Early Javelin Restoration

[Chris Spencer]

Rear bumper mounting / tool tray floor repairs continue with new metal let into the floor

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Patten made up for the inner section

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New section ready for welding in

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[Chris Spencer]

Repair section welded in

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Zinc primer applied to the closed in section and the repair panel under fabrication for wheel arch / inner wing area

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[Chris Spencer]

Repair welded in / cleaned back & the bumper mounting reattached to both the car and the chassis tilter

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With the inner repair areas cleaned up - the closing panel for the tool tray lid was welded back into position

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A complex repair area that has taken some time to sort - but having now done one side I am hoping that the other side will be completed a little quicker.

[Forumadmin]

We are now moving around to the other side of the car where we discovered some wrinkles in the inner wing caused by a thump on the bumper at some time. This was confirmed by measurement between the lower suspension mount and the bumper attachment bolt on each side with over 1 cm difference,

So Chris made up brackets to attach to the bumper mounts and the torsion bar cover bolt holes. Then applied lots of thrust using a big screw. The bottle jack was first tried but failed miserably.

The car was elongated back to shape and the wrinkles hammered out. The distances and diagonals were measured until we stretched it to an acceptable tolerance of 7mm on the diagonal.

[Chris Spencer]

So here is the process in detail for the offside rear inner wing - this had taken impact damage at some stage in the cars life on the rear bumper iron - although the outer body panels were undamaged the the inner wing had moved forward some 10mm - this in turn had left creases at low levels along the bottom of the panel - to remove them I needed to force the inner wing back to it's factory position - hard to display in the image but the panel is splayed out in two areas with creases

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Hydraulic body jacking systems are available but the pump & the ram for my set got stolen many years ago - I did however have the remaining tubes and fittings - after a little thought - I set to and made up some brackets from a few sections of 5 mm equal angle welded together - with some holes drilled in the said brackets I bolted one bracket to the rear suspension mounting and the other to the rear bumper iron mounting

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Then by utilising a few of my body jacking bits along with some heavy duty threaded bar & nuts - I could apply the force required to push the panel back by winding the nuts up the threaded bar

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I went slightly further than what was required to allow the spring return within the panel - I also took the creases out of the panel whilst it was still under load with the use of a hammer and dolly

[Chris Spencer]

Still requiring a little more work with the hammer but in the main the crease has all but gone

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However, rust smeared in bodyfiller has come light along the lower edge of the inner wing where it joins the support rail / boot floor support

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More holes than lace curtains along this section

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Next on the list will be to sort the difficult bumper iron mounting / rear panel / tool tray floor and upstand - prior to checking the boot lid apperture for alignment with the boot lid

[Chris Spencer]

Whilst undertaking the restoration of the car - along with the completion of the workshop referb - we have been investing in some tooling to make things a little easier, Keith & myself went to an open day on Saturday of a tool supplier - high on Keiths list were some a couple of high end items that the workshop has somehow managed without so far - but the more we get into to the cars the more workshop equipment is required to make the restorations viable within a resonable time frame - awaiting in the wings is a fairly comprehensive rebuild of Keiths SA Jupiter, Jacks Javelin which we have stalled for now but this requires a complete restoration, then I have a kit of parts to build a Jupiter and 8HP which is part restored - so the investment is worth it - I will Let Keith post on his new toys once they are delivered - In the meantime I have recently purchased a shrinker / stretcher which enables radius angle panels to be fabracted along with a formit - which combines shear, a brake press & a set of slip rolls - This enables a wide range of tasks to be undertaken with ease on sheet metal panels / repair sections

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shrinker / stretcher - metal is palced between the jaws and the handle pulled forwards - the machine has two sets of jaws - shrinking for internal radius & stretching for external radius

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Formit - handle is turned to operate the shear (bottom blade) brake (centre die) or slip rolls (under yellow cover)

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A couple of test sections

[robert lintott]

Seeing the pictures of your straightening efforts leads me to a couple of suggestions

1. It would be worth at this stage offering up the boot lid to see if it fits well especially around the body panels below the rear window and at the rear end where you have been adjusting the body . Javelin boot lids--steel outer panel and aluminium inner-- have a habit of cracking around the hinges , especially with the later strut on the O/S . This can result in the lid changing shape and being proud of the body at the outside ends below the window . It is not difficult to repair the cracks but pulling the lid back to shape is a problem . John Airey and I exchanged some emails on this recently.

2. There was a forum item which led to taking measurements of the distance between the rear wing bottom edge aft of the wheel and the chassis. I found there was a big difference ( over one inch) each side which may have been caused by differences in the curvature of the bootlid aperture on each side where the wing is bolted on to the body-- which could be related to the kind of damage you have corrected . I think the wing can be force fitted ,but being flexible it then bends outward or inward at the bottom edge to adjust to minor differences of fit . The wing is a very large flexible panel and alters shape to fit . I am thinking of installing a brace strut between the lower edge of the wing and the inner chassis/ wing on each side to make sure the distances are equal . In your case it might be worth welding a braket onto the Chassis each side now whilst you have it exposed and unpainted to add a strut later. Many cars of this era do have such struts to add rigidity to the wings .

Your work and speed of progress is much admired ! Bob

[Jack]

2. There was a forum item which led to taking measurements of the distance between the rear wing bottom edge aft of the wheel and the chassis. I found there was a big difference ( over one inch) each side which may have been caused by differences in the curvature of the bootlid aperture on each side where the wing is bolted on to the body-- which could be related to the kind of damage you have corrected . I think the wing can be force fitted ,but being flexible it then bends outward or inward at the bottom edge to adjust to minor differences of fit . The wing is a very large flexible panel and alters shape to fit . I am thinking of installing a brace strut between the lower edge of the wing and the inner chassis/ wing on each side to make sure the distances are equal . In your case it might be worth welding a braket onto the Chassis each side now whilst you have it exposed and unpainted to add a strut later. Many cars of this era do have such struts to add rigidity to the wings .

I think this was related to the fitting of wider wheels on a Javelin, and you are quite right. We discovered on some cars the gap was around half an inch, on others over an inch, and there were variations between one side and the other.

Definitely worth a test fit, and this may well explain the variance, even if the shells from Briggs were not brilliant the wings could take up the difference, and nobody would ever notice a small difference like this, until you try and fit wider wheels on the back axle!

I think the struts are a good idea if doing this, some gentle pulling at the top of the wheel arch showed a certain amount of flexibility that might even up the gap a little, and a strut could be fitted behind the wheel to gap this properly. Of course this would be a fairly visible modification to anyone closely inspecting the car, but it also sounds like a good idea for any cars doing serious racing or rallying, avoiding the tyre damage that might come from a knock to the rear wing from putting you out of a race - but might result in damage to the shell itself if hit hard as a result.

Jack.

[Alf Heseltine]

Jack not sure if fitting a bracket is a good idea, but a trial fit of wings & boot lid is essential. The rear door fit will also need checking.
I spent a lot of time doing the rear wing fit & correction work, as you mention rear wheel clearance should be checked (both sides) at this stage,
aim for 1to 2inch clearance, the axle position can have a bearing on these measurements.
I replaced bent spring arms to the axle (repaired ones) & the the whole of the car from the rear window. This made panel fit a major issue, time spent here
is a good idea,I spent several years getting mine somewhere near, best of luck, keep the swear-box handy! Regards Alf.

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[Chris Spencer]

Panel fit is critical to any half decent paint job, but I always get the strength into the bodyshell first - so all rust repairs are undertaken within the area prior to trialing outer panels - the boot lid on Peters car was a pathetic fit and the alloy inner frame damaged so we have obtained a good bootlid from JCS - I will go through the fitting gapping etc once I have chased the tin worm out of the rear of the car.

[Chris Spencer]

In order to access the repairs to the offside inner wing I supported the bodyshell on a timber & axle stands - hence the chassis tilting frame could now be removed

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With the bumper iron removed (acts as the mounting point for chassis tilter) access could now be made to the rear corner of the inner wing / tool tray / boot floor

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Same story as with all the other previous repairs on the car - overplated rust ingress - so with all effected areas cut back - we were left with this result

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The supporting rail had also rusted out

[Chris Spencer]

Removed rusted sections

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A new supporting rail section was fabricated and welded in along with the tool tray floor as required

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[Chris Spencer]

Peter has come over for the Easter holidays and will get some time in on the car - we put him straight to work - here he is sandblasting the metal interior trims

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A little while later he had them down to bare metal

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Before leaving I primed the trims that had been completed - these shall be colour coated at a later date

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[Chris Spencer]

Peter has continued with sandblasing of the loose metal parts for the interior and now has them all complete, in primer and safely stored, he has also continued with the sandblasting to the rear of the bodyshell

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