C-Post Part 1

I won't be able to do any work in the garage for a week or so after today, so I popped into the garage this afternoon to have a go at the nearside rear C-post (or rear quarter panel). As stated previously, this bit of rot took me by surprise as I hadn't spotted it before. However, when playing with the angle grinder the extent of the rust soon became clear.

The first job was to cut out the rusty area, leaving just good metal. I used a combination of tin snips and a thin cutting disc in the grinder for this, plus drilled out the factory spot-welds with a zip-cutter. Once out, the metal was ground back to bright steel and then sprayed with zinc-rich weld-through primer.

Next, I made a repair panel from some scrap steel I had laying around the garage. It took a bit of fiddling to get it to fit, especially as I wanted to butt-weld it. Holes were punched along the bottom edge, ready for plug-welding to the top of the rear wing. Again, it was finished with weld-through primer.

Once the paint had dried (about 20 minutes later) the repair panel was tack welded in place, before being stitched in. It was important to move around the panel between each tack weld, working on opposite lengths to keep the heat build-up to a minimum.

The welds came out really well, with good penetration on the rear side. I decided not to plug-weld the bottom row of holes for now, as they would have to be taken out again should the rear wing need to be replaced later.

Finally, the welds were ground flush(ish) and the whole area sprayed in weld-through primer.

"C-post, arches wings and nose, wings and nose...."

I hadn't ventured into the garage for a while until today, mainly because I have been just too tired due to the demands of the day job. Having broken for the Easter break I spent the first few days just winding down and generally not being in the office. However, there is only so much On The Buses and Jeremy Kyle that you take without going insane, so today I was back.

Last time I was here I had filled and rubbed down the front wing wheel arches where I had spotted/plugged them during fitting. So, the first job today was to feel for highs/lows in the finish and apply more thin skims of filler. It is coming on well, although another application and rub down still showed some problem areas, so on went another skim yet again. The near-side inner arch lip still had a date with the grinder, to flatten the welds before the same treatment was applied.

Inner lip lightly skimmed.

Yet to be rubbed down with the d.a. sander.

While I was at it, I took some photos of the nose-cone panel to show you how I had to re profile both sides at the front. These areas have been filled and rubbed down quite a few times now and are looking good. Roger Williams, in his book How To Restore Triumph TR7, says that one should weld shut the front wing to nose-cone panel seam, and I did consider it. However I just couldn't do it as I was terrified of not being able to grind in the false seam accurately enough afterwards.

Lots of high-build primer...

...and both sides look good.

After that was all done, I got bored so started to fiddle. After fitting a lethal wire cup brush to the grinder, I set about stripping back the near-side rear wing to bare metal. Doing so is totally out of sequence, but I was sick of looking at its brown, rusty surface and wanted to know what was below. I am not sure what to make of what I found.

Isn't it sod's law? Sound metal but bent as a nine bob note.

Yuck.

The metal, once partially stripped of its powdery coating, is basically sound (hurrah), however if I didn't know better I would think the car has been rolled at some time in the past. Clearly this isn't the case but the wing is so out of shape that I have a real dilemma. I have a new factory fresh rear wing but was hoping not to have to fit it (being a pig of a job) in favour of patching up the existing one with the commercially available repair panels. However having stripped out the years old filler, it is clear that the car has had an accident previously, although of which type I cannot confirm. There is no one big dent, rather, just loads and loads of little ones. Perhaps it had a big dent which was pulled out, leaving what you see here? This is one for another post, another day.

As sometimes happens when sanding/grinding car bodywork when bored, I strayed into an untouched area - the "C-post", at least that's what I think it is called. I had felt quite smug because the aforementioned Mr Williams had in his book a photo of a "common rot area" in TR7s, namely this very area and I had spent the last 20 years or so thinking that mine were a perfect example of how wrong he was. Unfortunately he was right, once the grinder had done its job.

Damn tinworm.

I only attacked the near-side, but was amazed at how holed it was. Interestingly, having something new and unplanned to weld gave me a little buzz, especially as I could see it would be a fairly easy repair. More on this in later posts.

So, all in all quite a nice day for the old girl giving with the one hand and then taking away with the other.

I know this is a TR7 blog, but as I run it I reckon I can bend the rules a bit. So here are a couple of pics of Bessie's stablemates, the Bond Equipe 2L MK2 and Jaguar XJ-S 5.3 HE. The Bond was dragged out of the garage today and its thick coating of filler/rust/paint dust washed off.

Arty, eh?

Maybe this year the Bond will score an MOT.

 That's all folks.