rusted inner wing and rear arches!! (pics!!)

here are some more rust i've found… the drivers side inner arch doesnt have any holes, but the top rail part has started to corrode near the skuttle you can just brake it off with yours hands!

and theres some rust starting to show above the rear strut..

 :dontknow:

im thinking this is too much work for me!

I presume there are no wheel arch plastic liners fitted by all the road dirt up in the inner wings?
If it was a y reg it probably would be ok up there  :cry:
Bert

no mate there wasnt! i dont think my old x reg had them too…but those wings were fine!?

its looking like it will need a new front panal too.. :cry:

Looks pretty repairable  

My mk1 had rust in exactly the same places, plus a lot more on the front slam panel and spare wheel well, that shouldent cost to much to get fixed, deffo worth spending the money imho.

Mark

sure u can get some used repair sections to repair it cheaply!!

Have you ever welded before? If you want to, I'll lend you my stuff (MIG welder, bunch of related tools like tin snips, joddler, gloves, mask, etc, big bottle of gas which still has around 20% of Argoshield Lite left in it…) and you can see what its like. I've nearly finished the welding on my car, I just have one or two small areas to do on another car.

i got a repair section for my inner wing from hadrian panels , it goes all the way along the top half of the inner wing . think they also do a section for the front of the inner wing too. was about 12 quid me thinks  :wink:

Try repairing it mate - might as well give it a go! :dontknow:

On another note - I think this thread show's the true nature/spirit of this website/forum, in that all you guys in the know are doing your best to help a guy out in a sticky situation and even offering to lend some welding gear to boot!

You should all feel proud.

Alright, enough of the soppy stuff, get the angle grinder out and let sparks fly.

 

Go for it!!
The inner wings were about the only good panels on my car, probably because it had the plastic inner arches.

The panels aint expensive and the welding doesn't take long to get the hang of, just make sure that the metal is clean :wink:

Just to let you know, I found the front inner arch a lot easier to weld than the rear, as it's thicker metal, so you can weld for a lot longer without blowing holes in it!

Rich

thanks for the positive comments guys i feel the love 8)  :mrgreen:

well i think im gonna give this ago so i think this should get moved to the restoration section 8O   !

paul i REALLY appriciate that! and if you being serious then i'll really like to give it ago…and i'll refil the bottle for you…if thats possible??

so heres n update

finding all this rust and with paul telling me where to look, i decided it would be best to rip out the interior and see if the floors are ok…so thats what i did..







rat style  




Doesnt seem to be any more rust on the car just mainly the front end, duno what im gonna do about those top inner wing rails tho!?

Its good to hear you don't have DjEv's problem (of rusted right rear seatbelt reel mount), because that's quite a yukky area to repair (you have to strip quite a lot of mechanical bits out the way and work upside down in a confined area).

PM me and we'll sort out a date to get the stuff over to you, I'm guessing weekend is best because it gives me time to get over to yours, then 'set you off' on practising welding etc. I'll have to look into how I arrange refills, its not quite due one so there's no point doing it now. Basically, you go into a BOC place and you have to unscrew the regulator and fit it to the exchange bottle.

It came with 19kg of gas, read 250psi, now it reads 45psi. That's 3.4kg left, maybe it would be enough to do the areas you need to do? Then do a refill??? Any welding experts out there??

Paul
In relation to the gas I can't help you.  However I use the CO2 pub gas, which works just the same and works out a hell of a lot cheaper.  You just need to get hold of a bottle form your local and the regulator to fit it.

Good luck with the welding the car looks in not too bad shape. Are the chassis legs under ther rear end okay?

 :wink:

paul_c said

It came with 19kg of gas, read 250psi, now it reads 45psi. That's 3.4kg left, maybe it would be enough to do the areas you need to do? Then do a refill??? Any welding experts out there??

Definitely enough IMO - I was welding right down to less than 5psi, and it welded fine.

Just keep an eye on the gauge which governs the output pressure at the welder tip - as long as that's steady you'll be fine.

HTH

Rich

P.S. lowmk1 I did the same thing to mine - your interior looks pretty solid  :wink:

Good work, that doesn't look as half as bad as it thought it might.

In 5-10 years time, people will be doing this routinely to mk1's.