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August 07, 2003
Kevin
No need to apologise, it's the old UK/American terminology thing again.
Well, from the sounds of it, it's a pretty standard 'body rotten' Spridget!
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I think
you'll also find that the rear spring hangers will need doing as well.
You'll need to give this some serious thought, and Robert gave some good
advice (if you remove the bit about pop rivetting the floors in!)
First off you do need to consider whether you really want to start getting
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into
body repairs yourself. Whilst as I said previously, there really isn't anyt
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hing
bodywork wise on a Spridget that can't be tackled by a capable home
restorer, you do need to consider carefully what you're getting yourself in
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to.
I think Robert mentioned something like 200 hours, well I think thats a
conservative figure. For a full blown nut and bolt restoration, thats a ful
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l
rebuild, all bodywork, all components, spray and putting the lot back
together, you're looking at somewhere in the region of 2,000 hours work, or
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about 5 years part time weekends and evenings.
I've just completed the bodywork stage of my 1971 Midget, thats both floor
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pans, both inner and outer sills, both footwell side panels, both lower hin
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ge
repairs, both inner and outer rear wing bottoms, both spring hanger areas,
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both door skins and frames,1 wing and misc other smaller welding jobs and I
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reckon its taken me approximately 800-1,000 hours so far.
Assuming you've got the space to take the car off the road and work on it,
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the
time to do it, the patience to do it, go for it!
There are other options of course.
You can do a rolling restoration - ie tackle one section at a time and keep
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the
car on the road, just taking it off the road to complete each section - ie
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one
side's inner and outer sills. This will take a lot longer of course than ju
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st
taking it off the road, stripping it down and getting on with it.
You can cut your losses, sell it and sigh a sigh of relief, and take up som
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ething
more relaxing like golf!
You can sell it, learn from your experience and next time be a lot more car
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eful
about the bodywork on the car you buy!
You can take it to a Classic Car Restoration Centre and get the essential
bodywork areas done, but be warned - this wont be cheap, and you may well
be better off taking the sell it and rebuy option above.
You can buy a heritage shell and simple transfer all the components over to
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the new shell. Currently in the uk these are selling for =A32,500GBP (4,000
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D)
plus respray costs.
Choice is yours Kevin, but do please be aware, that if you do tackle the wo
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rk
yourself, you'll have to learn new skills, be very patient, and expect thin
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gs to
take 10 times longer than you expect. Putting in a new floor pan, inner and
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outer sill and inner footwell side panel is not a 5 min job! If you do deci
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de to
do it yourself, buy up all the books about re-building Spridgets that you c
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an
get - they're invaluable.
Nigel
"amukdigiphoto" < amukdigiphoto@... > 24191
Posted on August 7, 2003 10:25 PM
Posted to category(s) Body | Engine (external) | Interior | International | Miscellaneous | Restoration | Suspension & Steering | Technical Info
