Rear Lamp Panel - Part 1

Welcome folks to my first post-snow post, if that makes sense. The weather wasn't very pleasant today but at least it was not too cold so I popped into the garage to start my next job.

Actually, I haven't finished any of the other bodywork jobs yet, so when I have done all of the major welding I'll need to spend some time going over the whole lot...grinding down welds, filling etc. But today I wanted to work on the rear lamp panel.

The one on my car had a very big lump of filler right in the middle and loads of holes & rust along the bottom edge. I had my suspicions that all was not well with it. Speke-built cars should have a black rear lamp panel and mine was body colour. It hadn't been resprayed as there was no evidence of black underneath, so I began to wonder if it had been changed in the past.

A bit of scrutiny started to reveal a lot of silicone sealer where the panel meets the boot floor, under which was a combination of snotty MIG welds and what looked like brazing. There were also irregularities down there, as the boot floor edge/lip just looked wrong. It should step up and over the lower part of the panel, but it actually did all sorts of things not evident in any of the literature. I reckon my car has had a new lamp panel at some stage, perhaps following a shunt.

Anyway, a combination of spot-weld drilling, grinding and cutting with a Dremel (and why on earth are the consumables for these SO expensive???) I managed to remove the old panel. It came off with a satisfying "crack" and the car's booty was left bare.

Some would say my restoration is a bottomless pit.

Being rather short of time, I offered up the semi-stripped second-hand panel. I can't remember where I got it, but it is very solid and just needs to be stripped of remaining paint (Surface Processing Ltd have quoted me £100 to strip it and electro-phospho-something coat it. Sounds good to me.). It fitted ok, but confirmed that there were bits of boot floor lip missing in the previous repair. I'll have to make these.

Triumph Racing Green meets Triumph Inca Yellow.

So, I left the garage with a better rear lamp panel in place, ready to be fettled over the next few weeks then welded in. Wish me luck.