Restoration Part 2

Boot Floor

The work below was carried out on 2 Thursday nights as due to administrative problems the 2nd Saturday session was brought forward a week and I was unable to attend.

I decided that the corrosion at the rear edge of the boot floor would be dealt with first on examination I found that the area around the subframe rear mountings had started to corrode. A patch had been welded on top of the corrosion on the right hand side. The corrosion also extended into the boot area at each side and into the rear panel. Kevin advised that I should try to keep some of the rear panel flange to act as alignment points when replacing the boot floor section. With this in mind the rear valance was carefully cut from the car. With the rear valance removed I could check the rear valance closing panels they were in need of replacement as they had rusted though. It was decided that a new valance would be bought together with the rear valance closing panels.

The remains of the rear valance was carefully ground away from the corners of the car leaving as much of the rear panel flange in place as possible. The next step was to start cutting away the rusted areas of the floor. This was done very carefully with an angle grinder. The floor was cut along the rear edge up to the boot lip removing about an inch. Luckily the rust had not taken hold near the spare wheel well so only the flat area of the rear boot floor needed replacement and the wheel well was left intact. The floor was removed right up to the wheel arches in each corner to a depth of about half the wheel arch.

The location of the fuel tank strap fastening bracket was recorded with a cardboard template and then the bracket was cut away from the surrounding rusted area and kept for cleaning up and later use. The rear valance closing plates were cut away next as they were restricting access to the area around the subframe rear mounting brackets. Once they were removed the area around the subframe mounting brackets was started on. It was found to be 3 layers thick. The bottom 2 layers would need removing leaving the mounting bracket in place.