Early Javelin Restoration

[Chris Spencer]

The car was remounted to the chassis tilter and inverted - with the panel gaps correct the welding of the jacking point / out rigger could now be completed as this secures the B post in to a fixed position

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Welded in / cleaned up

[Chris Spencer]

With the bodyshell turned back over the brace that was locating the B posts could now be removed

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So milestone number two as this is the completion of all structural welding to the bodyshell - just the outer panels to sort now

[Chris Spencer]

The shell was turned around and removed from the chassis tilter

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I like to to keep all the welding / grinding to the wall side of the workshop away from the other cars in the workshop and close to the industrial extractor fan

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[Chris Spencer]

The nearside front wing was trial fitted

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Decent fit at the front

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Not too bad on the rear edge either - but whats under the filler ?

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More grot

[Chris Spencer]

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Ready for repair

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Section welded in and initial clean up

[Chris Spencer]

Not too happy with the door to wing gap though, the wing cannot go any further forward - or the doors back so there is only one way to resolve it

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Wing edge ground back to correct aperture gap - then reduced a further 2.5mm - this exposes the three edges of the wing aperture which are then tacked with the welder prior to being fully welded then cleaned back

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The wing then has to come back off so that the inner edge of the flange return can be completed

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Worth the effort when the apertures on both side of the car match

[Chris Spencer]

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Front panel was fitted which lined up nicely

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Next panel on was the bonnet

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Which is a dreadful fit with very poor aperture gaps, fouling at the front with the wings and the rear edge with bulkhead distorted in shape - time to try another bonnet then!

[Chris Spencer]

Thankfully we have several spares

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It was noted that the spare bonnet carried additional supports on the underside to prevent the distortion at the bulkhead edge - obviously the factory had the same problems that we had and modified the bonnets at a later stage

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Although a better fit - it was still well away from where I would be happy with it

[Chris Spencer]

Whilst looking at adjusting the bonnet hinges Peter noted that one of the cranks on the nearside hinge had been altered, we took the hinges off and found another pair to compare them with

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Not that clear in the image but the original hinges were riveted together, the ones off the car had been altered and had large nuts & bolts inserted through them - we put the new set that we had onto the car and refitted the bonnet

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Again an improvement but still not good enough

[Chris Spencer]

I left Peter to remove the hinges and elongate the mounting holes, then we tried again

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This theme continued in making small adjustments / improvements

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The latch strike was altered by moving to the left slightly, the original bonnet latch could not be adjusted with enough tolerance so another spare one was located

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Which also had to be modified to ensure that it located the bonnet correctly

[Chris Spencer]

So eventually after over two days of removing / refitting / adjusting / reshaping a decent fit was obtained

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The chrome strips were added to ensure that they did not contact / foul the paintwork - of note the early cars have longer chrome trims fitted - the later cars have the roof gutter rail extended and hence have shorter trims

[Chris Spencer]

Last jobs on the bonnet

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Welding on of a outer cable stop for the bonnet release

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Welding up of the minor fractures on the leading edges where the edge rebates for the wing fastenings

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Finally the accident damage to the front corner was dressed out

[Chris Spencer]

So on to the nearside front door which out of all of the doors is the worst having seen various previous repairs of brazing / body solder & filler all of which had failed due to the metal in this area being so thin

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JCS stock a repair section for the door bottoms

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But this requires some work / reshaping to obtain anything like a decent fit - this area carries a large radius compound curvature

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I lapped the edge of the existing door skin which will allow for stronger panel joint whilst making it easier to clean / rebate the weld fillet to a flush finish

[Chris Spencer]

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Repair section trialed and ready for tacking on

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Tacked in place and the door rehung in order to check panel alignment of repair

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Happy with the alignment to the door bottom but the swaged edge is out of line with the front wing / rear door - I will have to unpick the weld tacks and roll the top edge of the repair in a little

[Chris Spencer]

Just about to move house in the next few days so I have had to keep the peace and do the call of duty stint at home hence no work on the Jav - but a very successful NEC trawl of suppliers / services yielded some great results. With the shell / panels nearing welding completion it was still a concern that we could not treat the hidden rust in the double / triple metal skins / chassis box sections / inaccessible areas etc. We had looked at several companies offering dipping of the complete shell but there is much bad press about the process - it removes the paint to bare metal ok but then the process leaves chemical residue in the metal seams - these over time (up to 24 months later) create reaction with the cars new paintwork and I would be gutted to have put this amount of effort into the car to have the paint start to lift / react after the event (and its not even my own car).

We did a bit of research and found a company that offered a method that gives the bare metal / derust finish that we require but without the residue / paint reaction problems - they also state that their process will not effect the leadwork on the car - all other dip / strip processes do - the staff talked a lot of sense and on a practical / sensible no hassle basis - they even open at weekends so home restorers can deliver / collect - and even offer a collection delivery service at sensible prices

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Porsche 911 shell at the show which is representative of the process employed - The companies name is 'Envirostrip' and they are Tamworth based - the Javelin shell & panels are booked in for the first week of December so that we can get the car back for the festive break and start on the shaping up / paint preparation (I have to take compulsory holiday from the day job - and I don't want to spend two weeks watching Christmas telly or doing jigsaws)

The NEC shopping trip yielded good results - with the vast majority of the trim / odds / clips / fastenings / sundries & paint sourced along with odd tool

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