Having substantially completed the conversion work, the more mundane part of the project could be started – the normal restoration work often required on a car of this age. Typical trouble spots for the Type 4 are the sills, the wheel arches and the inner wings. This car would be no different.
Having made a start on the front wings, I found that the rot was a little bit worse than it appeared to be when I had quickly cleaned things down earlier. So I realised that the patching would be taking a bit longer than I hoped and I had no reason to believe that the rear wings will be any better. Does that sound familiar to some of you?
Click on the pictures for more details of the work on each corner.
| The front offside – some minor patching had been done and the seam is virtually gone down the front edge. Unlike the rear, this is fully exposed to the ravages of the spray from the tyres. The box stiffener which runs forward from the A-post over the wheel arch is a bad rust-trap but appeared at first glance to have escaped reasonably well – but . . . |
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The front nearside was worse. The box stiffener on this side is longer and initially appeared to be in reasonable condition. But I soon found that the inner wing had been patched badly sometime in the past and I would have to make this good. I would have to strip out the old patching and start again and the box stiffener would have to go. |
| The rear offside – visible thin metal with some holes at the lower edge of the wheel arch and the bottom closure panel. But remember that this had received virtually no paint in the factory and was sheltered only by the outer wing panel! |
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The rear nearside – a similar story to the offside. The box opening visible in both these views is for the air intake to the engine cooling fan. |
Note for non-British readers – “nearside” refers to the left-hand side of the car, “offside” refers to the right-hand side.