Rear axle was now ready to re fit (One day!) now that the brake lines and brackets are back on.

A bit more paint removal done too - this time it was the bottoms of the rear quarters.

 

Edited 18 October, 20169 yr by sleag40

Finally got some bare metal painted, just the rear wheel tubs, sills and rear quarter bottoms though.

These pics are after the first coat - after two more coats, I just wanted to go to bed. 

 

The next day, more paint - you can't beat a bit of progress!

This first pic shows the engine bay after the zinc phosphate treatment applied a couple of days previously. There's still wet patches from rinsing it off with water, but you can see the milky finish the metal thats been treated has.

I used a space heater to warm the place up a bit before painting - below 10 degrees is too cold for it.

Once seam sealer is applied and its flatted back, it's ready to prime and paint. (Obviously I needed to do the rest first!)

Next saw the offside inner wing/A pillar/chassis rail painted. Prep for this was done the day before, and dried off using the space heater.

Paint was applied carefully to avoid runs (which isn't easy with this stuff as its very runny) but to ensure enough goes on so that the brush marks disappear.

It looked a bit translucent after just one coat, so the pics were taken after the second. The space heater ran out of gas, so I needed to sort that out before any more progress with paint could happen.

More gas acquired - other side now done!

The complex fiddly parts of the front end were then thoroughly cleaned, then treated with the metal prep solution. 

After drying off and warming up, it was done.

Needed to rub it all down next - it would take some doing as it's very hard paint. 

Got the rear tubs rubbed down, then applied the seam sealer.

I'd forgotten what a messy job it was, I think last time I developed a reasonable technique just as the job was coming to an end!

Got the front inner wings rubbed down and seam sealed. Spent far to much time on it, but I like a tidy job.

Probably a bit OCD, most people tend to hurl it on!

Rubbing down and seam sealer continued in the engine bay.

I wanted to get the engine bay paint properly flat, as it can be seen, but didn't want to rub right through it on the edges of the pressed in shapes. This meant doing it by hand. It's very hard paint, and takes a fair bit of effort. Was living the dream right now!

 

Re-sealed the front footwell corners after cleaning back, and painting with the grey stuff.

Now the grey bits had been rubbed down, I prepared to spray the stone chip paint.

I was looking forward to this bit - just hoped I didn't end up wearing too much of it. 

Weber DGV conversion kit arrived - many thanks to Eric at the Carburettor Hospital. 

This should* mean no more lengthy cranking sessions when starting from cold - the original Solex automatic choke was a bit shonky. This tailored kit is designed to just bolt on using the original air cleaner and throttle linkage.

I thought it was about time that I made a start on the last of the filthy clean ups -

I didn't get very far with it at this time, but would pick it back up at a later date.

The stone chip paint went on.

I only ended up wearing a small amount of it, and fortunately it came off with thinners. :)

After inspecting the underside, I found a couple of areas that need resealing.
The first for the treatment was the offside rear chassis leg adjacent to the spring seat. There was a little rust on the seam, so it was cleaned back to reveal the extent of it.

 After degreasing -

[

After metal prep solution and first coat of the grey stuff -

Two more coats were applied, then after a light rubbing down, it could be stone chipped. There were two small areas where the sealant had been damaged on the chassis rails under the front seat area - it must have been fairly recent as it wasn't rusty, and these would get the same treatment. 

Got stuck back into cleaning 40 years worth of filth off the engine!

This was after scraping the worst of the crud off^^^

After several hours scrubbing, out was still rank! It did look better, but was nowhere near clean enough to paint.

Brillo pads and petrol finally got it properly clean.

After all that scrubbing, I painted some brake lines as a bit of light relief.

 

The lump was painted next - after the first coat -

Once the second coat was dry, I got giddy and fitted my new water pump and fuel pump -

 

Edited 18 October, 20169 yr by sleag40

An introduction to a panel beater type bloke yielded a solution to my dented bodywork. He'd just handed his notice in at work, and had a free week. :) I started removing paint from the dented areas in preparation 

I needed to be able to move the car over to the paint bloke at some point, so the rear axle was put back where it belongs -

Three click handbrake too - must have been on a roll!

Edited 18 October, 20169 yr by sleag40

Metal finisher Jim did his thing with the dents -

Near side rear door done-

Rear quarter done -

Near side front door not quite finished yet - 

The new old stock door had taken a bit of a beating during its long period of storage, but now filler wouldn't be needed.

The drivers side wing was pretty good to start with - just a storage dent on the side, a dent on the top at the front, and a welded up aerial hole at the back. Some badge holes had  been welded up too. (the wing came off a Manta)

The passenger side wing had taken a knock where the bumper had been pushed into it, but all good now. The upper rear of the wing looked really good, but I found out it wasn't so good when I cleaned the back of all paint and sealant. It was like a topographical model of the Alps. Someone in the distant past had "repaired" it by belting with what looked to have been a pickaxe, then applying a large amount of filler. It did look good though! My man did his best for many hours, and now only a very small amount of filler would be required along the back edge to make it good.

A bit more work was done on the rear quarter, so just the unpleasant task of stripping all the rest of the paint off remained before it could have its shiny new coat. :)

Next job on the list was cleaning the backs of the newly straightened wings.

90% of the paint and rust was buzzed off quickly with a poly abrasive disc, the fiddly bits that couldn't be reached with that took a LOT longer with a drill and assorted attachments.
After a tickle of Mig to sort out a small crack in the nearside one, they'd get treated with the grey stuff.

I decided to tackle the last bit of car pox on the list next. I'd been putting it off for a while - much like cleaning the engine! The bottom front corner of the nearside front door was a little crusty, and my inability to find a better one means it needed to be repaired.

After unfolding the door skin around the affected area, the grot was cut out. This shot was part way through the cutting, my apologies for the dark picture - the flash refused to work. 

I made a piece to go into the top of the repair, but I left the lower piece to my main weldist and his metal shaping skills - the shape required was too complex for my piss poor collection of metalwork tools (and skill level!).

My main metal man knocked up a piece of metal with the moulded shape required, I then went away and whittled it down to fit the hole left by grot removal. The missing triangle would be replaced before the piece was welded in - it was necessary to allow the shape to be attained.

Once glued in with the sparkly stick, the job would be a good 'un! 

Cleaning up engine parts for painting was up next - not particularly interesting, but the muck encrusted starter motor came up a treat. 

Alternator and its bracket

Painted a load of odds and sods, including these.

There wasn't a great deal of filthy oil encrusted stuff left to do now. :)

Stripped the carburettor off the manifold - I wouldn't be needing the Solex any more, but the rest needed a good clean. The exhaust manifold was to be sand blasted, and the inlet  wire brushed, but the base plate responded well to some petrol and elbow grease. 

The throttle linkage came up well with the same treatment. 

Inlet manifold scrubbed up nicely.

Engine mount + bell housing brackets sand blasted ready to paint.

Finally put the lid on the engine.

Exhaust manifold blasted.

Then painted.

It was now time to get the engine built back up.

Now, apart from the clutch and flywheel, it was ready to go back where it came from.  

I was wondering wether or not it would run at this point!

Paint bloke was now ready to paint the front end - once I'd finished up rubbing down the last bit of grey paint around the nearside headlight panel, I just needed to rip the nosecone back to bare metal and it was good to go.

Nosecone stripped bare -

VW steelies with track day tyres on the back.-

Rudimentary "handlebars" in position to facilitate wheeling it over the yard -

Once I'd given it all a good clean (it was very dusty in there) we were ready for some paint!

After a good clean -

Car was delivered to the paint blokes, then I got stuck in to some other jobs. Started dressing the welds on my passenger door - this was after chucking some primer on to see how much more needs to come off -

Painted my wiper arms, horn, and a few odds and ends, then went over to have a look -

You can't beat fresh paint as a motivational aid!  :)

Collected the car from the paint blokes the next morning, and the nosecone + front valance had already been polished up.

Yes - that is indeed my ugly mug reflected in the nosecone - that must be my "intense concentration" face! 

The insides of the wings finally got a lick of the grey stuff next.

Once scotched and stone chipped, these would be ready to receive some blue paint.

I made a start on polishing the engine bay too - its a messy job, but it was getting there!

The new paint looked a lot more vivid a hue next to the old - this shot of the rear screen frame shows how much it had faded compared to where the window seal was.

Back to stripping paint off again - the majority of the wing was pretty quick, but the part that bolts to the inner wing in the engine bay was a lot more time consuming.

Same with this side - pretty tedious, but necessary!

I tried some body shop paint stripper to see if it could be done quicker. It liquefied the blue top coat immediately, but only slightly softened the primer beneath. The primer could be scraped off after treatment with some aggression, but it was slow going. It came off easier with the disc after treatment, but the application of the paint stripper, as well as using the disc didn't save any time over just hitting it with the disc without using the stripper first. Disappointing!
The test piece was the outside of the passenger side front door - still took the best part of an hour and a half, as the paint just smears until a bit of heat builds up and it lets go!

The paint stripper was really good on two pack paint, but the acrylic paint on this car was a bit of a pain!

The other side took a similar amount of time - it was slow going, but it'd do!

I got the insides of the wings stone chipped, and then decided to take the tyres off the rims. I could sand blast the rims at work.

Got a few other jobs out of the way - I cleaned and re taped the engine bay wiring loom, so that was ready to go. The steering column was refitted to the bulkhead, then the horn was put back into place. The greater part of my time on this day was spent polishing the other side of the engine bay - there were a few dry spots that needed sorting, and it took a while.