Boot repair part 2

The boot repairs are progressing slowly, the pictures below show the new panels have been formed. There is still a long way to go to finish this repair, lots of dressing flanges and welding. The boot area will need to be stripped of all paint and grot before the new panel is welded in place for good. Then just some small repair patches to finish this bit of the boot repair.

Now the rest of the news-

I have removed most of the sound deadening pads inside the car and it seems the rust isn't actually that bad. The only bit that might need work is the drivers front floor pan. It might turn out to be better to replace with a repair section. The car is now in the garage as the spitfire is over wintering in sunny Weymouth. When the footwell finally dry out i will run a wire wheel over the floor to remove some of the crud.

I have also managed to get the engine running, not easy seeing as the car had two types of spark plugs ( two of which were faulty), HT leads that were knackered and a distributor that was incorrectly set in the engine block, The coil was also knackered the rotor arm had also been tweaked. A new set of leads, plugs, coil from the spit and cleaned point had the car running. Albeit badly, there is an air leak in the the inlet system oh and clouds of blue smoke from the exhaust ! Bugger that put the idea of getting the car back on the road next summer. Plan B i think.

The air leak i think comes from the rubber hoses to the brake servos, havn't checked this yet but might be the reason the servos don't work . The blue smoke comes from either or both the valve stem seals and work piston rings. Both of which require major work on the engine.

So the new plan is to go straight into a full on resto and engine build. The major repairs to the body will be completed first the new injection system will probably be next. This is only because i dont want to do the initial tune to the injection system with a rebuilt engine. I at the very least will need the fuel and spark maps to run the engine with no load up to 2000RPM. This is because i need this to break in the new engine after the rebuild.

bmw 2002 boot repair part 1

I have started work on the worst area of the car, that is the boot. I decided to run a wire wheel over the boot area. The results found a huge amount of seam sealer and newspaper filler. In the process finding that the boot is from another car and has large gaps filled with seam sealer. So it was no surprised that boot came out fairly quickly. The pictures below show that the outer panels are largely rust free and can be reused.

The picture below show the start of repair panel for this area, the spare wheel well is in the process of being cleaned so that it can be welded into the new panel.

Once this side is welded in place i will repair the other side. Then i can start on the other areas like the wheel well to boot floor repair panel and both lower quarters to the rear panel. the latter have been welded badly and will need to to redone. The next repairs will be the upper boot floor panel, which should be straight forward. Then onto the pig of a job which is the wheel well itself. In the process if doing these repairs i noticed that the rear parcel shelf is rusted out and the outside panel is in the same state. Another pig of a job to do right. I will however cut and flange 6x9 speaker holes in the parcel shelf when the window is out so i have some where to fit speakers without cutting trim panels about.

The repairs should speed up when the spitfire is safely in it's temporary home in Weymouth, at the moment dragging a dead car in and out of the garage is a pain. This will happen next weekend. Also some of the car bits will be put up in the garage loft, i have started this but need to finish. I have some new waterbased underbody stonechip to try out as well, busy then.

The waterleaks that fill up the footwells is not the fault of the sunroof, the water is dripping down the bulkhead from behind the dashboard. at some point i will remove it to find out if it's the windscreen or another spot.