1968 Viva HB Patina wagon. Sad news...

Mad! I love it. Are you keeping it stock engine wise?

Oh yeah- the Cheviot turbos! They are staying for sure!!! Very hard to find them in 4"pcd and they suit it so well!

I'm a big fan of any estate lately...I like this ones shape easily as much as the sedan...if not moreso...

keep at it...don't loose the faith!

JP

Lots of Win there

But in the Viva you may need to cut your legs off!

^ Yeah. Hmmmm. Bob marley, bunch of mates, beer, bbq, smokey smoke. Yep.

Righto- update time!

Ok so I have started cracking into this today. Hannah has left me for a few weeks for the lovely grey sky days of the UK summer. So while there is a gap between jobs coming in and my meals simply consist of toast, cheese on toast, cheese on toast with salami (my favourite, takes a bit more prep but worth it) or cereal this means I have ample time to chop out rust.

The aim of the game with this wagon is to get it safe and road legal as cheaply as possible with no effort at all to tart it up. (Mainly because I am broke and it would also be a crying shame to lose any of that patina that has been carefully encouraged by years of nurturing from previous owners.

I just want it to be a turn key hack wagon. I have spoken to my wof (MOT) man and warned him that one hellish eyesore of a manky old Viva wagon will be heading his way in the near future. I have told him I want to push the boundaries of what non structural rust I can get away with and be legal/safe. His cars have rust so he understands anyway :-)

Photo time now I have showered off a heap of rust dust and grinding dust. I'm pretty happy with how far I got today.

First off, a photo of some of the patina I would really like to keep. I would like to treat the rusty scrapes and surface rust with something that keeps the colour but stops it getting worse? All the rust neutralisers I know of turn the rust black which wont look so good. Ideas? Clear coating it is an option. It doesnt have to last for ages because after a while I'm sure I'll want to paint it but for at least first year or so would be good.



I was going to remove the windscreen to avoid getting grinding sparks marking the glass on the inside. But I didnt. Three reasons; the rubber will disintegrate and I don't want to fork out $100 for new stuff right now, the glass is scratched already so might as well wait till later when the car is insured and then has a random stone hit it...., I like the moss. It adds character.





I took on the worst area, the passenger floor and inner sill, which is also the area which dealt with first because it will put some strength back into the shell. The steel on these HB Vivas is actually quite good quality and quite thick. It certainly knocks cut off discs down quickly. I picked my way out to good steel and chopped away. First off this bit..





I am not really fussed about trying to piece this back together the way it was from the factory. If its strong and lasts I'm happy. But I want to keep things like the channels in the floor because it will leak and they do help let water out. Plus they keep the flat bits of steel from being wobbly. So I whipped up a jig the right size and hammered the channels into the steel..







Now the nasty bit. The inner sill was beyond patching. But I am very very lucky that the top of the sill is rust free and solid which meant I could happily chop out this lot and not have the door aperture move on me. Also helped by the fact that Vivas have nice substantial chassis rails too. Not that the inner sill, or what was left, was doing much. It pretty much fell out.



Next job was to cut out what I needed from the spare sill/floor pan I had been given. I think its about here that we should give a few seconds silence for the little Viva that sacrificed its life for this part. Not my choice- it was chopped up by a man in christchurch who insists that every Viva he kills makes his worth more. But at least I got something from it. The donor was pretty rusty.

Poor viva.



The piece I required was cut out..



Then heatgun and scrape the underseal off..



Followed by lots of chopping, measuring, trimming, measuring and finally in place ready to be welded. Which is about where I finished off today.



My bin of rust is filling up..



Tomorrow I'll weld that bit in place and start on the outer sill and sill ends. I'd love to put it up on the hoist to do that but then I think I would be risking things moving out of place. So I'll continue kneeling on my 5 layers of carpet off cuts and persevere.

I did my windowrubbers with the non-sticking backside brownish tape off the back of a roll double sided sticky tape. Slith that under the rubber and filled the holes with black silicone gasket sealant. Even made the non exsistend window seals , and they work excellent in keeping the water out.
And when your finished , you just pull the brown tape off and voila!

And on my autin ten hp saloon , i kept the rust at bay with an oily soaked rag. Really cheap option and always available. And when you are ready for paint , just wash the oil off.

Good idea on oil too. Although does the car get dirty? I could see the oil picking up dust etc.

Ive got Hannah bringing me back a windscreen seal for Viva one. Sadly she is limited on weight allowance so cant get too much :-( I know a couple of local friends who have old Vivas and lots of parts so hopefully I should be OK. Those parts you have linked to are off an HC Viva.

Good start !