JonJenks

As we have had a spell of dry weather I took the opportunity to finish shot blasting the body tub, mainly the upper bulkhead area and the interior. Before After - under cover for a coat of primer I left the roof panel as I did not want to risk distorting it After I cleaned it up by sanding The finished body tub After blasting the interior there was one area of rust that I had missed on the rear bulkhead that needed repairing. Some pinhole rust Started by cutting out the affected area Formed a replacement panel Old and new panels Ready for welding Finished, just needs some primer Next up will be to stone chip the underside prior to painting.

At last I have made some real progress after too many weeks of not achieving anything. Last weekend I made a start on shot blasting the underside of the body tub. I used the new shot blasting pot I had purchased off eBay and was a bit unsure as to whether or not it would all work. It just so happens that a couple of weeks ago I was telling my inlaws about the shot blaster I had and that I was going to hire a diesel compressor, when they said “we have one in our garage, been there for years”. It turn s out that it was put there 10 years ago and at the time had hardly been used. I asked if I could borrow it to which they said “you can have it”. So I did. Having got it back home it appeared a bit tatty, mainly from storage but it only had 92 hours on it so it was is hardly run in. After a day sorting out the electrics and changing the fluids, it started up first time and works great. It is a Maco (French) with a 3 cylinder Deutz air cooled diesel engine and delivers 136 cfm at 100 psi, so should be enough to power the new shot blaster. The new compressor, a bit tatty but works well. So I set about setting it all up and made a start last Sunday on the underside of the body tub. Earlier on in the week I had a delivery of 40 bags of fine grade recycled crushed glass which I intend to use as the blasting medium. Ready for blast off! The end result after around 4 hours of work. Then two coats of grey oxide primmer straight away, to stop any flash rust. As it was a nice dry day on Wednesday, I decided to take the day off and do the chassis. I need tao take advantage of all good weather I can, as I am going on holiday in a weeks time and really wanted to get all the major blasting done before hand. The chassis has been stored away since last September and I really could not remember how bad it was. Looks a bit rough but after a quick hose down with the pressure washer it didn’t look to bad. Ready for blasting. The finished result - came up really well with no real repairs needed, just a couple of brackets that will need replacing. As with the body tub, it was straight into the garage to get a couple of coats of grey oxide primer.

Thanks for that guys, will make sure I get all the grit out by rotating it and blowing it with compressed air.

I spent a week last Saturday using my new wet shot blasting kit to clean the lower bulk head with mixed results. The finish was satisfactory, i.e. it was very effective at removing all the rust but took far longer than I had anticipated and used far more sand than I expected, around 250kg. I was hoping to have got the whole body tub done but there was no way both in time and materials. The setup ready to get started. Bulk head before blasting. And after. The mess that I was left with - Boris, Dexter and Peggy our inquisitive peacocks were a bit upset by it all! So, although this system is great for smaller items and panels like doors and bonnet sections I needed a plan B for the chassis and the rest of the body tub. Whilst browsing eBay that evening I came across a second hand Hodge Clemco 1440 Grit Blasting kit (exactly the same as the one my local tool hire store used to hire out) for sale and the add intimated that there may be a ‘buy it now price’. I contacted the seller and he responded with a price of £350. This was for the blasting pot, blasting hose, carbide nozel with dead man’s switch, air fed mask and respirator system. This seemed like a bit of a bargain so I said yes. Image from the add. A few days later, and a bit apprehensive, as you could not really tell from the images what sort of condition it was all in, I drove up North to pick it up.  When I got there I was very pleased to see that it was all in great condition, better than I was expecting. I handed over the money to a really nice guy and drove home with a smile. The new grit blasting kit back home in the garage. This kit, I am told needs around 120cfm to work effectively so I am about to hire a 130cfm diesel compressor to operate it. This will cost £60 a week. I am also going to purchase a pallet load of recycled glass grit so I can get the rest of the tub and chassis done. I will keep you posted.

Thanks Hazen, I offered it up and it will only really fit broad side up - so I set about doing just that and it took me all day yesterday - I thought it would only take an hour or so! Started of by digging out a photo of the old roof finisher when I purchased the car for reference. I patcularly wanted to know how the roof gutter finishes. I am pretty sure that this was the original roof finisher and had never been replaced from new. The starting point was to find the center of both the roof and finisher strip and mark them. Having cleaned the new finisher strip, I measured, marked and cut it to length curving the upper flange at both ends as original. I then filled the the finisher strip between the two flanges with body filler and pressed it in place working quickly before it set. When it was set, I set about finishing off the roof gutter. Same for the other side. Quick coat of primer and it is finished. I am now waiting for a dry spell along with some free time so I can blast clean the body tub and get it in primer ready for paint. With a bit of luck I have it penciled in for half term.

Hi, I have just taken delivery of a new roof finisher strip which I intend to fit this weekend. However, which way up does it go? There is a wide flange and narrow flange, which goes at the top? Any help would be gratefully received.

Thanks for the comments and apologies for not responding sooner but I have been busy with work and changing the cam belt on my day car. Anyway - the panels were made using a hammer and vice etc, simple tools only. I did however make the large center bracket in one straight line and then cut and added two curved sections - was a lot easier than making it in one. As I have been working on my day car I needed to get the GT6 out of the garage so I made some axles and braces for the spit and moved it all outside under cover for a few days. The GT6 is now back in the garage so I can hopefully make some progress over the next few weeks.

Ive been off this week looking after the kids and have managed to finish off making and fitting the missing rear lamp panel internal brackets. Started off by getting a good reference photo and some measurements from a friends GT6. I used these to fabricate the missing brackets and a replacement for the rather badly fitted rear hatch support bracket. I then cleaned up the rather scruffy welds on the rear panel and gave it a coat of primmer. New brackets welded into place. Cleaned up and primed - another job done. I am hoping that that is now the body tub complete and I can now start blast cleaning it ready for paint. That is of course apart from the front roof seam seal that I still can't locate - does anyone out there know of a supplier?

Thanks for that John, from the images I can see that I am also missing three brackets that presumably support the boot floor, and having inspected my rear lamp panel more closely it is obvious now that it has been replaced with a spitfire one. I am going to go and see a local guy with a MK3 and take some pics and measurements before I start replacing the rear hatch support bracket.

Spent Sunday removing underseal etc from the underside and bulkhead ready for blast cleaning which will hopefully happen within the next few weeks. I have also been spending a lot of time drying sand in the AGA top oven (much to my wife's frustration) ready to use in the blast cleaner, it's cheaper than buying kiln dried sand! Underside now ready for blast cleaning. Does anyone have an image of what the inner tailgate latch support bracket should look like - mine looks like it has been removed and then replaced rather badly! I am thinking that the car has had a new rear lamp panel at some point. As you can see it doesn't sit on the lamp panel very well so I am going to remove it and make a new one to replace it. So a reference image of how it should sit would be much appreciated. Also, has anyone noticed the grey plate to the left of the bracket? seems to have been bonded on. When I removed the layer of paint/filler from the outside it revealed a cut out with a very neat joggled edge (I think that's what you call it) but the plate is on the underside! Doesn't make any sense as to what it is or why it is there - any ideas?.

John, have been looking at your thread of building your Aluminium GT6 - amazing work, makes my small repair panels look a bit sad! Very interesting account and I think I will be looking at your videos and looking into Ron Fournier's videos for myself. Spent the day finishing off welds on the underside of the body tub in preparation for blast cleaning it ready for paint. I also decided to have a play at de-rusting using electrolosis. I have just purchased a rusty second hand rear spring mounting plate, so I thought this would be a good start. Before treatment. I used a plastic bin with four old coach bolts connected with copper wire. Filled it with water and washing soda, suspended the plate in the centre and connected it all up to a battery charger and left it for about 5 hours. And the end result - it removed every little bit of rust and although it took quite a long time I was impressed with the results.

Thanks John Bonnet for the last post, I can't raely add to that other than include an image of the tools i have used which are very basisc and to add a couple of points. The first being that when you hit a piece of sheet metal, you are infact making it a bit thinner, and when you do that, you increase it's surface area and that in turn forces it into a compound curve. So it seems to me that there are three basic things you can do with a sheet of metal and that is stretch it, shrink it and bend it. To strench it you increase its surface area, and to shrink it you decreas its surface area. When you bend it you need to avoid stretching and shrinking. I think what I am trying to say is that if you understand the basic prinsipals of what metal does when you hit it, it makes shaping it a lot easier. The tools I used to shape repair panels. Anyway - thought I had finished all the repairs to the tub, but decided to undo an older repair done by a previouse owner made on the nearside widscreen piller. Older repair looked ok but I wasnt sure it had been done correctly. When I cut it off I was glad I had as it was not very well done having left some rusty metal beneath it. All the rust cut out. First repair section welded in. Main repair section added. Gutter added to finish it off. Detail of the lower part of the gutter.

Hi, been a bit quiet lately, had a few other jobs to do and it has been very wet, and cold out in the garage. However, the last bit of metalwork to complete on the body tub is to finish off the lower sill seams and the front upper roof gutter seam. The latter is still unavailable to buy, so I thought I would tackle the sill seams. I believe, correct me if I am wrong, but chromed sill seam finisher strips were available as an optional extra? havn’t seen many with them though. I started off by cutting and bending some 20 guage mild steel to form a slightly over length strip. This had to be wide enough to fit over the three layers of steel that make up the seam on the lower edge. I then tacked it on the inner side with some small spot welds at each end, tacked a couple of nails to the bottom edges at each end, and then using a line, made sure it was streight before applying more spot welds along its length. The finnished result, after cutting it to length and finishing off the ends. I also did the same to the other side. My next big job is to clean up the body tub with my new wet sand blaster and then get some paint on it. In prepperation I have invested in a new, or should I say second hand compressor. I purchased a 150lt 3hp 15cfm clarke air compressor. This should give me more than enough air to do the spraying but I also connected up my small 2hp 25lt compressor to it as a buck up. It all seems to work fine. My next task is to make some axels to fit to the rottiserie so that I can get the tub outside for blasting.

Been a while since I last posted due to other commitments etc, and it has taken me a lot longer to complete the last repair job than I thought it would!. I supose its common for the suposed small jobs to take the longest. Anyway I have now completed rebuilding the O/S windscreen piller. As you can see it was very rusty. It was only when I removed the outer gutter that the full extent of the rust became apparent. So all the rust was cut out, leaving not a lot! All the old bits which I used to help make replacement sections. The new sections ready to weld in. Started with the inner plate. After replaceng all the inner bits and pieces I welded in the outer section. Last of all was the gutter strip. I vissited a friend to take a photo of his Mk3 as reference to get the gutter detailing correct. From the inside finnished. From the outside after a quick coat of primmer to protect it temporarily until final paint preparation. This repair has taken a lot of work but it now means that all the rust repairs have now been completed on the body tub. Next job is to attach a upper roof seam lip thingy!. I had ordered one from Rimmers but they told me back in October that they were no longer available but they were trying to establish a new source, so I think I am going to have a go at making my own. I am also going to make some seam cover type things for the bottom of the sills to tidy them up - so will keep you posted on that. So to recap, the body tub has now had both floors inner and outer sills, sill ends, boot floor, rear valance O/S inner and outer wing, N/S inner and outer wheel arch, complete front roof repair, N/S windscreen piller, and various other small sections.

Spent Sunday finishing off the rear O/S wheel arch and wing - when I say finishing off, I mean getting it into rough shape as I will remove all paint and start block sanding and filling properly when I tackle the outer surface of the body tub at a later date. Before that I need to get the chassis completely finished with engine, gearbox and running gear etc. and the Body tub reunited to it - so a while off. A quick skim of filler and a lot of block sanding and the rough shape is ok for now. Temporary coat of primer to protect it until a later date. Next up is the last bit of metalwork on the body tub which is the upper A post area and outer windscreen revial.