Isopon by the truckload, what to do?

[SvMinor]

I've stripped my car, started to sand off the paint and I've found filler by the bucket load, judging by the pic could this be left as is or would a replacement panel need to be fitted, this is only one side , I dread to think what the other side is like, (is there a replacement panel made for this repair)[frame][/frame]

[simmitc]

The repair panels are available. For example: http://morrisminorspares.co.uk/shop/ind ... 427fd2fb6d. You might be lucky and find that thye have already been fitted and that the filler is simply smoothing the surface. If the filler is covering holes then the best action is to fit the new panels, but a more pragmatic approach would be to see whether there is any rust - if the previous repairs were done well, then they could last for many years.

[MarkyB]

You need to look at the inside where the filler is to get an idea of what you are dealing with, it looks fairly OK from the picture. I was expecting lumps of filler attached to newspaper or chicken wire from the title of this post

[chickenjohn]

This could just be a light skim as required when a lower rear quarter panel is fitted, as said above remove the rear quarter inner trim panel and check for a seam indicating a repair panel has been fitted.

[stag36587]

I agree - I think it looks reasonable - at first sight anyway.

[DAVIDMCCULLOUGH]

Theres lots of minors will look like that without paint! Main thing as already said is that its not covering rusty holes. If you look from the inside of the panel you will see a join if a full quarter panel repair section has been fitted.

[SvMinor]

Thanks for the replies everyone, I've had a look on the inside and its not clear if a repair panel has previously been fitted,[frame][/frame] I've now removed all the wings, and I've found a bit of rot, its on the btm of the offside inner wing, and it goes beyond that further into the car,(I can get my index finger all way in) should I cut this out to see how bad it is behind and fit the smaller repair panel (not the whole inner wing)[frame][/frame] also on removal of both front wings, I found 2 pieces of garden hose(1 each side) fitted between the wing and the hinge pillar,(a bodge by last owner I think) is there a specific rubber part that fits here.[frame][/frame] Thanks for reading, any info gladly appreciated.

[SvMinor]

Another pic of a Bodge by previous owner,[frame][/frame] 1 other question, should the inner wing, and inside of both front and rear wings be painted same as the car or should under seal be used instead? Thanks again

[simmitc]

The factory would have painted the inside of the wings the same as the outside. Underseal would have been applied by the dealer as an optional extra, so which finish you want is up to you. One of our friends has long complained that he loses points in concours because of underseal, but his argument is that it was undersealed on the oringal invoice and so he keeps it 100% as first supplied. Your choice.

[DAVIDMCCULLOUGH]

The inside of the quarter panel looks pretty good, often that wee flange you can see in your is completely rotted away. The only way you will be sure is to remove some of the isopon and check. The bits that most often rots is the flat edge about 3/4' up from the edge as its just above the double skinned edge with the sill.

You will need to investigate the hole in the front, hopefully its just localised rust and not extending into the end of the sill. There should be a drain hole in the sill below this that often gets clogged up with muck and or underseal, check this is clear too.

There isnt a seal between the wing and hinge pillar, I would think it was there as a spacer to bring the wing out from the body a bit more to line up with the door. There should be a small square spacer on the bottom of the hinge pillar which is quite flimsy and usually rots off. Heres a link to ESM and a pic of the square bit I mean

http://morrisminorspares.co.uk/shop/pro ... 1b25b43f84

[don58van]

As regards the area around the base of the A pillar, I have recently repaired both sides of my 2-door saloon. It is a very complex area of the structure, where many sub-structures meet. In the case of this car, the underside panels and the back of the wheel arch had rusted through and the bottom of the A-pillar itself had been perforated. I found that to repair it properly, I needed to weld in about 7 new sections on each side. There was a lot of prep work to get back to clean, solid metal. I am probably a bit more obsessive than most, though.

I can provide some diagrams and photos if you think they will help.

Of course you could just weld in new metal to close the hole shown in your photo, but the rust damage is almost certainly more extensive.

Don

[SvMinor]

Thanks Don, pics would be great, I know there is rot further in past the inner wing, I can see and I felt inside the hole. I'm holding off buying repair panels for the minute, because I want to get the wings, doors, boot, bonnet etc sandblasted, once I see how these turn out I'll cut a section out of the inner wing to see how bad it really is, then I'll order what I think I'll need.

[don58van]

pics would be great

OK, I will look for them. Please bear in mind that I am an inexperienced amateur -- I'm nowhere near Taupe's or Neil MG's standard (studying the whole of their restoration threads on this site is a must).

I don't think there is any point in buying repair panels for this area -- unless the rust extends much further through the bodywork. You would only be using a small fraction of the whole pieces. I have found that some of them are made so badly that I couldn't use them anyway. I made all the repair sections from sheet metal offcuts from the local steel merchant.

Don

[don58van]

OK, here are some pix which you might find useful. I am showing you my nearside repairs. I will just show a few so you don't get too bored.

[frame][/frame]

We are looking at the bottom of the A pillar. There is a little bit of the wheel well on the left (with white filler in a rust hole and the A pillar cover pillar is on the right. In the cavity, you can see some mesh that was used with filler to plug some holes in the sill panels below. (I didn't do these bodges ).

[frame][/frame]

This is after I had cut away all the grotty metal and cleaned up the surrounds. This is harder to do than it looks. I had to use all sorts of tools to get into the areas I needed to trim.
Notice all the different panels needing repair: 1) The inner wheel well, 2) the flitch panel, 3) the inner sill, 4) the outer sill, 5) the A pillar cover plate 6) the lower inner part of the A pillar, 7) the front of the box section.

That's all for now.

Don

[Mark Wilson]

Great work, Don. Takes me back 3 years when I was doing similar 3 dimensional jigsaw puzzles (and not finished yet....). Interested, though, in the junction between the flitch and the inner arch, which seems on yours to have the flange wrapped round the outer face of the flitch. On mine this flange is concealed on the inner face of the flitch. Any idea which way round was original?

Mark

[don58van]

Any idea which way round was original?

As far as I know, the flitch/wheel-well join was originally a flange that was flat continuation of the flitch panel (if that makes sense). In the early 50's, the factory started turning the flanges over as you see on mine. It was also a factory-encouraged modification for earlier cars. It was to stop the flanges from slicing the tyres in extreme conditions.

I can't envisage the arrangement you are talking about. Are you saying that there are no external flanges joining these panels?

Anyone who sees mistakes or inefficiencies in my repairs, please point them out on here so we can all learn. As I mentioned earlier, I still have my training wheels on.

And BTW Mark, you might already know a lot of what I am talking about, but there may be others who can find something useful amongst these ramblings and pix.

[frame][/frame]

Here is another view after the clean-up. I made a beginners mistake here--I didn't take enough of the inner sill off. It turned out to be thinned, but not holed, by rusting. You will see in later photos that this meant that I had to cut the sill back more and make two repair pieces where there should have been one.

[frame][/frame]

Here is an interesting view, looking from the ground toward the top of the A-pillar. I think careful examination of this picture is useful to gain a good understanding of the structures in this area. This area of the Minor was a bit of a mystery to me before taking on this repair, despite previously looking at all the drawings of this area I could find.

[frame][/frame]

Here is my first repair piece ready to weld in. It is a really easy one, replacing the bottom edge of the wheel-well. I have left plenty of length on the RHS to fold over and trim later. Also the bottom has extra metal that can easily be trimmed off after welding. The blue thing is a welding magnet, to hold the new piece in place.

[frame][/frame]

Here is that piece now welded in and the welds ground down. This photo was taken much later in the repairs, hence the spot welds you see along the bottom of the new piece.

That's all for today.

Don

[Mark Wilson]

The flange I'm referring to is at the bottom left hand of this photo. It is on a repair piece I've welded into the inner arch, but the original is the same arrangement (without the slots I had to cut to form the curve).:

[frame][/frame]


The replacement section of flitch I welded in was then plug welded to this flange. Haven't done yet, but I'll be trimming the flitch back as close to the wheel arch as I can. I hadn't planned on turning the flanges over, though.




Yours looks a perhaps more sensible arrangement, but mine is a very late 1971 Traveller, so the early 50's modification doesn't seem to be the explanation. The car has been heavily bodged in the past, but I think the inner arches and flitches were original and it was the same arrangement on both sides.

I do hope you didn't take any of my post as criticism or nit picking. Far from it - like you, I'm learning as I go along and its great photos like yours that I've learned from.

Mark

[don58van]

Hi Mark

Nice work! Your repair is obviously more extensive than mine (...and a better standard of work, no doubt).

Re the wheel arch flanges, I have just been looking at some pictures of my late 1970 Traveller which I am also restoring. I imported it from the UK a few years ago. It is 350km away from where I am living at the moment, so I can't go out and just have a look.

Anyway, from the pictures I have available, the flanges at the back of the wheel arches were turned over. My Trav was all original in these areas and no bodges.

Don

[don58van]

Mark
Re the wheel arch flange again...

Here is an exerpt from a 1970 edition of the Leyland Morris Minor Workshop Manual.

[frame][/frame]

This seems to suggest that this feature continued to the end of production.

Don

[martin418]

my 1955 s2 car is all original and the flanges have been folded back