With nothing to show for it in the way of working on cars. Some progress has been made but certainly nothing really worthy of posting about. So, instead have a brief glance at my clone flares taped onto the right rear.
Lots of Steel to Cut Out
Lots of Gap to attempt to Flush
I’ll get there….
-Michael
Some of you who read this might not be aware of the drama that my C110 has been through in the past, so I thought I would bring it up to date. I’ve been quite apprehensive in starting on the right hand side of the C110 and the bad weather and lack of equipment has also played a part in the delay in continuing the strip down of paint and the inevitable bog. My concern about what I’m going to tackle shortly (hopefully start on it tomorrow or in the weekend) stems from being the victim of a tourists inability to give way, at a Give-Way. The result was this;
Quite possibly the worst place to hit.
As you can somewhat see from this picture (more so in the subsequent pictures), the corner of a stupid late model Nissan Pulsar rental managed to nudge directly into the apex of the bodyline, the door only taking a minor scuff and the wheel not too bothered. The shut did get pulled around however, not good. (more…)
Being that I’ve been finding so many little bits of drama here and there on my way around the car, I figured it would be stupid to not take the rear window out after all the effort going in to remove problems from other areas. So, today I whipped down to E Hayes & Son and got some White Spirits, I was greeted and served immediately. It’s a lovely place, been around for ages and friendly staff, other than being a little slow on it. Not that it mattered, it was a wonderful day today, a nice break in the horrible weather of late. So I scooted home and began pouring some of the White Spirits onto the gap between the metal and the glass. After a little while the White Spirits starts eating into the dry and horrible sealant keeping the window in place and it becomes extremely tacky, but with that, able to be sliced into with the aid of a wide putty knife. Once I’d made a little gap, I poured some more in and let the spirits do it’s thing, then a run around the edges from the inside of the car, sliding between the glass and the sealant and I’d cleared enough for the glass to lift out with ease. Albeit entirely messy, it gets the job done well and it doesn’t risk cracking what is quite a rare rear window to have to replace. Once that was done, I was left with this;
Oh my, messy.
When I bought my 110, way back when. I was lead to believe by the seller that there was very little rust in it. He made mention of a few points that were a concern but there was certainly nothing major and it was in fact, “The best 240K I’ve seen, as far as rust goes and I’ve owned a few.”. Sure, it’s a line, I realise that, I’m not entirely stupid. What I did not realise was the extent of the deception. So without further delay I shall bring you fine observers up to speed with the stripping back to metal of my C110. Firstly, here is what I began with, from the rear;
Obvious signs but not all bad, right?
BZZZT! Wrong. Sure, it’s not entirely cheese but it’s hardly fantastic. Observe!
Demoralising though it may be to discover copious amount of rust spots that the previous owner lied about, it is an inevitability in of car restoration. My previous cheap drill had died during my last effort at the task at hand and not wanting to leave it sitting in gloom and doom, (due to being low on cash) today I decided that I’d buy a replacement cheap piece of crap drill to continue my effort of wire brushing all the paint and rust off the surface of my C110. ($19.97, cheers Mitre 10 Mega)
Firstly I’ll show where I left off last time. After the drill gave up and on the first decent sunny day, I rolled the car outside the garage and started to pull the interior out so I could get to some holes from the inside (Doesn’t sound good does it? It’s not… trust me.)
Oxidisation, it takes my metal!
It’s a little hard to see (even when you click the image for a slightly larger version. You’ll have to take my word for it when I say that there’s holes along the hip line, down the bottom of the quarters, at the bottom of the doors, along the guttering and across the top of the windscreen. Thank-fully (as shown previous) the holes in the sills are minimal, far less than I expected.
