Next project- 1965 Austin Cooper 1275 S

[minibitz]

Why don't you just do a few plug welds?

Drill a hole in the outer panel then weld the inner panel to the outer by filling the hole with a MIG weld. You just need to make sure the two panels are touching to get a good weld.

[Andrew1967]

I didn’t have the inner closing panels on HOY, which is how I spot welded the panels together in the same place.

Unbelievably HOY’s original A panels showed those spot welds, if it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t have even known that they were welded there !

The closing panels went on afterwards.

[Gary Schulz]

Are the Heritage inner wings OK to use? I need something as a reference point to straighten the floor back into shape so I would like to know which panel fits best.

[Gary Schulz]

As long as I have the entire front-end torn apart I figured it was a good time to tear the back-end off the car too. I am starting to frighten myself with the amount of sheetmetal I am removing from this car! All you experts are probably unfazed by this level of disassembly, but it seems like I am in over my head with bodywork. I cut out the bottom half of the old rear panel and started cleaning up the accident damage on the rear of the boot floor. Access is certainly far easier with the back-end removed!

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I have been playing around with adjusting things to get a good fit on the new rear panel. To be honest, the Heritage rear panel seems to be a pretty decent part. A little tweaking here and there but the fit is decent. Before I scribe the old rear window upper panels for the final trimming/welding I figured it made sense to do a trial fit of the original boot lid. Fit is pretty decent, but it has a little too much gap on the top center. Any good guidance on how to best tweak the rear panel to close that up a bit?

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[roger mcnab]

hi
that looks like the early boot lid with the drop number plate might try a later boot lid and so if that makes a difference
cheers roger mc nab

[Gary Schulz]

Yes, it has the drop number plate but I believe this boot lid is original to the car so I would like to keep them together if possible.

[roger mcnab]

hi
you could maybe add some metal by welding along the top edge and dress it up to fill the gap should work with a bit of care
cheers roger mcnab

[Andrew1967]

What is the gap like at the bottom Gary ?

An option might be to ease the holes on hinges (rear panel or bootlid or both) a little to raise the lid up. You then may need to grind the corners to get the gap back, weld and file a nice radius back.

To be honest, Mini boot lids rarely fit brilliantly anyway, if you are looking to compare with modern panel gaps.

If you can't do that then maybe the only option is to do as Roger suggests, as I''m not sure how practical it is to adjust the rear panel pressing other than slitting along the entire length under the window, spreading and re-welding. Not something I'd fancy doing.

[MiNiKiN]

The usaul method in the olden days to correct the gap on doors and lids would be lead loading.

[Gary Schulz]

Appreciate the feedback. The gap on the bottom might be a little tight so easing the holes might help a bit. I think you are correct, I am contemplating panel gaps on modern cars and becoming unnecessarily frustrated. That said, the work I see by other forum members when dealing with panel gaps looks really excellent so that is what keeps me motivated...

Lead or welding and shaping does sound like the only other reasonable alternative path. This panel is certainly too stiff for me to be able to do any reshaping.

[Gary Schulz]

Finally have some progress after dealing with other things for the past several months... I managed to get the new lower rear panel and valence welded on after much, much fettling with all the various joints. I think I had these panels clamped on and off the car about 100 times trying to get all the joints to line up. I concentrated on the top where I had to do a butt weld at the bottom of the rear window. This part needed to be as close to perfect as I could get it and I guess it came out ok ultimately. I also tried my best to recreate the rotary weld on the vertical seams. It looks like it is nice and strong and the effect is relatively close to original. The rear panel was welded to the boot floor using the pot welds on the inside (only two panel thicknesses) and the valence was welded on with the rear set of spot welds (three panels thick). This was suggested by 1071bob and I think it was a good approach. There are around 5 times the number welds on this repair than the factory used originally so should be plenty strong.

Glad I invested in my spot welder even though I had to make a custom set of electrodes for it so I could get all those tight seam welds done.

It sure is heavy to hold up in the air!

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I did use more or less the original number of spot welds on the lower valence gussets because those are still visible on the final product...

[InnoCooperExport]

Excellent work Gary! I know how it is getting back to it after having to deal with other commitments. Seems like you're getting stuck in again properly!

[Gary Schulz]

Another minor update: I brought the body (as it is) over to the chemical paint strip, de-rust, rust inhibitor place and splurged on the full treatment. It is now far more pleasant having nice clean bare metal with no undercoating and paint to deal with.

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and after back in the shop...

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I also just got a major order of panels from M-Machine (Doreen was most pleasant to deal with and the service was surprisingly prompt). I am going to be replacing the central tunnel and the cross-member so I spent a full day drilling out spot welds to remove the cross-member. It also now allows me to straighten more floor dents that were previously hidden underneath.

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As I prepare to remove the tunnel and get the cross-member fitted up properly I was wondering if it is common-place to reinforce the central part of the cross-member where is crosses the tunnel? I have perfect access to allow me to spot weld a reinforcement on both sides at this point. Do you think it is worth it? It will be completely hidden from view and it is the point of maximum stress while being the smallest cross section so it seems like a good idea to me. My car was sagging at the center point so that is one of the reasons for replacement.

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[Peter Laidler]

Really enjoyed the last hour re-reading this thread Gary. Keep the rebuild coming........ It forms part of my weekly 'fix'

[Ronnie]

As I prepare to remove the tunnel and get the cross-member fitted up properly I was wondering if it is common-place to reinforce the central part of the cross-member where is crosses the tunnel? I have perfect access to allow me to spot weld a reinforcement on both sides at this point. Do you think it is worth it? It will be completely hidden from view and it is the point of maximum stress while being the smallest cross section so it seems like a good idea to me. My car was sagging at the center point so that is one of the reasons for replacement.

It was not uncommon for the guys at Abingdon to double the cross member. I suppose Gary it depends what the car is going to be used for.

[Peter Laidler]

Agree about the internal cross-member and with Ronnies comment. The weak part of the floor cross-member is the centre point where there is very little vertical support. I suppose you could reinforce that section internally but it still wouldn't be as strong as the outer ends. Depends on how hard you're going to use the finished car. GREAT work.....

[mk1]

Great to see an update on this one.

[Gary Schulz]

Apologies for the stream of consciousness form this thread is taking, but I made a significant discovery while further examining this shell after I got it back from the stripping place. It turns out that most of the LH side of this car was replaced at one time. Looks like someone used a full LH body panel to replace the entire side as one piece up to about halfway up the side window glass. I have enclosed pictures of the A, B and C pillars showing where the joints are. Obviously this was done back in the day when you could get full mk1 body side panels because the door aperture is correct. It is also a pretty good example of gas welding and the use of lead filler. Took me a few minutes to realize what that stuff was on the inside of the B pillar. So this car had a major shunt that affected the whole side of the car...

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What is even more interesting about this finding is I can date pretty much exactly when this whole side panel was replaced (+/- a few weeks). If you remember back to the beginning of this thread, I found a mystery sticker on the inside of the LH door. It turns out that this is a parts dispatch sticker from the Austrian BMC parts depot. Now I understand why this sticker was on the LH door. It was obviously replaced at the same time as the rest of the LH side of the car. This major body repair was done just after July 16 1965! The repair was done when the car was only 4 months old...

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I suspect this was the result of some sort of racing incident or overzealous driving of a brand new Cooper S so it was still worth the effort to go to this level of repair rather than write the whole thing off because it was a brand new car. I am certain if this accident had happened 10 years later the car would have just been re-shelled or parted out....

Half the effort in restoring these cars is trying to uncover their history and I Think I just came a little bit closer to figuring out the history of this poor old thing!

[Gary Schulz]

Finally had some time to work on the front end some more. I have been taking a very long time fitting the front end because it seems nothing really fits together very well without a lot of fettling. I finally got the front panel most of the way to being a "mk1" with filling numerous holes on the bonnet slam panel and moving the license plate brackets and most of all; installing mk1 plinths from my original panel. Getting the old smaller plinths installed was a lot of work for me so my hats off to those of you that make this look so easy and routine! I spent ages getting them to fit and trying to get the contours to match between the old ones and the shape of the replacement panel in that area. Will still need a good amount of work with filler to make perfect but I guess it's close.

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Is it correct to have the bonnet stepped back from the front of the slam panel like my picture shows? I can't remember what my other car looked like under the mustache. I think the chrome mustache overlaps the top front of the slam panel but I am not sure... Looks like the slam panel is forward of the bonnet by a bit less than 1/4"

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[Peter Laidler]

Great to see you back after a long break Gary and great work as usual.

I think that the front of the bonnet should line up with the front of the grille panel. That said, and only, say 3/8" underhang, I think that the Mk1 grille surround might hide it. Or could you slightly pull the front of the bonnet forwards very slightly to suit........... Or recess the grille panel slightly deeper. Just so long as the bonnet locking acorn and catch all align.....

1/4" plus or minus a bit would be well within BMC's bodyshell rules of guidance

Don't make us wait so long next time, Now that HOY and Doc Mabo have retired, yours it my monthly mini body fix.