Other Body Work
Fortunately, there is not a lot of "other body work" to be done so I expect this
chapter to be relatively short. The boot lid with its apron and the bonnet were big enough
projects to get their own chapters, here and
here. There will be some others but the biggest for
this chapter, I hope anyway, will be this left front wing. When I got the car, there was a
long split in the lower front outer section that I welded back together but did not finish.
Here I have sanded away the old layers of paint, best I could with 80 grit D/A. From the metal out, there was the red primer and the factory original tan top coat. That was followed by a thin green coat that was probably a sealer of some kind then black. That was the condition when I got the car. I added a layer of brown rattle can after initial body work and we drove it for years. Finally, in order to get it insured by Hagerty, I covered everything with a quick layer of red primer again. It is hard to see the difference between that last primer and the brown under it.
With the paint mostly removed, the quickly repaired split is pretty obvious. The little areas
where the paint was not removed are dimples caused by related damage that was not properly
repaired. So I removed the wheel and started trying to finish the repair. After grinding the
weld reasonably flat, several holes appeared. After finally getting those corrected, I think
I will leave some of the weld seam on the back rather than try to get it perfect. Some of the
metal close to the split seems a little rotten. Anyway, here it is with the outer part of the
weld smooth enough and no holes. The biggest challenge was the bead inner wire was broken at
the split also, leaving a sharp angle. That angle can be seen in the photo above. I was able to
pull the bead outboard of the split with one hand to get the angle aligned properly then weld
the wire and skin with the other. Nice to have a MIG that can be used with one hand. The left
photo shows it at that stage with still some grinding and dimple flattening to do.
After sleeping on it, I decided the welded area was too worn or thin and decided to braze over the whole area to add a little thickness and strength. I did grind the brass enough to be able to cover it with metal filled bondo. On the back side, I ground a little, leaving a bit of it still built up. The right photo shows the braze after initial grinding and sanding. It also shows the area considerably smoother than before. The remaining wrinkles at the outer edge will not flatten. I suspect they are actually weld deposit. That whole section has been seriously over worked at some time. I remember welding that old crack many years ago but I don't think I did any of the other repairs.
After removing all the paint from the outside, I finally removed the wing to strip the inside. The
side light retaining nut refused to move but the torch made quick work of that. Stripping the
underside was pretty straight forward except for the louvers. I sand blasted the side light but
sanded the head light shell. The more complicated feature was that piece missing where the bumper
iron exits. Fortunately, the other side is intact showing what it should look like. I found a piece
of scrap steel and began trying to form the perimeter bead, a somewhat difficult task not having
the proper tools. Rolling 20 gauge steel around a 3/16 drill bit is tedious at best. These photos
show the before and after. The patch bead is not perfect but it will be somewhat obscured by the
bumper iron and its grommet when finished.
Next, I removed the right rear wing to work on a fairly large deep dent near the bottom-back. The
dent is pretty smooth but the problem is the brace right behind it. I guess that's why the PO just
filled it with bondo. At least that was my initial appraisal. It actually turned out that the whole
section below that point had been pretty badly beat up at some point. Rather than take the time to
straighten most of it, someone had just filled all the dents and creases with lead. It seemed to
have been well done and had lasted at least the sixty years I have owned the car so I elected to
leave as much as possible. There was some welding of cracks in the rolled outer edge, including
the bottom-back. This resulted in some melted lead that had to be repaired with filler. After
straightening as much as I could, I elected to cover the worst section with metal filled bondo.
Here it is with the filler and back on the car for sanding. Most of the filler did sand off as in
the second photo.
With that major metal work done, I shot a couple of coats of epoxy and put them back on the car for
a stable platform for finishing. The off side front had been fairly well done for that show in 1998
and required mostly a little filler. The near side was another story. It had been pretty badly beat
up in the past. I found one spot that appeared to be work-hardened as I really could not move it.
Then I found another area that was so soft that it was unstable. It required more filler than I would
have liked. In fact, I ended up with a skim coat over almost the entire wing. The rears were a lot
less effort to get ready, just a little hammer then filler here-and-there. After finally passing the
guide coat test, I took them back off and shot another couple coats of epoxy then stored them until
I am ready for the high build primer. The left photo is just before that final epoxy and the right is
just after.
Now I will eventually get back to whatever other body work remains.
A couple of months later, I did get another break on the Sprite project so I removed the rear doors
and stripped the old paint by sanding with 180 grit D/A mostly then a polycarbide disk on an air die
grinder for the spots the D/A couldn't reach. The layers I could count were the original tan with a
red primer under it. Both these were pretty hard to remove. That was covered with a quite thin coat
of something light green, probably just a sealer. Next was the black that was on the car when I got
it. It was easier to remove. Over that was the brown spray can paint that I put on it to cover up
various body repairs. I don't know why I chose brown instead of black since I never liked brown
cars anyway. Next was the red primer I added over the whole thing just to get it insured initially.
For the most part, it was hard to distinguish that red primer from the brown under it. This time, I
didn't try to do any metal work because they both are in pretty good condition and I ran out of time.
Cold weather is rapidly coming, at least too cold to paint, and our shop heater currently is out of
order. The left one has a little dimpled spot in the bottom-rear corner and the right one has a shallow
4 inch crease a few inches below the belt line. I can probably straighten both a bit before any filler.
A month or so later, I decreed the Sprite to be finished for the winter and returned to the Prefect. I removed and stripped the front doors, the same as the rears. So far it has been too cold to paint but our heater is now working again. Maybe soon. So, while waiting for a couple of warmer days, I removed the bonnet and returned to work on it, shown here. And, we finally got a break in the cold weather. It got warm enough for a few days that our heater was able the get the shop temperature above 70 degrees. I got three coats of epoxy on the front doors and hung them back on the car for sage keeping. I will return to them later for some very minor body work. For now I am still working on the bonnet. Here they are, back on the car. The third photo shows the wings safely stored inside, waiting for later high build primer then paint.
With the bonnet repair finished, I removed the grille
and both aprons for similar treatment. The near side apron had to be stripped to metal and it needed
a slight shrinkage above the louvers. The off side panel, along with its wing, had been stripped and
epoxy primed in 1998 for the last All British Car Show.
But I wanted the whole body to have the same color under the final paint so all I had to do with it
was scuff it a little so the light gray epoxy would stick better. It also needed the brace in the
center of its louvers rewelded to the panel. Both of them needed some welding where they had been torn
at the top edge. The slam panel and another piece related to the grille were also already in dark epoxy
and just had to be scuffed.
The grille is actually in pretty good condition except for its bullnose and the bottom pan which are
both pretty beat up as you can see in the photos. It took about an hour but I finally managed to
remove the rusted fasteners from the five studs that held it on. Actually, they finally disintegrated
after sufficient effort. The pan does not remove. I found a body hammer head that could serve as a
punch to get the worst of the dents and bends out then made a burnishing tool from an old screw driver
to work on what was left from the back side. It is far from perfect but I think I can live with it now.
These seem to be stamped, thin aluminum. Originally, I thought they were chrome plated brass but now
aluminum seems right. I'm not sure how they were finished but they seem to polish acceptably. Another
hour plus with a thread cutting die cleaned the studs so that new 8-32 nuts will hold it back in its
proper place. The pan just may have to be bondo filled and painted.
Well, I sanded a little on the back side to see if it is brass or aluminum and sure enough, I found brass. That means I can't polish too deeply without cutting through the plating. I can get the larger dents out but the wrinkles and scratches cannot be done. After a few days working on it, this photo is the final result. The main grille looks pretty good. The bullnose is as good as I can get it. The bottom pan is below the bumper. For now, I think I will just leave it as is. I can always fill and paint the pan later if it just looks too bad. I had considered having the plater just reverse the chrome, let me polish the nickle as much as I think necessary, then have it rechromed. That may still be an option too. We'll see how it looks against the front bumper that has to be replated.
And I finally got another weather break when nothing else conflicted with getting all the remaining
pieces into the paint booth and getting some epoxy on them before they rust away. I did have to squeeze
it in between doctors, dentists and physical therapists. These are the last pieces that actually remove
from the car, the bonnet and its side aprons (two pieces each), the slam panel and another apron that
fits between the bottom of the grille and the body as a stabilizer. The only thing left to strip now
is the actual body and there just isn't much of that. The photo here if of the paint booth layout after
the tent was lifted. There isn't much point in showing the other items in primer.