As you will have seen in the last post, a number of the large hinge and panel bolts are rusted solid, so Winchfield Engineering needed to get serious!
In the picture on the left you can see a nut being held onto the bolt using MoleGrips.
They went around the SJ, welding nuts on all the stuck bolts
With the bolts in full retreat, Winchfield Engineering had a first look at the body panels.
Around the rear, with the wing panels and taligate removed, some more rust became visible.
This is behind the panel, so can be fixed with some fabrication rather than a replacement panel.
On the left you can see the end of the rear crossmember which will need some work to ensure the rust is completely removed
It looks worse than it is really, it should clean up fairly easily.
Winchfield Engineering have sent over this update showing the progress on the panels.
The process is the same on all the panels.
They are inspected for corrosion and any corrosion spots are sandblasted clean to remove all the rust.
Here, on the tail gate, you can see where the corrosion has been cleaned away from the mounting holes where a small amount of surface rust existed.
Winchfield Engineering have moved on to starting work on the body tub.
We always knew this was the bad spot as it had some visible rust on the outside, however it can be a bit of a shock as to how bad a "good" car can be.
Here on the drivers side rear we can see the panels that create the rear of the arch have trapped water etc and quietly corroded inside.
After a lull in work its nearly time to start work on putting it back together. The welder came down to view and in discussions wanted some more sand blasting to be done before welding could commence.
Winchfield have a small sandblaster and a very large sandblaster. The large one is used for really heavy duty cleaning but has to be used outside to avoid filling the workshop with dust.
