Interior Painting March 08

I painted the interior at the same time as the boot using the
same techniques with the exception of the seam sealer. For
the interior I used a 3M product in a tube along with it's
fairly sophisticated gun.

A view of the back area including the diff bridge shelf,

the drive shaft tunnel and the rear floor boards after

the first coat of rust killer.

A view of the front floor boards and fire wall.

A shot of the wire wall and front bulkhead. I didn't strip the

plenum as it really didn't need it. Just visible through the

large round hole for the heater fresh air intake and the

two rectangular holes for wiper wheel box access, is the

plenum interior. This is a place of very difficult access and

I spent a lot of time attempting to clean and finish it.

The rear shelf area now in primer.

The passenger side foot well.

The drivers side foot well. Note that the plenum also got

a primer coat.

Here's a shot of the entire front area. The second coat of

primer has already been applied and the seam sealer has

also been applied using the 3M sealer gun and tube system.

The rear area. The seam sealing necessarily goes pretty

fast.

A shot of the 3M seam sealer gun, much like a caulking

gun, just much better made and much more expensive.

It supposedly better regulates the pressure and therefore

the bead, I still had some difficulties with it and the beads

weren't always as pretty as I would have liked. Of

course, it doesn't really matter much in the passenger

compartment as they won't be seen. It's a much

different matter in the engine compartment.

The drivers foot well, a close up of the sill detail.

A shot of the firewall and front bulkheads.

A tighter shot.

And finally the top coat goes on, the culmination of months

of work.

The rear area with it's top coat.

Another shot of the drivers foot well.

The drivers side rear floor board and drive shaft

tunnel in the fore ground. The Emergency brake

handle bracket is sitting on top. The Emergency

brake later became it's own project, more on that

later...

A finale shot looking back into the boot.

Boot Painting March 08

I had now stripped my little English lump on the inside from
the front valence to the rear valence. It was time to refinish.
I used a rust killer, primer, seam sealer and enamel top
coat. All of these were brushed on except in the engine
compartment, more on that later...

The boot area after a coat of rust killer. The rust killer, as I

understand it, encapsulates any remaining rust and seals

the surface with a tough coat.

 

Same area after the first coat of primer. Using a primer
over the rust killer may be a little over kill-ish but why
not?

The right side marker lamp pocket area after first coat of

primer.

The other side.

An overall view, priming now complete.

Seam sealer in a can was used through out the boot area.

Another shot of the seam sealing process.

The side marker pocket seam sealing. Note the area

bottom right, there is a rather large gap between the boot

floor and the rear body panel. It gradually increases up

to almost 1/2 inch, and had to be filled in was lots of

seam sealer.

An over all shot after the first coat of semi gloss black

enamel.

A shot of the left wheel well after top coat.

The side marker pocket area after its first top coat.

A shot from the passenger compartment.

Boot Strip February 08

As I continued to be driven to see bare metal I worked
my way to the boot. There was some pretty hideous
rust in the little pocket areas by the side marker lamps.

The TR's rear end. 

You can just see the side marker lamp pocket through the

tail light hole on the right.

 

A close up of the pocket, obviously a place for water to

congregate.

The spare tire compartment. Another out of sight out of

mind area of the car in dire need of a little attention. You

can see here also the finished fuel tank shelf area.

A shot of the rear wheel well and part of the spare tire

compartment. I've already scrapped off most of the seam

sealer that some Brit slopped on in such ginormous

quantities. It comes easily, at least initially.

This is the rear corner where the tail light assembly mounts.

The only real significant rust I found was in the side marker

lamp pocket.

This is a large and unexplained hole in the bottom rear of the

spare tire compartment. You can just see part of the rear

valence through the hole. There was a big metal plug that

was pop riveted on and again ginormous amounts of seam

sealer.

The bottom and front wall of the spare tire compartment are

stripped here. I do eventually strip the other three walls and

up about two inches along the wheel well and fender. I

wanted to remove all of the old seam sealer.

Another shot of the same area, you can that there was some

significant rust in the upper right hand corner but again not

bad, relatively speaking.

An interesting shot from inside the boot looking forward up
into the foot wells. You can see just how much work was
done up to this point. Working in confined areas with the
Jasco chemical stripper left me feeling woozy many times
and probably caused permanent brain damage. Which may
explain some of the later projects we get into with this old
English lump.

Stripping the Buffer Area January 08

After cleaning all the dirt and debris the buffer areas on both
sides were stripped to bare metal.

Here's a shot of the passenger side. Note the rust in the corner.

A close up the corner rust problem area. This corner
was filled with a blob of unidentifiable material that was
supposed to seal it. It didn't.

A little tighter shot, you can see that there is significant

rust damage here, really all caused by that sealant. It

was rock hard, very difficult to remove and apparently

porous.

 

The upper section of the buffer area near the corner

of the engine bay drain channels. The square shaped

hole in the upper right of the picture was filled with a

similar kind of sealant that had failed allowing water

to collect water.

A shot of the sill from the bottom.

A view of the drivers side, the condition was very similar

to the passenger side. Same damage in the corner.

This is the bottom rear area of the wheel well. The undercoat

was loose along the bottom edge so I removed it all, not

easy! But the undercoat did it's job, the metal underneath

came out nice.

Same area on the passenger side.

Removing the Front Wings January 08

As the scope of the project continued to expand, it was
decided to remove the front wings (fenders) to see what
was going on in there. While the passenger side wing had
been replaced at some point before I owned the car, the
drivers side had never been off.

Both wings are already removed, it is not a pretty sight.
The debris build up at the bottom here is a breeding
ground for rust. Unbelievably the water from the bonnet
channels is actually designed to flow through this buffer
area and out through a space between the wing and
the sill at the bottom.

Almost 40 years of debris sees the light of day for
the first time. The area in the corner of the sill and
the door bulkhead had the worst rust damage.

This shot shows the top mount area near the door.
Some surface rust and dirt, nothing too bad here.

The top section of the buffer area. Note the hole
about half way down right of center, this is where the
plenum drain tube is routed. That's right, it drains
right into the buffer area also, or it would if the hose
hasn't kinked or the plenum isn't clogged up with
debris (it very likely is).

A shot looking straight down.

This shows the inner wing area overall. Most of the
undercoat is still intact

The passengers side looks equally bad.

Maybe half an inch of junk collected at the bottom.

A closer look at the crap, underneath there lurked...

A craftsman wench that I had lost about
15 years earlier.

A shot of the 2 wings, plucked.

This shot shows the bottom of the buffer
area of the wing, where it meets the sill.
There's supposed to be a space between
them to allow drainage.

The headlight area of the passenger side wing. Note
the small damage the the lip of the wheel opening.
This was caused by the lower A-arm bracket failure
discussed elsewhere in this blog.