Autopendium :: stuff about old cars

Well it had to happen. Finally we uncovered some fairly nasty structural rust, and it could have been very nasty.

Got a call on Thursday from Lance, saying I ought to head over there. They'd found some probs in one of the two box sections that runs from the front to rear of the car and forms a semi-chassis (the Amazon's a monocoque, of course, so doesn't have a separate chassis, but the crossmembers, which were also in bad shape, are welded to these box sections and together they provide much of the strength). Not pretty, he warned, and the car could have buckled in a front-on shunt.

So I headed over there straight away, and found that the box-section was rotten just forward of the crossmember, but had been plated (badly) over, then plated again, so it couldn't be seen. The second of the two photos actually shows the bits of crap left behind when the first plate was done, including a fair amount of MIG welding wire.

Still, better to have found it, and it was fairly easy to make up a replacement box section.

After that, I spent the rest of the afternoon there, helping out -- manly chipping off the stone guard layer from the lower inner front wing, and helping Lance beat out the welds out of the nearside front wing where the hole for the indicator was (OK, so all I did was heat the welds while he beat them out, but the finished result was good).

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