A B20 Story

[the.cern]

I have recently recovered my B20 from a corner of the garage and a restoration is underway. I hope to have the energy to tell the story and share some of my experiences. I have been hugely encouraged by reading other threads in the Forum and hope my tale may help others.

I bought my 4th Series B20, chassis no. 3447, ran it, when it obliged me, for 2 years then popped it into my dry and warm garage 'for a short while' before having a little welding done. Then those most ravenous devourers of time and money known to man appeared ..... children !!!!!!!!!!

Time for a few statistics ............

The car was first registered in Italy in 1955, it was imported to the UK in 1963, I bought it in 1974 and it went into my garage in 1976. There it stayed and literally, did not turn a wheel until it was pushed out and transported to my workshop at the beginning of the month. This means the car is 55yrs old, it has spent 8yrs in Italy, 13yrs on the road in the UK and  34yrs in my garage !!!!!!!

The current situation is that that the interior has been stripped out, doors, bonnet and bootlid removed and the floor pan attacked with an angle grinder with a hard wire brush. This and the traditional 'stab it with a big screwdriver', has revealed the usual rust problems, but, so far, it does not look as bad as I had feared. I think I might be tempting providence here !!!!!!! Only time will tell whether or not I have as bad, or worse, tin worm than in those other  horror photos recently in the forum. If my limited computer skills allow, I'll post some photos in due course and you may judge for yourselves.

Thanks go already to Mike Jennings, Peter Harding and Ron Francis who have all been so helpful and encouraging.

I'll keep updating the story as progress is made and energy allows.

                                          Andy

PS I didn't mention that the engine is seized !

[JohnMillham]

I hope it doesn't slow progress on your Augusta too much!
Regards, John

[chugga boom]

would love to hear about it and some pics 

[the.cern]

John, I think that progress maybe slowed a little by the resurrection of the B20. I prefer working on the mechanicals to bodywork and progress on the Gussie will be to a certain extent set by the cost and availability of B20 engine and brake parts !!!!!

My good friend Jim, who worked miracles on the bodywork of the Gussie, is now tackling the B20 and it will start off with new sills, inner, outer and perforated central member to both sides and the outer third of the floor pan each side. Once that is sorted time to look at the wheel arches, which  appear to be quite good, but time will tell.

Attached are a couple of photos of the B20, in the one in the garage its still on the scaffold planks and steel tube rollers used to move her sideways into the corner. I'll try to get a photo of Jim's craftsmanship, he made the Gussie bootlid from scratch, re-using only the spare wheel boss and the catch.

                          andy

[Kevin MacBride]

Well done, restoring a B20...with a seized engine...in a recession !!...you give hope to the rest of us.

[the.cern]

Thanks for the comment Kevin, lunacy runs in the family so I'm not surprised at what I'm doing !!!!!!!!

It was to a large degree your thread that has inspired me, I have been looking carefully at the areas where you've had problems and keeping my fingers crossed. It doesn't look too bad to me, I'm either very lucky or someone has been very clever with the filler. We will see.

[Kevin MacBride]

Oops,...you'd better not look at this so..!!

[the.cern]

Well, I popped over to Ibiza for a week to see my son married, (that's the last one of the four), and when I came back .......... apparently not as bad as yours Kevin, but still a lot to do. The hope is that the rust doesn't extend much further at either end of the cill sections, we will see !!!!

The photo show the extent of the rust revealed so far and the new central membrane sections, fabricated by Jim.  A previous owner repaired the badly rusted floor be welding new material ONTO the top of the floor, leaving the original steel, a recipe for further rust so I need to replace the outer third of the floor on both sides.

[Kevin MacBride]

This is my sills fitted, you can see we had to replicate the small box sections front and rear of the sills. As we had no patterns, this proved a challange.

[DavidLaver]

I do like seeing them like this - how they go togeather under the skin.

David

[the.cern]

I knew I should not tempt providence !!!!!

The sills for both sides have been re-fabricated, as have the outer sections of the floor pan, all expected, as stated in my previous log. In addition the floor area around the gearstick and the drivers footwell has been fabricated. Today we started to look more closely at the areas where the A and B pillars are supposed to join onto the sill, not too much there to replicate but we'll have a go. The idea is to get the sill and floorpan repaired and then move forward from the A pillar to the rear end of the front wheelarch, we can see  already there will be a lot of challenges !!!!!!! The photos show what seem to be the usual problems.

The engine is out, a much easier task than expected, but so far I have removed only the rocker covers All ok on the nearside, but the photo shows the accumulation of gunge around the valve mechanism for no.6 and I've yet to remove the heads to look at what exactly is seized.

Regards,

             Andy

[the.cern]

Leave Jim with an angle grinder for an hour last thing on a Sunday afternoon and this is what happens .....

The areas at both ends of the off-side sill are pretty dire as per the attached, it is obvious that there has never been any attempt to get any paint or coating onto the inside faces of the various sill sections, it's a wonder things aren't worse !!

[Kevin MacBride]

Ohhh, lot of work there, mine was bad, but previous repairs had held some of the rot at bay. I should have some photos somewhere of what was left of the 'old metal' which allowed us to recreate was we thought was a good copy of the original inner panelwork.

[the.cern]

Well, things have moved on a little, as usual a mix of good news and bad news. Thank you Kevin for the offer of photos of your work, any help to let us know how things went together would be very useful.

I've attached a couple of pictures to show our mixed blessings as found this weekend. The problems at each end of the cill are greater than at first thought but unbelievably, apart from small perforations at the front ends adjacent to the cills, both outer wheelarches are in perfect condition. It remains to be seen what the inner arches are like. To assist with those explorations, today the transaxle was dropped out, without any problems and, hopefully, this week I'll be able to remove the de Dion complete with springs and hubs. Then out with the angle grinder to investigate the inner arches and areas around the spring hangers. There is a lot of corrosion around the front hangers and the back end doesn't look good either so lots of work there.

A good feel up behind the offside front wing rearwards of the wheel arch indicates that there are no major problems, the damping disc appears to be in good condition and properly attached to the panel and apart from surface rust the whole area seems to be ok. I'll be able to have a look when the bottom of the A pillar and a little more of the panel is cut out and hope that will justify my present optimism. Any suggestions as to treatment of the inside of this original, but rusted panel would be greatly appreciated.

In the meantime I must make time to start stripping the engine and at least start cleaning up the exterior of the transaxle.

                      Andy

[the.cern]

I'm horrified to find that its been some 11 weeks since I last updated this thread !!!

 It's been the usual mix of good news/bad news. The corrosion problems at the front end of the rear wheelarch and the rear end of the front wheelarch have been worse than I had hoped, but we still seem to be ok with the wheelarches themselves !!!

We are now at the happy stage of welding bits back in, something that at one point I thought would never happen. The photos speak for themselves. Jim has made all the panels, everything is an exact copy of the original, except he has made a reinforcing panel for the floor area where the Nardi floor change is bolted, when we dismantled it there were splits at 3 of the fixing bolt holes.

There is no doubt that I should have bitten the bullet earlier and before any attempt was made to identify and remove the rusted bits I should have removed the transaxle, and both axles. With these out of the way there is so much better access and moving the car about is so much easier on the home-made dollies.

I have started to dismantle the rear brakes, drums and shoes off at the moment. I used a guide written by Mike Day and purchased from the Club Library back in 1975, it was spot on and a great boon. If you're still out there Mike, many many thanks. The pistons in both cylinders are free, but I haven't removed them yet so I still don't know whether I'll get away with a hone and new seals or have to buy complete cylinders. One oil seal has gone so I'll replace both, can anyone suggest a source, or at least advise a size ?  The master cylinder has been dismantled and looks good but I still can't decide whether or not to go for the stainless steel liner mod.

When I drove the car (35 yrs ago) the diff. seemed quiet so I'll leave that alone, but I recollect a problem with, I think, second gear being noisy. Is this a known weakness and should I be doing something about it ?? Gearboxes terrify me, I have never succeeded in beating one yet, so I'd far rather leave it alone !!!

I know I should check and renew clutch parts so please can someone suggest a source of parts., I presume that all the components are unique to the Aurelia, is that so?

Now to see if I can attach the photos, it's a 50/50 chance.

Best wishes,

                  Andy