1976 LS Rust and tim tams

[roccodingo]

Mate that is way worse than you can imagine, sorry for sounding like a downer.
I have just spent the better part of 4 months repairing a 76 ( aussie assembled) Mk1 for rust, just the body has been a year long project going way more serious the last 4 months.

Your pic shows a perforation hole as you have circled, ehat is more alarming is the panel below has a vertical crack leading towards that hole.



The car I have been doing has had the whole floor asembly, roof, scuttle, left rear quarter, rear valance, front valence,
both side drip rails , inner left and inner right patches ( large) bulkhead and raintray repairs.




Biggest problem is these are now approaching 40 years old, aussie built seems to have very little factory rust preventative treatment then the young guys stick rock hard coil overs and lower the cars ( yeah, looks cool ) which imparts way more stress to the bodyshell which is in a deteriorating state.

Advice, if your going to keep it then fix it, I think Anton's bodywork alone would be in the $15K region if it were being done at a shop + paint... As Stanton and some of the others have said, lift all the carpets and mating, inspect closely around the floor of the A pillar area and inner guards, base of A pillar at the windscreen, both rear valence corners under the tailights, sills and bulkhead ( firewall )

To keep these old rockets on the road, patching with fibreglass and other backward repairs will just end up a disaster.

[roccodingo]

BTW, this car was originally bought off Ebay as a rust free Mk1, prob is the major holes had been patched over with fibreglass, and bog on top of aluminium cans.... paint job "looked " ok....

[elcono]

BTW, this car was originally bought off Ebay as a rust free Mk1, prob is the major holes had been patched over with fibreglass, and bog on top of aluminium cans.... paint job "looked " ok....

Hi

Did you physically view the car? Or was this communicated to you via the seller?

Any idea where abouts the major holes had been fudged?

Gona yank up all the carpets today and have a bit of a better look. It was a large punt given the cost.......

Appreciate the honesty very much

[roccodingo]

Hi

Did you physically view the car? Or was this communicated to you via the seller?

Any idea where abouts the major holes had been fudged?

Gona yank up all the carpets today and have a bit of a better look. It was a large punt given the cost.......

Appreciate the honesty very much

Car is not mine, i am doing some of the work and offering knowledge and hands on skills to the owner.

Has been in his possesion 3 or 4 years now.

Mainly floor area at base of A pillars,the bulkhead behind the fuse box wasnt attached metalically to the inner guard area at all, just one long fibreglass patch that had separated away letting the whole assembly flex. Left rear quarter had been a weld over repair some time way back in the cars history, around tail lights was pretty crap, thats where we found filler over solo drink cans, Roof and drip rails were full of bog hiding junk weld hence we made new drip rails and sourced a replacement roof.
Paint job looked ok a few years ago, however there had been a lot of shrinking paint that cracks exposing the body metal underneath to water. Along the trim grooves this was particularly bad.

All you can do is really check it out initially. Your car looks to have original paint so thats a good start, nothing like a "new" paint job to mask all the rot.

[elcono]

This is after ripping up the carpet and the sound deadening (there was also a load of stuff that came off which was like brittle tiles?

I basically went to work on the corners with a drill with a circular wire brush. I have only checked passenger footweel front right and front left which have a few holes. To be honest for peace of mind, and for what I have already found I think i might just weld in a new floor as opposed to patch it multiple times

The lower arch doesn't seem too bad. What looked like a crack turned out to be a repair that had been welded in once everything had been wire brushed

On a separate note I have decided to keep the car, i am going to need a load of new skills to get it done but am quite looking forward to it

Car also seems to have a been an import from Europe, which I'm hoping had rust prevention?

[sports racer]

Car also seems to have a been an import from Europe, which I'm hoping had rust prevention?

Could be a blessing or a curse. If it's an English car they tend to have a bit of rust, depends on how well it was looked after.

Glad to hear you're keeping it. They are immensely satisfying when working, not so when something goes clunk when you're miles from home. At least they are easy to fix and simple to work on.

Cheers

Paul

[elcono]

fark. A hole about the size of a big-mac has been discovered in the footwell (pasenger side)....

Going to be a busy weekend (X20).......

[sports racer]

How do you suddenly discover a rust patch that big? Suggest you jack it up and have a good look underneath so there's no more surprises.

[roccodingo]

You need to get that wire wheel and clean ALL of the crap off the inside and underside, or better yet strip the entire car and blast or caustic dip to clean metal, then you can really see what you have...

Look up Peter Jones'thread on the race car build... he dipped the shell.