Mongrel Street Racer

[Darren65]

So before any metal was to be replaced it was time to tug it straight!……





….a fair few tons of pulling pressure and rotten metal don't always mix so a little bracing was required…





…after a lot of effort things got closer…



…and eventually we got to this…



…and this….



…and this…



….now it was time to take out the rot ….

[cubist]

Impressive!

[sladey]

Wow


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[Darren65]

Impressive!

The tugging or the chains?

[Darren65]

So, after the front end had been tugged back 19mm to the left to get it straight, Barry set to work on the rear of the car….

…the car had seen NUMEROUS previous repairs…….



…and what lay underneath these repairs wasn't always pretty! ….



…this meant cutting out and replacing a lot of metal….



The sills on the car seem to have been replaced a number of times with the old ones just air chiseled off each time…..this was the first time Barry had ever had to replace the flange on the inner sill….

[Darren65]

There was an argument to replace the complete floor sections….



….in the end Barry decided to retain as much original metal as possible….so cut out all that was bad….





…fabricate new sections as required….





…and stitch into place…





..as ever the end results look fantastic…

[Darren65]

And once the inner sills and floor were sorted…it was time to work outwards…



…centre sill section…





…there's been a large number of repair sections made….













…and stitched in…



Photobucket's died! ….more tomorrow….

[jtparr]

It is honestly deeply satisfying about seeing new metal crafted and inserted to carefully bring a shell back to life...more pictures...!

Jonathan

[911hillclimber]

Barry makes it all look so simple and instantly 'solid'.
always great to see these projects come from the impossible, also just how much he cuts away to get rid of any thinning metal let alone rust.

That is all good, but it's when he looses sight of the repair welds and surrounding deformation so it all looks like a full panel has been replaced!

Bloody irritatingly good!

[jb]

That is amazing.

[Darren65]

A few more….

The offside inner rear wing needed the usual repairs….











….whereas the nearside inner rear was a quite different story! ….

[Darren65]

…there was a strong argument to replace the NSR inner wing which looked none too pretty….



…and had been repaired once or twice before…



…the welded cover plates hid plenty of lacy metal….







…however, with zero availability of a new panel and a suitable donor in short supply Barry set to work….





….and it all turned out rather nice ….

[cubist]

Impressive!

The tugging or the chains?

Ha! Both...

[Darren65]

The dilemma with this car was whether to keep the shell standard spec just in case it was returned to a conventional T at some point in the future?

Well, that idea went out the window and the car will be receiving a fair few fun mods….however it still has to be solid, straight and true and obviously 'period correct'…..including the back-dating of the sills….



….love Barry's attention to detail….



…voilà …

[Darren65]

Things have moved on quite a bit and now the rear end inner is largely complete….the roof has been removed….



…and replaced with a very good donor…currently the car looks like this from the back…..



….but like this from the front! …..



…250 hours in and still the list of jobs is endless….




I guess you win some, you lose some!…..at this point the 2.4E was long finished although this shell has proved much more of a challenge!

As much as I continually love seeing the quality of Barry's craftsmanship, what we're both really looking forward to is all the cool fun stuff that's planned for this car, just gotta deal with rot first!…….time as they say is a healer…and so is Barry Carter! …(might have said that last bit once before! )

Cheers,