mk1 Fiesta pipe up

a bit pic heavy
lots of wire wheeling and use of Bilt hamber products i was not impressed with the amount of filler found in the battery tray area, strut top has been repaired, i have repaired the inner wing removing a body shop bodge at the same time

You’re doing a great job there.

It's a real shame the work wasn't done correctly first time round, but it looks like you're sorting it the right way! And at least with doing the work yourself, you know there's not been any corners cut!

I appreciate that its frustrating to find these issues after you had sent the car for restoration - I'm a professional vehicle restorer and its difficult to comment on the work that you had done without understanding what instructions & budget that you gave repairer / restorer - but the spacing of spotwelds & lack of them more or less pigeon hole the quality level that the restorer / bodyshop operates upon or should that be better phrased has 'lack of quality level' - there is a lot that can be covered up with shiny paint - hindsight is wonderful thing but I now advise all my clients that are going to this extent with a restoration to get the shell dipped - take it back to bare metal to establish the starting point - its the most economical way and a route that both the owner & restorer can guarantee that all rust ingress / rust perforation issues have been resolved




Here is a recent pic of a XR3 shell that has been dipped by 'Envirostrip' (not one of my projects) - its minging with rust perforation but at least you know where you stand with it

deox gel is great stuff the only thing is you have to be patient with it works slowly but it is effective

haven't updated here in a long time most of my free time and good weather was spent working on the daily. how ever progress is progress, a brief summary of what i have been up to the battery tray is on there was some surface rust showing where the inner wing meets the crossmember, i removed the small strengthening plate more rust found the rust was removed with Bilt hamber deox gel, the lower part of the crossmember only had one bead of weld holding it to the lower inner wing! i changed that for 4 plug welds ,then it was painted with Bilt hamber etch weld. after that i replaced the small strengthening plate with one i liberated from my old xr2 which should improve the crossmember to inner wing strength now that is all done there is no more rust or welding to do on the drivers side which is a great feeling

Just google intergrip welding clamps.

Cheers, I'll get looking on ebay!

Tidy