1984 Rover SD1 2600S

Yeah, that's how I found it. I was taking the trailing arm off to replace the bushes and found a few of those 'surface rust bubbles' you hear about on ebay.




So I started poking it...



It looks pretty complicated... lots of overlapping panels.







Those stainless screws for the wheelarches have done no damage you'll be glad to hear

Yep! It was a bit of a surprise when I found it! Some more here...

A little bit of progress this week. Going from this:



to this:



drilling out the spot welds and cutting the new panel to size:



Compare old and new!





...and finally stick it in place:

A little update, I've had a busy end quarter to the year so not much progress has been made. I also thought I'd somehow got out of the photobucket debacle but it turned out they just took a while to get around to me, so they're dragged and dropped (what a feature!) onto the RR server now.

I rather roughly stuck some floor back in.


Found the bottom of the B pillar rotted through, so I stuck in a bit of bracing and cut it out. I don't know if it needed bracing but there didn't look like there was much metal left between the B and C pillar.






Chased the rust, I've found the end of it now. It made it all the way from the middle of the rear wheelarch to about a foot past the B pillar.


Made a little bench for bending metal, much easier to use than a loose vice sat on the parts washer (scrap dishwasher).


I started noticing cat hairs on the parcel shelf... I guess the neighbours cat has been sneaking in through the holes in the floor. Luckily it didn't smell of cat pee but I'm not taking chances.

Cheers Jim, and thanks for all the pictures on your thread. It's really useful to know what the layers of folded rust should look like.

I started tracing out onto the inner sill panel...


...and cut it out


I got the rest of the floor glued in clamped the inner sill panel in place.


Somehow I managed to cut a bit too much off than panel so I'll need to take it off again. It lines up with my new floor sections though, I was a bit worried about that!

This is the space I'm working in btw... I'd like to move but I've couldn't show anyone around my place with all these broken cars lying around.


Also the sooner I get it fixed, the sooner I can get this out (to get it fixed by a pro):


Which will then mean I can get this out (after putting the suspension back together):


Which will then mean I can get this out (which last saw daylight in 2013. Wow was my garage ever that tidy and not full of engines/gearboxes??):

A Vitesse, its in really good nick but the rubber fuel lines were cracked on the injectors. Naturally that meant I took the engine out and it's been 5 years now. Sadly I've never actually driven it, it was delivered on a beaver tail and when I put a battery on it petrol poured out everywhere!

It's a Rover 75 V8, with the autobox. It's the autobox that's playing up, it might turn out to be a decent car when I get it fixed!

I loved your rover so much Ive made one myself with a few tweaks of my own
Your not covered by copyright are you😬😂

Bit of a treat I'm afraid I'm down in essex