By
philibusmo
HI GUYS, WHATS UP?
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After a year of very little vehicular tinkering, mostly due to lack of time and monies, I am just as broke but back fettling festering fucking heaps.
If you've been here long enough to remember 'bump for a real thread', why the best Peugeot 405s have 20p stuck in the handbrake or the significance behind D701 SWL then you may remember me from such hits as welding up a chronically rotten Lancia Y10
or pouring LHM all over the local area in an incontinent XM
AND MUCH MUCH MORE
Between then and now I have been mostly quiet on here but have still been working on multiple cars in New Zealand which mostly made the scrap in the UK look showroom fresh, there's some good stories in that lot that I'll try and type up for your unenjoyment frm time to time if I'm running out of actual new content again.
But onto the latest tat faffing:
In 2009 an 83 Ford Fiesta with no MOT and a fair bit of rot around the edges turned up on the driveway of my great aunty. It was a bit grotty around the edges and the old lady who owned it had given up driving so it was just sat there waiting to be taken away an cubed. Being 17 and desperate for wheels, I spotted it and persuaded my Dad that we could take it on and fix it up, which we did and got it through an MOT.
A year went by where the holes in the wings got filled with expanding builders foam and filler, the steels were replaced with RS 4 spokes from a SuperSport and the chunky bumpers were swapped out with earlier chrome ones. While it was slowly being improved I knew it needed more substantial work and over the year I got hold of a genuine pair of front wings and a pattern front panel, then in March 2011 I taugt myself how to weld, on the few holes in the boot floor before moving to tackling the very sad inner front wings and front panel. After a respray, I hurriedly chucked it all back together in 2 days and drove it to Glasgow for the annual Mk1 Fiesta meet at Loch Lomand.
Its looked really rather snazzy
That was 9 years ago now though. For a couple of years I tried to buy other cars to use through winter and keep it nice, but a combination of the Fiesta being amazingly good in snow and the general unreliability of my winter beaters meant that this got used in all weathers. Then I left for four years and it was left at the back of my parents drive. Time has not been kind, rust has been bubbling through on the seams on the front and rear panels, on the wings and the scuttle for some time. On coming back, I used it for a few months through last spring and from a distance it looked grand, but up close you could see it had been a bit neglected. I ended up getting a Ford Puma and the Fiesta sat languishing at the back of the drive again for a good 6 months or so while I tried to find the time to fix it, then lock down occurred!
I started on the back, no photos of what it looked like before I started but it really wasn't pretty. Holes on either side of the boot floor, a big old hole on the passenger side of the rear panel and a very scruffy edge to the drivers side where it meets the rear quarter. After scrubbing back all the rust, trating the surface rust and welding in new metal, it looked like this after a first smear of filler.
With a bit more work and some paint, it now looks like this. I've run out of paint and am struggling to get hold of any decent Ford 'Ocean Blue' at the moment but I'll get some more layers on as soon as I can.
The corners of the boot floor have also had a tickle with the MIG:
The seam behind the boot latch, under the boot seal had also rotted out, so that's also been ground out and new metal let in. I haven't got too prissy with the filler and how this edge looks, seeing as it will be hidden.
On the original restoration I did have the good idea to make the wings bolt on as they were originally held on with spot welds and I wanted to be able to get behind them to clean out and rust proof behind. Obviously these good intentions never came to anything and they've not moved until I pulled them off about 2 weeks ago. The passenger side needed a bit of complicated work close to the leading edge of the door. leading into the inner arch and floor pan. No before pictures but it looks alright all welded up and covered in seam sealer, red oxide and Hammerite. I've got some proper Dinitrol stone chip stuff on the way which I'll spray around under here to try and protect it a bit better than it was before.
The drivers side is probably a bit worse, a hole in an awkward spot at the bottom behind the wheel , a hole below the scuttle drain and a big old load of rust all around a box section that runs across the back of the inner wheel arch.
Today I managed to weld up the majority of this mess There is no longer a big hole in the floor and the bit below the scuttle drain is solid. Just the outer edge down next to the door and the outside rectangle on the box section to fix up. Probably an afternoons work if you exclude waiting for paint to dry. I need to make a decision on if I try and find the spot welds for the front panel and take it off to de-rust it properly. It looks a bit nasty on the front edge, but behind, my cheap seam sealer and hammerite has cracked, letting water into the joints between the panel and the inner wings and cross member. I don't really want to take it off as it's going to be a bastard to line all the panels up again but it might be for the best in the long run unless there is some fantastic (probably Bilt Hamber) product that can creep into the joints and fuck up the rust.
There's also this spot under the windscreen on the scuttle panel which I'm dreading, if only because the screen will need to come out which will almost certainly mean it will break and then it will start raining.
I'll make some decision on this tomorrow. I've got some time on my hands because tomorrow the Fiesta will have to wait because it's chod collection time!
To be continued.
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