2002 was just a busy as 2001, but as I started to look at other areas I found rust everywhere that had been covered up with body putty.
The outer sills had been left in place all this time because they were providing strength to the body. But, they needed a lot of work because the inside of the sill has some supporting structure that needed to be replaced.
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I cut the first outer sill off and found a second one behind it in very rusted shape. I cut the second one off and found the original sill behind it and it was in really bad shape. I don't know why the British never primed any of the sheet metal that was not exposed. Also, the repairs were not protected so they rusted just as fast as the original.
I used C-Clamps to hold everything in place so I could shape the replacement panels to the car. Each panel was tacked on to check the fit and then permanently welded in place.
I had to put the bonnet back on to keep everything lined up.
When both outer sills were welded in place I took the doors off and I could see they needed a lot of work
At this point the cockpit is in pretty good shape. Everything is welded in place and I removed the dashboard and all the wiring. Actually this is work I should have done right from the beginning
The doors did not look that bad from the outside but the bottom of each door was rusted out and the door skin needed to be replaced.
The doors had been repaired before I bought the car. The repair consisted of brazing a piece of sheet metal across the rusted areas and then filling in the seam with some body putty. The passenger door was in worse shape than the driver door.
I cut out the rotted section on the drivers side door and welded in a new section of 20 gauge sheet metal. Once it was in place I used a little Evercoat Rage body putty to fill in the seams.
The passenger door was really bad but I was able to reconstruct everything by taking measurements from the driver's door.
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First I replaced the whole bottom section of the door and then I replaced the outside skin.
Once I was sure the body had the strength to hold everything together I started working on the boot (trunk) where I had fiber glassed over some large rusted spots
The boot area doesn't look that bad but when I took the fiber glass patch out I could see that the floor pan needed to be replaced and that led to much more of the rusted areas needing replacement. As I removed body putty and other patches it became very apparent that I had a lot of work ahead of me.
These pictures show some of the areas that needed attention once the boot floor pan was removed.
I cut out the rotted area at the top of the trunk and fabricated the parts needed to restore the whole section.
I already knew that the area before the trunk lid would need replacement but I didn't realize that even the supports for the trunk lid were rotted out. You can see that someone just put aluminum tape over the rusted holes and put body putty on top of the tape.
I cut all of the rotten metal out and replaced the back panel first. Whenever possible I used original parts like the bracket for the interior light. It was not rusted so I cut it out of the rusted section and welded it onto the new panel.
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Once the back panel was in place I cut metal for the area on top of the boot. Quite often I could use the pieces of metal that were cut out for patterns, but when that wouldn't work I made patterns out of heavy construction paper.
The brackets for the trunk hinges were rusted out so I had to make new ones and fit them exactly where the old one were. Basically I put the trunk back together with the hinges connected and tacked everything in place. Then I disassembled everything and did the permanent welds.
Now the top of the boot looks pretty good. I used Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator to cover new metal and I needed very little body putty to smooth it out.
Once the back panels had been removed I was able to get the pan in place and welded in.
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Some of the side panels were rotted so they were cut out and new steel welded in.
Next up was the floor pan for the boot. The problem was that it would not fit into the opening, so after looking at some of the rusted areas I decided to cut the back of the boot out and then install the floor pan along with some other replacement parts. I cut out a lot of rusted metal and replaced most of the rear end.
This is the back of the boot along with some supporting pieces.
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Metal that was left after the rotted portion was removed had to be cleaned and shaped to allow for good welds to the replacement pieces.
Next up was the back panel which holds the license plate. Once that was in place I was able to install new the new lower quarter panels, then the side stiffeners.
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When the back panel was welded in place I was able to put the parts that I had cut out back on. These were welded in and then I used hot lead to seal and strengthen the joint.
Before I leaded in the joint I repaired the rain gutter below the boot lid.
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Little jobs like this can take a lot of time and I didn't have some of the metal shaping tools that would make this work easier. Basically I cut out shapes and welded them together to make a part.
One of the tie down points for the fuel tank was rusted beyond repair so I built a new one.
Here is the boot area once everything was in place.
As you can see a lot of work took place in 2002, but 2003 had even more progress and lots more issues and problems to solve.