Solid As A Rock

If you haven't noticed by now, I like using song titles for post titles.

Here's the trunk floor, all welded in, and the inner fenders all finished up.  I messed up when I welded in the bumper stop on the passenger's side, so I had to remove it, patch the mess I made, then weld it back in.

 

 

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Closing Time

Here's the closing panels that fill in the gap between the trunk and the back of the rear fender (wing!).  These always rust away; no wonder, since they catch all the crud coming off the rear wheels (wheels!).

 

 

Here's the trunk floor, from the southern hemisphere.

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It Fits!

Folks, installing the trunk floor was not at all easy.

Never mind how bulky it is.  There's no way to wedge it in there in one piece without removing the braces that basically hold the bottom of the trunk to the car.  And I didn't want to do that; I'd never get it back together properly.  The best way would be to remove the entire rear body panel of the car first.  However, I had no confidence I would get things to line up again.  So I cheated.  It was hung up on one corner (driver's front), so I gritted my teeth and bent the panel up and out of the way enough to get it in place.  I was able to straighten the bend and you can't even tell, in my opinion.

Anyhow, it fits.

 

 

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Boot Work, Part 2

I straightened out the structural member I saved for the trunk, and did a little more patching to get ready to test fit the trunk floor.  (Yes, that's the 'boot'.  What is it with those British?  They have a different word for everything.  Or is that the French?)

 

  

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Front Wing Fixes

The driver's front wing (fender to us Yanks... come on, it's fun!) never really lined up properly with the bonnet.  I did a little patching to make things fit better and to fill in some holes.  This is a work in progress.

  

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Bonnet Badness

I have three bonnets (hoods to us Yanks).  One that came with the car, one I bought in the late 90's and one I bought this year.  Two are rusted out where they all rust out, and one is solid in the front but looks like a five year old used it as a bounce house.  OK, it's not that bad but it needs work.

I tried my hand at repairing one of them, but it didn't turn out too well.  I'll have to see if I can take the one 'good' bonnet and straighten it.  Here's me removing the bad.

 

Here's the bounce house bonnet.  It's not really that bad, but "bounce house bonnet" is fun to say five times really fast.

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Fender Repair, Part 1

It's a start.

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More Trunk Removal

More action shots of removing the trunk floor.  You can see I have some patching to do before I can install the new floor.

 

  

Here's a little bit of the original paint color, 50 years old.

And on we go...

 

All gone now.

 

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Our Grumpy Cat

I love Grumpy Cat.  I understand her humor.  We have our own grump, named Millie.  She's really sweet but has her moments, like this one.

GO AWAY.

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Junk In Mah Trunk

Time for the next big job--replacing the trunk floor.  The replacement panel (BMH) comes as one LARGE piece.  So the old floor has to come out all at once.  Or in many little pieces.  Which is mostly how it happened.

The driver's side structural member was rusted out at too many key points to be salvaged, so I bought a replacement.  The passenger's side member was in fine shape, so I'll reuse it.

There is a lot to disassemble when removing the trunk floor.  The bumper stops have to come off.  The structural members that hold the trunk to the inner fender wells is attached underneath where the bumper stops go and all along the fender wells too, and of course to the floor.  The floor is also attached to braces that hold the check straps and rear dampers.  It's attached to braces inside the trunk and to the closing panels on the lower fenders (which I didn't care about, since they were trash and got cut off--it's easier if you just resign yourself to replacing them and the bottom of the rear fenders).  Finally, it's attached to the back of the car to close out the seam between the trunk and the rear body panel (fascia?  I always wanted to say 'fascia'.).

Here's the trunk, before and after some of the removal.  The center of the floor came out in one big piece, and the rest in little pieces, after hours and hours of drilling out those wonderful spot welds.

 

Here's an example of the fun removing the structural member from the inner fender.

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