Having Fun with Body Filler and Hammers and Sheet Metal

I noticed we had not mentioned again the stiff steering.  Ray pumped grease into the kingpins and the steering works fine!

Patch panels were made for the non visual areas that needed help.  The material used is left over refrigerator door stock from my prior employer, Whirlpool, which we rcd from Evansville Sheet Metal:

Even did a little "CAD" or "Cardboard Aided Design" to make the inner fender patch panels.  This type of CAD is a frequent reference in the Project Binky series of You Tube videos, which I highly recommend.  Here's a series of pictures of the repair on the driver's side inner fender.  First the as rcd picture:

CAD design of part to cover the rot:

Patch panel in place after automotive adhesive and pop rivets:

Here's a picture of the automotive adhesive we are using:

After application of POR15 antirust paint:

Finally, after initial spraying of undercoating, hard to even find the repairs:

We think this turns out pretty darn well, completely hidden after the final coat of undercoating.

Meantime Ray has been having fun with the body filler.  We are using fiberglass filled body filler for the deeper areas, then regular filler after getting pretty smooth.  Before any filler we used the hammer and dolly set to get the panels as flat as possible.  Here's a series of pictures for the rear area under the trunk lid.  First is after removal of all paint and prior body filler:

Next picture is after hammer work plus using a bottle jack to push the area back around the fuel filler neck, had to move it out about 3/4 inch:

Caught Ray in action working the body filler, he's doing a fine job:

We've minimized the thickness of all body filler:

Later this week we have our friend Nick coming by with his welder.  We've got the right rear wheel arch panel ready to harvest from our half car:

And we got donated a left rear fender patch panel that will provide at least it's rear wheel arch, maybe more:

Paint removal almost done

So the challenge is getting into pretty clear focus.  Took a series of pictures today documenting the items needing attention.  Starting at the front end, both fenders are removed and here's the rot in the inner fender area, drivers side:

Passenger side a little better, did not penetrate the inner fender itself:

Both of these areas will be repaired with extra sheet metal to cover up the rot.  Not real critical to structure, but needs to be addressed.

Then there's the rocker panel situation.  The structure provided by the boxed in rocker panels has been replaced by some prior owner or body shop by the previously mentioned piece of large, thick  angle iron.  Now that we have a lift in the shop it's easier to take pictures, you can see this angle iron in these pictures:

From measurements of deflection it appears to do a great job of making the car stiff.  Our challenge is getting it to also look right. 

The front fenders are removed, they show some challenges too:

Between the MGB GT front fender that came with the car, the two larger front fender patch panels we bought, and the original fenders we think we can come up with solutions for the front of the car.  With the large beam in the middle and replacement outer rocker panels we think we have the middle of the car covered.

Now for the rear.  Here's clear pictures of the read wheel arches:

Kinda ugly.  We got donated a rear half of a rubber bumper MGB as a source for these wheel arches, here's a picture of it, is a stalled trailer project now becoming a donor:

Then we've got the challenges at the rear of the car.  The drivers side was sideswiped, the passenger side rear was hit bu the taillight, and it appears to also have been rear ended:

A lot of these dents in the rear are coming out with hammer and dolly.  Today I got the rear lip pretty straight, now I find the trunk lid does not fit real well, it's still bent from the rear end collision.  Plus there is localized damage on the trunk lid by the latch:

Trunk lid is laying against the blue hood, we have line of sight to another hood in much better shape.

So we've got our winter project pretty well defined here.  We have a friend with a welder who will be helping us out in December, be good to get most of the welding done by early January.  Then it's bodywork (grind, beat on it, filler, block sanding, grind, beat on it, filler, sanding, etc) for the rest of the winter.  Hopefully in the spring we'll be ready to find someone to spray a nice smooth car for us at a reasonable price.