Today was a rare day off properly for me so I determined to get the Princess sorted enough to drive it home. Was a bit delayed by it being a bit of a scorcher and I didn't really want to be welding in the height of the heat today. The short version is this.
20180507-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr
It's not finished yet, there's still stuff to do, I just ran out of time and after having the driver's door put up a monumental fight for an hour and fall on me twice (remember, last time I did this it was easy peasy and almost a joy to do), I just didn't have the energy to do any more. By 9pm I was heading home after about five hours work and goodness knows how many pints of water to stay hydrated, satisfied that things were good enough. I didn't take many pictures of the progress because I just knuckled down and got on with it so I can't show you the amount of work I did cleaning up, rust treating, painting, and undersealing the inside of the wing, nor the work done undersealing the inner wing you can't get to once the outer is on. What I can show you is the extent of the repairs. It's not my finest work but the condition of the two wings I was working with made it very difficult to get a better finish, a skim of filler and you'll be none the wiser.
20180507-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr
20180507-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr
20180507-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr
At the moment the wing does sit too far forwards and the panel gap between the wing and the bonnet needs closing up a little. This is something I can do later since it's just slacking off fixings and pushing the wing about until it's where it needs to be. Then I can finish the paint and the lower front corner repairs. I also managed to straighten out the dent in the valance reasonably well so it lines up pretty well with the wing, I just need to finish tidying up the edges so I can secure it fully.
Then it was a case of cleaning off the windscreen, connecting the side repeater (which I left in the engine bay so I don't make a complete hash of the fresh paint on the wing) and driving home. Princess started absolutely no bother and drove home quite happily, it was a big sense of achievement to actually manage to do that, even if the wing isn't quite finished yet.
20180507-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr
20180507-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr
20180507-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr
It's not finished yet, there's still stuff to do, I just ran out of time and after having the driver's door put up a monumental fight for an hour and fall on me twice (remember, last time I did this it was easy peasy and almost a joy to do), I just didn't have the energy to do any more. By 9pm I was heading home after about five hours work and goodness knows how many pints of water to stay hydrated, satisfied that things were good enough. I didn't take many pictures of the progress because I just knuckled down and got on with it so I can't show you the amount of work I did cleaning up, rust treating, painting, and undersealing the inside of the wing, nor the work done undersealing the inner wing you can't get to once the outer is on. What I can show you is the extent of the repairs. It's not my finest work but the condition of the two wings I was working with made it very difficult to get a better finish, a skim of filler and you'll be none the wiser.
20180507-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr
20180507-03 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr
20180507-04 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr
At the moment the wing does sit too far forwards and the panel gap between the wing and the bonnet needs closing up a little. This is something I can do later since it's just slacking off fixings and pushing the wing about until it's where it needs to be. Then I can finish the paint and the lower front corner repairs. I also managed to straighten out the dent in the valance reasonably well so it lines up pretty well with the wing, I just need to finish tidying up the edges so I can secure it fully.
Then it was a case of cleaning off the windscreen, connecting the side repeater (which I left in the engine bay so I don't make a complete hash of the fresh paint on the wing) and driving home. Princess started absolutely no bother and drove home quite happily, it was a big sense of achievement to actually manage to do that, even if the wing isn't quite finished yet.
20180507-06 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr
20180507-05 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr