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Update:

Had a few days off the week just gone so put my time into prepping as much as i could ready to go back on the car.

Painted the inner and outer A panel with Mipa epoxy primer and got them spot welded:




Had some of the origional brackets / mounts to repair / bare metal:




Started spotwelding the floor to toeboard, toeboard to bulkhead and bulkhead to crossmember:



Primed the inaccessible void, inside all the sill sections and the underside of the load floor:



Fitted the spare wheel stabiliser:



Beach buggy anyone?



I next went onto sorting the brackets that hold the bonnet hinge onto the bulkhead, obviously this needs to be in the right place so:






Used the brackets from my woody to mock everything up and has worked well. I am going to be needing these again for the pickup.

More prep:



Bit the bullet and started on the sides, going really well upto now:




Pretty happy with the fit up of everything:




Got loads of welding to do now but going to be doing a few hours a night after work to get though it

Fantastic
Wish I had the b***s to do something like this

Fantastic stuff. Roughly what will it cost to rebuild the shell out of interest?

Costafortune, it does costafortune!

Luckily doing it all myself so saves a tonne of money, its around 3.5 - 4K in panels, some weld gas and wire. A fair few cutting discs, loads of p24 roloc discs, then probably around £200 in primers, filler, spray filler and abrasives and then £300 ish in paint.

Due to having a booth basically ready at home now as soon as i have done all the filler work and priming it can be painted.

Not so bad compared to a new shell then. This is certainly the way to go as opposed to spending forever trying to repair rusty floors etc. Certainly a much nicer 'cleaner' result.

harrymini wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 3:40 pm Thanks for the replies, another update:

I am trying to get as many panels clamped / cleco pinned / screwed in place as i can before everything gets taken off, areas where there will be welding, blasted and primed:

Haha. I reckon he IS!

Haha thanks.

Costafortune, for any of my personal cars i would never do 2x half floors and weld to the tunnel, just dont think i could get the finish that the full floor gets and its a hell of alot faster to just offer a floor up and square it.

But Harry, the tunnel is probably the best datum mark/line you could ever get isn't it? Especially doing the job you're doing

excellent work loving this build .a true craftsman

Update:

Been doing all of the difficult, boring jobs at the moment, the tricky top of the a pillar repair on both sides:







Another job, bottoms of both door frame repairs:






Done a load of welding on the front bulkhead area for wiring tabs, accelerator cable ferrules, threaded shock absorber mounts, threaded pedal box mounts, a panel stiffner, some threaded inserts etc.

But FINALLY after a huge amount of work (while working full time and only having a few days off) after 1 month after receiving the panels it is nearly ready for expoxy, i have to 180 grit sand everything (half way there) and do some more small detail welding bits:

I think that is a quite remarkable rate of progress in such a short time. Great skills too
Mini Vans used to be SO common when I first started driving. EVERYBODY had one or two and they were worth next to nothing. Rare things nowadays.
I had one very similar many years ago

I bet that you still wish you had that XXXX AP registration number OEW!

Yes. The things we let go eh?..........
Probably best not to dwell on it too much

Unbelievable progress, great work!

Update, body now has epoxy primer on. More finishing touches to do on the booth, painting etc but extraction and air worked really well.

I love this project there’s some seriously long hours been put in.
One question how far have you recessed the grill panel I can’t see properly from the pictures..
D

Kit,

Do you want me to take some photos and measurements?

I have one for the pickup that was done by m-machine?

The M-Machine van/pickup front panels have the insert welded in in the wrong place - they are recessed too far into the front panel. If you have matched this one to the M-Machine one it will be in the wrong place. It's far easier to fix before paint! This is a NOS front panel showing the correct grille location - it's barely back from the front edge of the slam panel, etc. (maybe 3mm?).
JR

Any updates, this is an excellent project..
D