1953 Jowett Jupiter - Grumpy Northeners Farewell

Its just a combination of many things - firstly although a good solid & well built car the quality levels were million miles away from that of todays standards - bodge / make do repairs made in an era when it was more important to get your car through its annual MOT than the quality of the door fit & aperture gapping's - body sag / poor alignment created through weak & perished body mountings are all contributory factors to the fact that panels don't fit that well - if you throw my OCD status in for good measure and the fact regardless of what my clients quality tolerances are - nothing is leaving the workshop until I'm happy with it - to a great extent I make a rod for my own back but it's something that I'm more than happy to live with

Sills prepped with weld through primer where required - I had gone over the surface areas that were to be welded with the flapwheel on the grinder - the panels are formed from zinctec sheet and it just helps with the welding if you remove the zinctec surface finish first



Likewise I prepped the areas on the bulkhead where the sill contacts



Then the sills could go back on



Front section sits within the A post box



Rear section picks up on the rear support tube



Along with the mid body mount and the mid cross rail



Then a repeat exercise on the offside



Checked the door fit to the apertures & lock striker plates



Repeated for the nearside



Time to exhume the rear shroud skin from the store



This is the largest panel on the car



Its covered in some type of a sticky cavity protection wax on the underside



Before I ended up getting covered in it I scraped it all off and washed it down with panel wipe



There's still evidence of the fibreglass resin daubed on it from when a previous owner decided to encase the rotten inner rear wings / splash panels in fibreglass - I will clean this up when the panel comes back off the body



The quarter panels that bridge the gap between the B post & the rear wing are in a poor condition



They have seen previous poor repairs



And they are perforated with oxide / dissimilar metals corrosion



I will be making up new quarter panels to replace these



More fibreglass bridging up former non original lamp apertures - these will patch repaired with fresh alloy



Trial fit of the rear shroud panel to the rear superstructure



Its quite a tight fit and it tends to pull the B posts back and open up the aperture gapping



Which is why it's so important to trial it at this stage - then any modifications / adjustments can be made with the body mountings to address the gapping's



The markings are what I draw up from when I first assessed the panel



All the marked areas require work when the panel gets removed from the car - its next to impossible to access the vast majority of these areas with the panel fitted to the car

More on Monday

He drinks gin, so a slice of lime would probably be more accurate?

Mmm gimlet..

Have you been moonlighting down the hospital again? Looks like you have been using this to calibrate the cardiologist’s machine that goes,”ping” 🤣🤣

At first I thought the F holes were for a luggage rack, then noticed there's a set of L holes with similar spacing so I wonder if instead these are to do with fixing the shroud down to the super structure? I can't imagine there's a lot of luggage space in a Jupiter, what with that rear bodywork basically being full of car.

You're correct they are for a chrome luggage rack - the set marked L are being left whilst the set marked F are from a previous owners fitting and are being deleted / filled - there is a hidden luggage enclosure box behind the seat



Its quite deep



It readily accommodates a couple of mid sized suitcases

First job today was just to set out the door gapping between the rear shroud quarters / door



Its achieved by a combination of adjusting the panel fit / door fit / rear superstructure fit



Along with a factor of F&P (Faff & Patience)



These are going to close up as the structure of the car comes together and gets welded up - hence I would rather leave the gaps slightly wider at this stage



You just have to keep working at it until you achieve a near enough result but it all takes time



Alter & adjusting to correct one area can very easily throw the tolerance that was perfect elsewhere into disarray



But eventually I arrived at a point where I had to fix the structure in order to progress further - the skin does not come into contact with the framework except in the mounting / fastening point areas - originally the factory placed a felt between the frame and the skin - I find that 13mm foam pipe insulation works more effectively



The skin is fastened largely by pop rivets to the B posts



Rivets again on the hood rail



And countersunk machine screws around the spare wheel aperture but for now the panel will remain loose - I'm just using it has a guide for the aperture gapping



The joining of the front & rear structures could now go ahead - I tacked both sides together then returned to the offside to undertake the structural welding



B post & mid rail welded in



I kept checking the door gap throughout the process



Now you can see why the rearward section of the sill has to be tapered



The support tube needs connection to the inner sill



Easily done



Having restored several Jupiter's previously but this is the first one that I have undertaken since purchasing the mid rise lift 18 months ago - and wow what a difference it makes in being able to access the work areas at this stage



Next job is to bring the nearside up to the same point that I have completed the offside to today

More tomorrow

grumpy
I was wondering why there was such a taper on the rear of the sills. Regarding using pipe insulation versus felt, is it just easier to place or any other reason??

Glen is spot on here - The factory used what was available at the time of production - there is not really much opportunity for water ingress or splash in this area
but felt rots out & the adhesive lest go over time then you get the odd point of contact which will sound like a drum on panel of that size - the pipe insulation retains its self and does not rot either so its perfect for this job