DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Wise move imho.

Looks like it's gonna be okay with a little fettling.





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I'm hopeful it'll be a productive winter this year in the garage, in spite of the cold weather. Thanks mostly to my new mate Glen, nicked from work.



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Here's thar repair piece going in to the parcel shelf. It still needs extending in a couple of places, but this was as much as I dared attempt in one go.

I'm not entirely sure how I fashioned this with only hand tools and a vice but I've surprised myself just how well it fits. I think it's going to require a very keen eye to spot the repair when it's finished.


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Good stuff

Where would we be without power tools!
Looking forward to a Full Winter in the Garage.

I’m not convinced Glen is man enough for the job

Well in the face of -4⁰C temperatures outside, Glen proved to be something of a dark horse, keeping the frostbite at bay, albeit with the help of 3kW of intermittent mig arc. Fingers were fine, toes a bit cold though.

It's proving something of a saga repairing this rear shelf, but I still think it's been less work than drilling out the entire thing, and I get to keep the car original.

This lip needed replacing. I doubt the grinder will get into this recess very well so I had the power up good and high relative to the wire feed, to keep it relatively flat.



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Coming together now - nearly ready to move on to the next section. There's a little bit of the spot welded lip to extend before I move over to the other side, which requires much less work.



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You are determined to press-on at these temperatures.
Even i watched the snooker instead of being in the garage yesterday/today.

Well worth the effort Rob, you approach is not the easy way, but DIY can be really good!

My day job is marketing, with some property activities on the side as a way of making the most of any capital accumulated through my working years. In spite of completing and letting a buy to let property in August, the free hobby time I had hoped for, never materialised. I even missed a members' track afternoon at Curborough. I have a beat up old MG ZR in ladybug livery, which I usually throw around there.

We had a good body of marketing work through December, along with plenty to think about on the property front. And it's likely to go on that way for a few months at least. I don't want to complain about being busy, because these are my peak earning years and how my retirement will be paid for.

Nevertheless, Glen hasn't yet been pressed into service to the degree I expected.

But I have done a little more of the rear shelf. To that end, and on the advice of a DDK-er, I purchased a finger/belt sander, necessary to get into crevices a disk could not reach.




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I think it'll prove a really useful tool for flatting off welds. I hadn't appreciated just how much better it will be at getting metal flat, than a grinder.

Armed with that, I've completed the welding on the rear shelf. I hand-made panels for both sides, replaced about 18 inches of the spot-welded lip and partially removed and refitted both of the brackets.

One of the brackets had a brass bolt broken off in it, which I drilled out and re-threaded. It now remains to etch off the dusting of surface rust which has appeared while I work on it, and get it covered up with epoxy.



The repairs aren't invisible but I just can't accept the inevitable thinning and weakening of metal which occur when welds are fully flatted down, and with the car being so original I like to leave it a bit readable.



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Having a bit of a tidy up of all the bits taken off the car, I'm giving some thought to what's going back on. What's the thinking on putting the original heat insulation and sound damping back in?

I have these rubberised mats in excellent condition which I assume are to weigh down the panels and reduce noise.



I know modern solutions such as foil-backed bitumen are probably more effective per unit weight, and it'd be great to lose a bit of weight, but there would be a loss of originality moving to a modern solution. I'm inclined to put back all the original materials wherever possible. Is there any view on this?

Same question goes for other items. I have sun faded original carpet whichis good apart from the colour and could be dyed and re-edged.





Various foam insulation.



Also the jute or horsehair heat insulation above the engine. And I think a metal polisher would have this trim looking pretty good with not too much work, although the accompanying rubber/plastic was beyond saving.



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I would say, if its falling to bits, hidden anyway and not ridiculously expensive to replace, do so, otherwise reuse as much as you can.

Grubby carpets won't look nice, and in my experience don't clean up sufficiently well or dye easily by hand. I popped mine in the washing machine on low temp short spin, which worked well on the ones that were fully bound all the way round, and frayed the others to some extent. Lovely and clean though. Might dye better in the washing machine I dont know.... perhaps all worth a try before you buy a lovely new carpet set.

Since the rear shelf has been a few months in elapsed time, I etched away all the surface rust with acid before neutralising and cleaning off.



Glen got the garage up to a nice temp and it was rewarding to cover my handiwork over with some epoxy mastic.



I'm pretty proud of the metalwork here given I shaped everything with hand tools and a hammer and vice. Not all of the welding is invisible and I'm fine with that.



Cleaning off this carpet adhesive wasn't a lot of fun. Some solvent and a wire brush did it, carb cleaner.



...a process which sadly also removed some of the original factory paint so I'll have to paint this now.



I'm sure many will know how frustrating it is, working in cramped conditions... which were complicit in this minor mishap



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