RED Subaru

Left Hand Wheel-arch

PART FOUR

Odds and Ends before cosmetic work

Now on the home stretch and doing all those little jobs that need to be done before I start on the filling, sanding and spraying.

(Above) As with the right hand side, the left hand rear seat-back stay bracket was badly corroded. Not as bad as the other one so a repair rather than making a new one was the order of the day.

(Below) I used the previous templates to mark out some small repair sections…

(Above) … and it didn’t turn out too badly. Of course, if this car was worth proper money, I’m make sure parts like this were perfect – another run of weld and much grinding would have produced a better result but there’s only so much time one can put into a project like this.

(Above) Not much of the original of the front of the arch was left by the time it was done!

(Above) A first coat of grey primer to keep the rust at bay. Note stainless steel bolt at bottom into a captive nut on the other side..

(Above) …welded to a new seatbelt mounting plate in thicker 1.6mm steel. The steel patchwork looks like the inside of a tortoise.. Again, if this were a more valuable car all those welds would be ground flat to a seamless finish.

(Above) Brake back-plate was rough but sound – only the perimeter dust-shield was junked.

(Above) After a good de-rust, a session in the blast cabinet and a new coat of high temperature paint… not at all bad. The brakes were then cleaned, reassembled and the drum (Below) was given the blast and paint treatment.

(Above) though you can’t see them, the splines were lightly ‘copper-slipped’ as was the conical washer, flat washer and threads.

(Above) Finally in this section, some primer was brushed on and around the new metal around the lower wing, boot floor and closing panel.

NEXT: FILLER, PAINT AND RUB A DUB DUB…