1965/67 Imp pick-up (O/S/R wing off and making a wheelarch)

Ok. So after losing way to much sleep over this I think I decided last night to weld things in so the inner-sill and outrigger are matched which will then mean the centre-sill will go on straight and I can worry about the outrigger-to-bin joint another day.

I may actually move over to the other side of the car now and see what I can learn there (taking more measurements before I start) then come back to this side in a few weeks.

As a bit of respite from the body i thought I better get back to the engine. The plan was, after all, the get that running and on a trailer then take it back to from where I bought the Imp and hopefully glean a little more info from folks who were connected with it.

What's stopping me from doing so? Well the starter was never finished. I had the end-float issue, the cracked nylon terminal-post insulator issue and the loose tape on the windings issue.

I've actually found a couple of sources for the plastic/nylon insulator but it's about £15 after P&P which seems a bit much when I could probably get away with just gluing it back together.

I saw a NOS 'sundries' kit for Lucas starters on Ebay and hoped the thing might be in there along with shims/washers for the end-float.

The kit seems to have loads of bit in it that are definitely not on my (M35G) starter but the Lucas catalogue I got recently confirms this is the correct sundry kit for my starter so for £5 (plus £6 P&P) I thought it would be worth a try.

Anyway the kit arrived and there is no plastic bit in it but there are loads of washers.

Today (I cba dismantling the starter to compare the washers) but I did have the old armature to hand and tried all the washers on both ends to see what looked/felt right.

There were only 2 possibilities for one end but the other had several with same ID but varying ODs. I don't think they are .'. all for this application.

When I go to glue the insulator together (or splash-out on a new one) I'll be able to compare the possible candidates in the kit with the originals



what's in the NOS Lucas box


it's one kit of sundries


other end tells you the same but has another number


side



everything seemed to be so organised in the old days


a lot of stuff in the box



apart from the CSK Philips screws nothing looks familiar



found 2 washers/shims that may be for this end of armature


and several possibles for the other end



panels coming together fine at O/S sill rear-end



hope to use this on the sills



don't know where these gaps came from


doesn't really look like it belongs on this car but is identical to original

So. I got started on forensics on the half-Imp last night

I'm basically scraping off everything that isn't original to see what condition the wing is in before I remove it.

I'm removing it to get in at the wheel-tub and also as a practise-run for taking the same part off the pick-up as I want to cut it at the trim-line and haven't done that before.

I took the full rear wing off this half-shell years ago which was fine but as I don't want to disturb the special pick-up parts of my shell and the top of the wing is hidden by that I want to cut right along where the stainless-steel trim goes and am not sure where is best to cut it at the front/B-pillar.

The LHS wing had had a replacement arch brazed to it so I expected this one to be the same but it seems it's all original.

This is a bit of a bummer as I currently have 1 arch-repair panel and it's for the RHS. Would have been much better if it was for the LHS.

So, back to the scraping. As well as the various patches of random colours on the wing, from when I was testing my spray-gun fan, it seems to have been re-painted in its original Loch Blue twice.

But most none of the original blue remains where someone it way prior to a heavy filler-job with yellow primer on top.

Strange as this featured on the Loch Blue spare bonnet I have and they weren't from same car.

Anyway. Underneath it all is the original arch which is a bit corroded and dented. The car also had new sills on it at some time so the filler will have been used to blend that into the bottom of the wing. I have not yet uncovered this tho.



removing the door striker as I may be cutting here



top of wing is original paint




removing filler and newer paint



confusing here as we seem to have Rootes style red primer over Rootes Loch Blue top-coat



no repair panel under the filler

So I've spent (wasted?) the last few days Imp-work on scraping the blue rear-wings, trying to get them back to am reaming original paint and shedding all the layers of re-spray and filler.

I did this successfully on the original panels but it didn't really work out here for a few reasons.

It all got a bit confusing as the re-spray(s) had been done with red oxide primer under them (as per Rootes original) but then you'd find another coat of blue under that - or bare metal. This was the case particularly on the O/S/R wing which still has its original arch but has had major repairs to the front area. The new metal obviously only had new paint on it so when I was scraping that I was down to bare metal.

I decided to chuck it when working on the N/S one, which has a new arch but no big repairs, when I reached another layer of re-spray that had gray primer on it which is stuck fast to the original and won't polish of.

So the next thing to do was get back to one of my recent plans and get the O/S wing cut off at the trim-line so I can see if that's a good tactic for doing it on the actual project 'car'.

It also means I can get in at both wheel-tubs on the half-Imp to remove them fro transplanting into the pick-up.

One of the reasons I have been cleaning-up the spare wings is to see how I get on repairing them before doing the dame on the originals. I priced 2 repair panels for one wing and (after VAT and P&P) it was £343.79

This makes it even more attractive to try to repair what I have but there's not much left for a guide on any of the four wings

I have a guy on Facebook wo has the N/S front lower patch-panel to sell me but he's having trouble finding it. Told him I'd pay £70 if he finds it which is a bit more than the £30 he wanted for it a while back.

Anyway. Back to the cutting. I had a look at my (Mk1 De-Luxe) trims and they sit above the crease on the wing slightly so I thought if I cut a bit above the cease the welds will be hidden by the trim when it's all back together.

I started the cut with a thin disc on the angle grinder but then changed to a hacksaw blade as I thought I'd get a more accurate/thinner cut and it went ok.

I've also started drilling the spot-welds out at the rear lights, the B-pillar and where the outer and inner arches meet but I know from experience that they never come away easily as you always end up missing spots of drilling into an indentation that is beside the weld and then you and up with holes all over the place and a twisted/ripped flange (ooh err missus) so I'm going to take my time on that part.



more scraping on the O/S wing. layers are confusing



front of O/S wing has had huge part of bottom replaced (badly)




dug out N/S/R wing removed from half-Imp many years ago


it has had a new arch


lots of filler at arch-repair


getting back to original on top of exhumed wing


more involved on lower side of that wing


half-Imp was a Super with wider trim, lower down wing. looks to have been resprayed with trims removed



lots of filler etc on exhumed wing


not much to go on here for pattern for repair-panel


lots of layers at rear lights




thought that under the red primer would be the original paint


under the red found more layers that were too tough to shift


drilling out spots at rear light apertures


cutting O/S wing off half-Imp at trim-line



did most of it by hand

Well this is taking longer than I expected but I guess being interrupted by work and sub-zero temps are an almost valid excuse.

Whatever the case I got back on it this afternoon and after the inevitable false-spots & untraceable spots were dealt with I got the leading-edge of the wing free without too much carnage to the flange.

Where the sill-repairs met the floor/arch etc I ended up making more random cuts as it seems that parts of the repairs were welded further in - to the top of the original sill perhaps.

Once the leading-edge and front-bottom of the wing were flapping free I moved to the arch.

For years (decades even) I've envisaged separating the spots on inner & outer arches thinking it couldn't be done as the arches are invariably the rustiest bit on a car and there would be no strength in the metal to centre-punch the spots and/or force the drill against.

Well. As said earlier this arch isn't bad considering the nick of the bottom of the wing and I did drill a lot of spots on it last week but I thought there would be no chance of separating the flanges easily and it was dark & freezing so I was ready to give up and go home to listen to the Champions League.

I persevered however and started making some real progress. As usual the spots were putting up a good fight but I found that instead of drilling even more holes I could tickle away any tricky bits with a burr in the Dremel.

I got to the halfway mark before binning it to head home and listen to the (Celtic Club Brugge) game but it's definitely a mojo-boost as I'll get the wing off at next visit and can start repairing the inner-wheelarch. Which will also act as a guide to the shape of the mostly-missing inner flange on the other side.



sliding hacksaw blade between flanges to see if there are spots in the way


finally some movement at swage-line on B-post


using Dremel to deal with missed spots


wheelarch flanges starting to separate