Work recommenced today on the Cooper.
The First job was to carefully remove the Sports Pack arches so the front wheels were removed in turn to access the fixings.
As you can see, i also removed the rear ones after stripping out the interior.
Then the bootlid, bumper, battery, fog light and fuel tank was removed
And then the wiring harness was passed through the inside of the car and bundled up out of the way leaving the inside nicely stripped out
Next up was removing the rear subframe so the exhaust was removed, the brake lines and handbrake cable were disconnected and the subframe mount bolts were cracked off.
Of course, the wheels were removed first.
A bit of a struggle with the seized bolts later and the frame was ready to come down.
Using a combination of the ramp jack and a couple of axle stands, the frame was free of the car.
And out
This subframe is heavily corroded as you can see in the following photos.
But a new one has been provided by the customer along with all new parts to fit to it.
So with the strip out completed, we can start to look at the work that is going to be needed.
This car has had cover sills fitted in the past
They are in places, fitted over the existing sills, and inside the companion bins, sections of the inner sill have been cut away and not replaced with any steel at all.
Besides this, cover inner sills have been fitted and just seam welded around the edges to the seat cross members. Not a particularly tidy job but i suppose it served it's purpose in the past.
So new full inner and outer sills will be fitted. I will also fabricate new seat crossmember ends to replace the old ones.
Next we have the rear arch tubs which are too far gone to repair so a pair of new ones will be fitted.
One side
And the other
Then onto the rear end, the boot floor will be repaired as well as a new rear valance and closing panels
I shall also be repairing the lower rear panel to sort out some heavy corrosion on the bumper lip.
The heelboard doesn't look to bad and seems solid. There will be some repairs needed on the ends but overall pretty good
And now to start the cutting.
first to go was the rear valance.
I have also cut out portions of the rear panel bumper lip to replace.
The boot floor will need some repairs as it has been repaired in the past using wire mesh and body filler
The entire bumper lip is crusty so It may need more repairs than i thought. I will also be fitting a full width repair panel on the back of the boot floor.
So here we are for today.
Tomorrow will see the release of the old crusty rear arch tubs as well as the valance closers and the repairs to the bootfloor and rear panel will begin.
Cheers
Ben
