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TR3 rear lower closing panel.


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11 hours ago, Colin916 said:

It looks like I need a new rear panel.... £800 approx!! I think mine is beyond saving. I've ordered a new boot floor and have already got new stiffener panels and triangular panels and closing panel. . Is there an order in which to proceed? It would make my life easier if I could just hack everything out of the way, but I'm scared to be so impetuous. 

My rear Apron was rotten across the bottom and around the rear lamps, I considered reparing it but on advise decided to fit a new rear Apron. I bit the bullet and removed the wings this revealed quite a bit more rot. Then I removed the rear Apron, This was easier than I thought, it had rotted away from the lower closing panel and side stiffeners and was simply a matter of grinding away the seam weld round the spare wheel apature and where the top corners fold over the inner panel. What was left of the side stiffeners and the closing panel were chiseled off (I bought a cheap air chisel for this). One of the side closing panels was also rotten so I removed this as well. I am now at the stage whereby I have repaired parts of the boot floor, rewelded a new side closing panel on, and tacked the lower closing panel on, this took some fidling and reshaping to get it to fit round the bulge in the floor. I bolted the side strethening panels to the rear Apron and offered it up to the car and clamped it on. I then offered up the wings. Its not far out so I have removed the Apron and will do some more tack welding. When I say welding, I borrowed a gas mig from a mate and I am still trying to stop it burning holes. All the old panels were just tack welded and not seam welded along the entire joints so after talking to a body specialist I intend to tack weld at intervals and then fill the seams with a structural adhesive as this has many advatages. It has been suggested that rather than weld the lower filler panel to the bottom of the Apron I use a structural adhesive to bond them together, this has the advantage of a water tight seal. Has any one any experience of this? I have used structural adhesive on Land Rover aluminium panels before and it worked well but I have not used it on steel.

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26 minutes ago, Phil Read said:

 

My rear Apron was rotten across the bottom and around the rear lamps, I considered reparing it but on advise decided to fit a new rear Apron. I bit the bullet and removed the wings this revealed quite a bit more rot. Then I removed the rear Apron, This was easier than I thought, it had rotted away from the lower closing panel and side stiffeners and was simply a matter of grinding away the seam weld round the spare wheel apature and where the top corners fold over the inner panel. What was left of the side stiffeners and the closing panel were chiseled off (I bought a cheap air chisel for this). One of the side closing panels was also rotten so I removed this as well. I am now at the stage whereby I have repaired parts of the boot floor, rewelded a new side closing panel on, and tacked the lower closing panel on, this took some fidling and reshaping to get it to fit round the bulge in the floor. I bolted the side strethening panels to the rear Apron and offered it up to the car and clamped it on. I then offered up the wings. Its not far out so I have removed the Apron and will do some more tack welding. When I say welding, I borrowed a gas mig from a mate and I am still trying to stop it burning holes. All the old panels were just tack welded and not seam welded along the entire joints so after talking to a body specialist I intend to tack weld at intervals and then fill the seams with a structural adhesive as this has many advatages. It has been suggested that rather than weld the lower filler panel to the bottom of the Apron I use a structural adhesive to bond them together, this has the advantage of a water tight seal. Has any one any experience of this? I have used structural adhesive on Land Rover aluminium panels before and it worked well but I have not used it on steel.

This sounds exactly like mine, I'm out here now with the wood burner on, radio on and a cup of coffee contemplating! I reckon by close of play today I'll have serious progress. I've got no experience with industrial adhesive, so will weld up. Good luck with yours. 

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I'm working in this area as well, but unfortunately don't have the metal working skills of you guys.  My tub was repaired with a NOS stanpart rear panel, but I don't think the chap doing it for me checked the angle of dangle against the rear wings.  Consequently, the lower rear corner of the rear wing where it meets the rear panel needs to move forwards by about 20mm.  At the moment, my plan is to cut off the flange and then reshape/ trim the wing to match the rear panel and make up a new flange to be welded in.  However, I have noticed that the alignment is very dependent on the length of the stay just behind the rear wheel.  Mine are obviously made from random off cuts and differ from side to side.  I would be grateful if anyone could confirm the "correct" lengths of the rear wing stays from fixing hole to fixing hole.  

Many thanks for posting your photographs..they are really helpful even if I can only wish that I could emulate them.

Dave.

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yes i had the same problem, the rear wing was sprung out at the bottom there it meets the rear valance in fact both are the same i have done the same as you by cutting off the flange and welding a new one on and reshaping to fit the valance. the wing mounting bracket is bolted to the chassis frame and the hole to hole measurement is 20.7mm centre to centre i will post a picture to show how far the other wing is out as i have only done the one so far.

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14 hours ago, Dave Herrod said:

'm working in this area as well, but unfortunately don't have the metal working skills of you guys. 

I dont/didnt have any metal working skills, although I can or should I say I could weld. Back in the 60s/70s I was a car mechanic. I spend a lot of time looking, thinking and trying, before ataching anything.

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wow you get four pictures of the N/S, this as i have mentioned is how much the rear wing has sprung out, when replacing the flange on the O/S i did make sure i included a flange on the bottom so it welded to the flange on the bottom of the wing to hopefully lock it in place and make sure it does not happen again.

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  • 3 weeks later...

A few photos of progress. I have fit the lower closing and an offside closing panel and made repares  to the o/s corner of the boot floor. I am still trying to perfect my mig welding techniques. I have clamped all the replacement panels together to check fitment and its not looking too bad. The wings are ex USA and have been repaired, although I am contemplating buying new ones. The o/s quarter panel now fits well with a few adjustments made afP1090813.thumb.JPG.563d7cd682bf8ac0a5f13c6ff6aac09a.JPGP1090814.thumb.JPG.3a3e0a9c5eb39ba9f8c9c8864f70f79d.JPGP1090815.thumb.JPG.9ba4e7e2e7b0ed55ed376b03bce77ec4.JPGter feedback on the forum. I still have a few rot areas on the rear deck and n/s quarter panel to cut out and weld new steel in.

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bravo, looks like you have a very good fit on all your panels now, and a good looking panel fit on the front repair panel too, good job you persisted and did not get a replacement as someone had suggested doing on the forum. if you have a shrinker stretcher that will take out the dip in the top of the O/S wing. 

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4 hours ago, R.M. said:

. if you have a shrinker stretcher that will take out the dip in the top of the O/S wing. 

There is supposed to be a slight dip there.

Stuart.

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valid point, yes a slight dip but not too much of one, I have pretty much finished tinkering on the O/S rear wing and have included a few of pictures to show finished workings and will now need to get on with the N/S rear wing fortunately not as badly dented as the O/S, i will post pictures of the N/S wing to show the dents before and after, i think i will also need to blast clean and prime the finished O/S wing as i had to sand much of the primer off just to get the dents out, so now i have a little surface rust strangely though no rust on the area where the dents where polishing out, i may have polished so much that the rust cant get a hold now. Though the only problem with blast cleaning is i don't have a blast cabinet so i will have to spend the next couple of weeks spare time just building one, i may just bore you with pictures of that project as well, be warned.

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i think you are referring to my car in the grey primer, the problem i have with the boot lid is a kink in the panel where the hinge is located making the lid sit a bit higher, to correct this i will need to remove the pressings/strengtheners on the underside of the lid so i can correct the kink, just one of the many bad dents and kinks my car received before i purchased it, ( i think it may have broken loose in a container during transport ) the previous owner had included in the sale a list of all the replacement panels, and in his opinion the car needed all four wings replacing, i know the importance of keeping the originals on a tr3 as they always fit better than replacements panels so i will be repairing these originals, despite the dents they are still very usable. i will post some before and after pictures in future.

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Turn it upside own on the floor and put a bit of 4x2 along under the end and kneel on the middle towards that side of it thatll sort it out.

Stuart.

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Rather than use 4x2 and  kneel on the fragile boot lid (thank you for the advise) i removed the lid under parts, fortunately thanks to the Triumph factory's sparing use of the spot welder i was able to remove them quite easily, i was suspicious of the rust in the corners thinking that it may hide more unpleasantness beneath and lo i was proved right with rust penetrating through to the underside, unfortunately i can do nothing about cleaning the rust out until i have the blast cabinet done and working so i just contented myself with repairing the kink in the hinge, that at least proved to be very easy and only took about 20 mins to do, so all in all a good day in the shed. pictures below, before and after.

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ah the weekend has arrived and time for a little more light wing restoration, this time i needed to turn my attention to the N/S rear wing, again quite rippled with lots of creases that extended to the whole wing as i worked on it,  a few pictures to show the change as i go along, first the tools used. then a bit of light sanding to highlight the creases in the wing, then a few more pictures as the creases and dents came out, almost done, though i did rather run out of usable light in the shed, hopefully i will finish on the coming weekend, and then i will go to it and make the new N/S wheel spat

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Amazing. I take my hat off to you. Wish i was half as good at panelbeating.

Ralph.

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Thanks for that, well it's really that i am far too mean to replace them with better condition second hand wings, plus secretly i like the challenge, the N/S front wing is even worse, even both doors are dented, the front O/S wing had crease damage even to the point the creases had folded over themselves, what could have done that i do not know, bless the previous owner but his attempts to repair the damage was to run an angle grinder over the creases to try to make them disappear when all they need is  some light wooden hammer work to reorganise the metal back into shape, i try not to use steel hammers on steel dolly's too much due to stretch issues but prefer a hand sandbag with wooden mallets, much less stress on the panel, spoons/slappers work well with a sandbag too. always worth giving it a try, can't make it any worse than it is.

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Ian, is that the hammer with the rubber gripper on the end? i did look at getting one but the prices put me off, i do have a hammer and a slapping spoon with the surface that looks a bit like a meat tenderiser, i find they tend to leave marks on the steel when used though they do work reasonably well, also applied even heat with a quenching rag works in bringing dents out.

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8 hours ago, R.M. said:

Ian, is that the hammer with the rubber gripper on the end? i did look at getting one but the prices put me off, i do have a hammer and a slapping spoon with the surface that looks a bit like a meat tenderiser, i find they tend to leave marks on the steel when used though they do work reasonably well, also applied even heat with a quenching rag works in bringing dents out.

I’ve added a link in my post to the hammer I have. 

Rgds Ian

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