Done my bit for shite this weekend.

[HBR]

This aint the kinda thing I'd normally post on a forum but I thought you lot may like it, sorry there's no piccys, left the camera at work & though my phone has a camera it takes crap pictures & I dont know how to use it to put them on the computer!

 

I've been working for the cause this weekend, little sister has a Pug 205 & the screen got cracked from a stone kicked up on the motorway. I went to the scrappy last weekend & got a fresh screen for it. It's a fairly rusty along the top edge of the screen so glass out & the wire wheel in the grinder at it see how bad it is, it's buggered that's how bad it is, holes I can get my little finger in all over the 1/2" lip where it kicks up from the spot welded flange to the roof skin & pin holes all over the front edge of the roof for about 1" back, BUGGER!

So I could have filled it full of bodge (got a little tin of fibrofill sitting as it happens) but it cant be doing the structural integrity of the car much good & I like doing fabrication work plus she's in no hurry to change the car if she can help it. So off to the scrappy, find a 309* & I hack through the A pillars & from the sunroof hole to the door opening on each side & came back home with a lump of roof (nobody found this in the slightest bit strange).

I picked out all the spot welds & cut 2" from the front of the section I'd got, then joggled the back edge of it to go under the car's roof skin. Cut the rusty section out & let in my pre owned genuine Peugeot repair panel, done in 3 bits one at a time so the hole for the window couldn't get out shape. Plug welds every inch along the original flange & along my new joint then ground all the excess on the welds down. Out with the bodyfiller (yeah, filler being actually used as it's meant to be, to bring a sound repaired panel back to the right shape!), primered & topcoated in good old cellulose, all left to dry for a few hours & the fresh screen in.

Its taken most of the weekend & you can see something's been done but apart from the obviously fresh paint I'm fair pleased with the result, as it my sister. Faced with such a problem many would have just banged a screen in, filled it with bodge or scrapped the car. As I write it'll be on the M6 doing 70+, taking them the 300mile trip back south after a weekend visiting, a trip it does several times a year while a Civic just a couple of years old gets left at home. She's had the 205 for years, wants to see it past 200,000 & with 190,000+ on now I see no reason it cant do way more!

 

 

 

*the 309 is a touch wider but the profile of the flange is the same, gave me more metal to work with to do it in sections. Besides, it already had the screen taken out & the 205 I'd took the screen from was going the same way as hers.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Fantastic work HBR, thats the kind of unnoticed effort that I really can appreciate on a lump of shite. Any pics?

[DSdriver]

Hero

[M'coli]

Impressive stuff! Regarding photos, even camera phone pictures are better than none!

[eddyramrod]

Well done HBR, that's true recycling!

[jonny69]

It's amazing the things you'll rationally do on someone else's car that you probably wouldn't bother about on your own. If it was mine I'd have probably podged it up with P38 (or cheaper), but if it was a mate's I'd have done the job properly.

[HBR]

Thanks!

Yeah, suppose I should have taken you a few pics on the phone, but with a Cannon ixus to do the job I've never used it for anything much & have no idea how to connect it to the computer, prob pretty simple once learnt. Car is away back down south now so no piccys now, sorry!

Really the level of effort I put into the finish was overkill, the rest of the car though not too bad for rot is not brilliant, laquer peeling here & there, paint in general faded & a few dents too but if you're gonna go to the trouble of filling & painting it may as well look right! I did treat this area when the screen was out about 6 years ago & thought it'd be long gone before the rot came back but she's fairly keen on running it till it just aint practical to use anymore so this time I did it so it'll last.

[Pete-M]

Splendid behaviour.

 

More of this sort of thing!!!