Thursday started off mildly hungover, so it was decided that no heavy lifting should occur. Instead it was time to move onto stripping the undercoating from the front wheel arches.
The removal of the undercoating is a personal preference. I much prefer clean painted wheel arches, I know it will require close inspection for chips and potential rust issues. If the next owner decides they want undercoating it should be an easy thing to do. I also noted that the LH side of the car is pretty much rust free (more on that a bit later).
The bare metal was treated to self etch primer and left for a bit of time. I still need to remove the front suspension and strip behind the damper, but that will wait until I'm closer to painting the engine bay.
I then turned my attention to the LH dogleg. The small bubble turned out be a somewhat poorly installed patch with about 1/4" of filler over top:
The patch was cut out to examine what was behind it, an lo and behold there was some rust:
As the rest of the outer sill was rust free it was decided to just cut out the rusted portion and weld in a patch. I know this isn't the correct way to do things, but I'm sure this car will be living a much better life once it's completed (no daily driving, no snow, as little rain as possible etc). The plan is also to Waxoyl the s&*$ out of it, provided I can find Waxoyl in Canada.
I have a pair of dogleg panels on order, so the dogleg repairs for both sides are on hold until they arrive.
The undercoating removal was done on the RH side later in the week, but it brought to light some other rust issues:
The bottom of the front wing and bottom of the front portion of the sill had some perforation. So, again patches were fabricated and welded in:
Attention was then paid to the RH dogleg, again rust:
It too was patched up, but for some reason I didn't take a photo post patching.
And this pretty much brings things up to date. I did strip the undercoating from both front wings and have started on filling the side marker holes (going for a pre-1970 look). This upcoming week will hopefully see the motor mounts completed, crossmember capped, gearbox mounts fabricated, header finished, and maybe remove the windscreen to aid in installing the metal dash. Ideally I would like to have the car off for paint by mid April in hopes of having it back on the road for the late spring.
Almost forgot, once last pic:
The shift lever area is very close to the original location.
Rod