already replaced the front valence, springs and dampers, but the rear arches and a few bits of rust showing through the paint hint at more work. it's been relatively well looked after in the past and flies through the MoT. Past welding underneath is functional rather than pretty but that's a whole lot of tea to drink  before I tackle that

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Great stuff - loving that!

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Not a great deal to report this evening as I got in from work a little later than normal and I wanted to watch the big match this evening   :thumbup

Anyway... I did manage to get the NSR quarter wet sanded (which has come out very nicely) and then removed the boot lid - which is next on the list of errors to correct!

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This evening I made a start sorting out the boot lid. This work is to rectify a day one, school boy error by yours truly.

Basically I had assumed that the bottom edge followed the slight curvature of the top surface - Doh! of course it doesn't - it needs to be parallel to the floor, bumper, lights etc... So Mr Idiot here, basically had a slightly banana shaped bottom edge - WHAT A PLONKER!!

So the task is to drop the bottom lip/edge down by 3-4 mm along 2/3 of its length and then try to sand it back parallel.

First job is to throw some filler onto the lip and then some at the rear/inside edge to give it some support and therefore strength:

 

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Sometimes I am such a Muppet its quite unbelievable...  :unsure:  :rolleyes:

ps the back wall of my garage is such a mess at the moment, its frankly embarrassing.

Have a nice evening everyone.

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Started the (re)work on the lip of the boot lid this morning.

I decided to clamp a straight piece of wood from corner to corner to give me the straight line that I needed and go from there. That then allowed me to chisel and sand back the filler to that line, so it should now be straight.

You can clearly see the curvature of the lid by comparing the line of the wood to the top face of the lid. I still cant quite believe I followed the curvature to create the bottom lip during my weld repairs etc - what an idiot. Oh well, whats done is done I guess...

 

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After the initial shaping of the edge was done, I applied another thin skim of filler. This should give me a fairly straight edge to use as I attempt move up to blend it into the front face of the lip a bit better.

 

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Have a nice weekend everyone  :thumbup

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So after allowing the filler to dry I then removed the wood guide. Thankfully that did leave a nice straight edge - how it should have been before, but...

 

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After some sanding to bring down the high spots that had 'bled' behind the wood, I then a added filler to the front face of the lip in preparation for blending it all back in. 

 

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As you can see from this photo though, its going to need a bit more to bring is all back level again.

 

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After the great tip provided above, I have a plan to buy some materials later to try to make my own 'filler blade'. That should allow me to follow the profile of the front lip all the way along - which hopefully will get me a long way towards the final profile I need.

My aim for this weekend is to try to have the boot lid finished, ready for (re)paint.

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A very pleasing little sanding session this evening leaves us very close to finishing the rework on the boot lid.

As you will see from the photo below I have just added a few tiny bits of stopper filler. They will be left to dry overnight, then a light sand in the morning will see us good to go.

I'm a happy bunny this evening - it probably wont last of course, but lets enjoy it while we can eh?!  :lol:  :thumbup

 

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A little bit of work this morning before we head out for the day.

I managed to get the boot lid finish sanded, a splash of primer over the bare metal and bolted back on the car. Its a bit tricky to really see from the photo as its not latched down, but it is way straighter than before and when I push down on the front edge things look much better when I check it to the other reference points back there. 

 

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Have a nice day everyone.

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The next dodgy area to tackle again is where the back of the roof meets the rear screen surround. I noticed the other day that this looked too 'sunken' in the reflected lights in the garage. Hopefully the photos show this too. You need to look right at the back of the roof, the last couple of inches and fairly central.

 

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Hopefully I can get that sanded back a bit later and some filler on it.  :thumbup

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Some minor pottering around this evening.

1) The trim mounting pin on the front wing that is used to hang the chrome sill moulding was damaged, so I gut that off and will use the same screw mounting tecnique that I used on the door strips later. In the mean time I had to fill over the hole left by removal.

 

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2) Next I noticed that the rear area of the sill on the NS didn't line up with the newly shaped bottom of the rear quarter well enough. This will be covered by the sill chrome trim, but I still wanted it to be flush. Some filler was added and I used my new secret weapon as a filler shaping 'blade' - a Wilkinson window cleaning 'thing' :lol:

 

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This seemed to work pretty well and it is certainly much straighter from the off than I would normally achieve. Plenty more work to do here, but a flying start all the same.

 

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3) Lastly I sanded the rear roof line and applied some more filler to the low spots.

 

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Cheers all.

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More sanding this evening - yawn!!

Firstly brought this little area back around, then applied some stopper filler to a few little holes.

 

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Next was the 'wobbly' bit on the sill under the NS door. Again sanded back and stopper filler added - much better already!

 

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Lastly I started the bring the rear roof line back in. Still plenty to do, but fingers crossed...

 

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Hopefully tomorrow evening I can sand the stopper back flat and do more work on the rear roof line.  :thumbup

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Ian, put a bit of string under the window rubber to raise it, that will help you get a better finish under the rubber. Also (bit late now) but mask the rubber to stop it getting damaged with the sand paper.

Got to take my hat off to you, going back over your repairs to make better as you have learnt so much since you started this build, many others wouldn't have the patience and just put up with the finish. :thumbup

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Just now, bris jas said:

Ian, put a bit of string under the window rubber to raise it, that will help you get a better finish under the rubber. 

 

Hi Jason, many thanks for that idea - brilliant and simple!

Consider it done - thanks again :thumbup

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2 hours ago, H-400 said:

Hi Ian, how do you do that?

When I'm back from the barracks I'm not so motivated anymore to go in my garage...

Respect!

Ha ha, hi Herman. Good question, I guess it’s a combination of determination to get the job done and as right as I can make it and a love for these cars.

We can all think of giving up or get a bit down, but then something inside us keeps driving us forward.

 

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Just a quick note to advise there will not be any project updates from me for at least a week I am afraid. This is because tomorrow myself and a colleague are driving across to Germany for an exhibition that we are participating in.

Play nice while I am gone please  :lol:

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Back to it again!

This evening  did a little more on the rear roof line. Using Jason's great tip of the string to space up the screen rubber a little I set to work.

I also thought that I would try something a little silly and used a flexible school rule to allow it to bend to match the profile of the roof. It actually worked pretty well, well so far anyway... Still plenty more to do, but it is slowly coming round.

 

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Evening all.

This evening I sanded back the stopper filler on the roof above the rear screen. As usual this showed up a few very minor imperfections, so a little more was added and that will be sanded in the next couple of days. I do wonder if I need to let this dry for m,ore than 24 hours as I'm pretty sure that at least some of the areas were filled yesterday. Perhaps it was still a little soft and I dragged it out by sanding? 

 

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After that I turned a corner in more ways than one and made a start on the OS / Divers side. It seems as if I have a similar problem to the NS at the front of the rear quarter. The chrome sill trim is a reasonably good fit, but seeing how good the other side is now after reshaping the same area, In realise that work is also needed on the OS... After running a straight edge over the area (using the door line as my 'sighter', I roughly marked out the affected area with a marker pen. It seems as though Mr Clumsy has also damaged the door edge and lower corner with lawn mover at some stage too - great...  :rolleyes:

Anyway, while we are in that area, lets get it all sorted out.

 

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Cheers all.

 

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Ian, i'm sure you do but make sure you blow every small pin hole out  in the sanded filler before you lay more, sometimes if there is dust under filler or more problems with fine filler, it can cause the stopper to be dragged out.

Hopefully couple more passes and your be happy to spray on some primer:thumbup

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9 minutes ago, bris jas said:

Ian, i'm sure you do but make sure you blow every small pin hole out  in the sanded filler before you lay more, sometimes if there is dust under filler or more problems with fine filler, it can cause the stopper to be dragged out.

Hopefully couple more passes and your be happy to spray on some primer:thumbup

Hi Jason,

Thats a really good point, I can’t actually remember if I did that or not. You just kind of go on autopilot sometimes and the simplest things are often missed.

Thanks for reminding me!

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