A B20 Story

[Parisien]

One handsome car....in northern France it seems, or just the photographer?


P

[the.cern]

Well, unfortunately I've continued to be lax in reporting progress although progress there has been!!

I am appalled that the last real progress photos were over 18mths ago, although general views have been posted of the shell on the rotisserie and also a verbal update was posted some 6mths ago.

So, I'll try to provide a further report, hopefully with photographs.

Picking up on the January post, I have yet to tackle the cleaning of the floor pan etc, both inside and out and am still hopeful someone can suggest a suitable blast medium for my little spot blaster. With regard to the rear springs, they have now been completely cleaned and painted. I went to see Ron Francis a few days ago and bought inter alia a 10m roll of spring interleaving, one side requires 6.5m (with no allowance for wastage) but fortunately Elizabeth at Omicron has come up with the balance for the 2nd side so hopefully I'll have both springs completed shortly.

Ok, back to the bodywork, Jim has now completed refurbishment of the doors. Both required a new stiffening strip but the RHS did not need work to the diagonal braces. The door skins were generally in good condition, but a strip  some 50mm wide had to be replaced on the leading, rear and bottom edges where the double skin construction had caused problems. There are a lot, an awful lot, of spot welds used in the fabrication, Jim is now well practised at drilling out spot welds, he has a lot to thank me for!!!! The channels holding the glass were next to receive attention, the RHS simply needed tidying, it had been replaced previously but rather crudely. The LHS channel had to be replaced in its entirety.  Next came the bootlid, same problem as with the door skin and same action, more spot welds drilled out and repair strips seam welded back in, spot welded to the frame and beaten to shape. Bonnet next and guess what, same problem!!! Jim says there are a mere 160 spot welds used to hold the bonnet skin to the frame, but he's now an expert so no problem. This repair should be finished next week and then we are down to checking, tidying and cleaning up and that is the bodywork repairs completed !!!!!!!

I think that is in the order of 27mths of work averaging out, for Jim, as 1 day per week. I consider that to be an excellent result given the state of the car  and the other stuff I have thrown into the mix for him to complete in the meantime!!!

The problem that I now have is that Jim is really enjoying himself in telling me how much work I have to do before I can have the shell sufficiently mobile to go to the spray shop !!!!

That brings me to the body colour, this was the subject of a separate thread an I am grateful to everyone who threw in  their twopenn'orth.  The outcome is that I have decided to go for black, see the recent posts from William, David and Parisien, I really didn't have much alternative in the end, especially as Jim instructed me that 'original colour is the only choice'!!!!!

So, now simply complete cleaning the shell, inside and out, rebuild front and rear axles sufficient to have a rolling shell and then off to the spray shop, doesn't sound a lot if you say it quickly.

I'll now try for some photographs, hopefully in chronological order.

The first shows the front bumper mounts, these were repaired before the shell went on the rotisserie !!!  Then we have views under the front wheel arch showing the amount of metal/rust that was cut out, both air intake boxes were rebuilt and the lower part of the front valance replaced. Then inner wheel arch repairs and finally, spotlight housings were significantly rebuilt.

More photographs to follow.

                             Andy

[Parisien]

Wonderful Andy, great to see how its all coming together and seeing Jims artwork, lovely to behold

My guy has gotten delayed on starting my project, hoping to move it on as soon as!


P

[the.cern]

More photographs ....

1) Underside showing the new floor section, extreme left hand side. In the bottom right hand corner is the cut-out for the Nardi gear change, suitably reinforced after finding splits around the original !!
2) Underside, front left hand side
3) Underside above the transaxle and petrol tank. Repairs to the rear spring hangers have been completed.
4) Underside partway through cleaning the floor pan. The outer panels of the floor pan have been fabricated and fitted by Jim.
5) Underside showing repairs to the front valance. The rear of the front wheel arch has been cut away and is yet to be replaced. Incidentally, the front valance repairs included replacement of one end of the tube on which the steering box is mounted. This had rusted away completely allowing the steering box a large degree of movement. Not conducive to positive steering response !!

More to follow.

Best wishes,
         
               Andy

[the.cern]

More !!

1) RHS outer sill (made by Bill Lewis) spot welded in (as the original) complete with Jim's panels to tie it in with the rear of the front wheel arch.
2) As previous photo.
3) As previous photos but LHS.
4) As previous photo.
5) As previous photo.
6) As previous photo but front LHS.
7) As previous photo.

There are more  yet !!!

Best wishes,

                Andy

[the.cern]

OOPS !!!!  Photographs 5 and 6 in the previous post are the same. Photo 6 should have been this ........

Sorry about that, more photos (and probably cock-ups) to follow.

                         Andy

[the.cern]

Here we are again ...

1) Front inner wing showing the Berlina shell, crudely beaten and re-shaped to accept the Pininfarina B20 body. This, I am told, is how they left the PF works.
2) As above
3) Rear spring mid dismantling. G clamps are in place to secure the spring leaves and allow controlled removal of the central bolt and the spring leaf clamps. The central bolt has been replaced with a length of studding to control energy release after the G clamps have been removed and when separating the leaves. NB Look at those shiny new silentbloc bushes !!
4) There is quite a way to go before tension comes off the studding.
5) The spring leaves released and separated.
6) The interleaving was past its best.

Yet more to follow, hope this isn't getting boring.

                      Andy

[Parisien]

Andy, its like being at the Leonardo DaVinci exhibition all over again.....works of art....

Post up as many as you want!


P

[the.cern]

I'm struggling to get all this fancy electronic gear to post a few photos. I'm sure you will appreciate that it is not a fault on my part but a failure of the equipment !!!

This is the 3rd attempt to post the missing 5 photographs. If it doesn't work this time then I'm going to bed (with a large brandy!!!)

                         Andy

[the.cern]

Thanks Parisien, I'm glad you are enjoying them.

 I have photographs of the bootlid refurbishment ready to post, but none for the doors or the bonnet. They will come in due course.

 Hope you are able to get things underway on your car in the near future.

Best wishes,

                Andy

[DavidLaver]

Fascinating !!

David

[the.cern]

And now its boot lid time !!!!!

At first glance the boot lid seemed not too bad with some unevenness around the edges with a couple of small areas of corrosion. However, it is a certainty on a restoration job that a wire brush in an angle grinder will reveal much worse and so it did!!! Construction is a curved skin spot welded to a pressed steel frame. Jim tells me that there are/were in the order of 160 spot weld holding these two components together and he drilled out every one of them. The frame was not too bad except the bottom section which had to be cut off and repaired before being welded back in.  The skin itself was ok except that around the whole periphery a 50mm wide strip had rusted where it was double skinned with the frame. This strip was cut off and new metal seam welded in, then spot welded back onto the frame. I must check that Jim used at least 160 spot welds!!!

I was pleasantly surprised to find only one small area of accident damage, about 100mm diameter, which had been beaten out and lightly filled. Jim fettled it to reduce the amount of filler required.

Photographs.

1) Bottom edge ... spot welds drilled out and the frame cut away to facilitate repair.
2) Showing the worst of the rust on the bottom edge.
3) The repaired frame ready for the skin.
4) The skin under repair. The 50mm wide repair strip has been seam welded to both sides and the bottom edge, the top edge is ready for the same treatment.

Photographs of the doors and bonnet are in the pipeline ...

                                 Andy

[the.cern]

Totally out of the chronological order, these three photographs show some of the sill and wheel arch problems/repairs. They were taken in September 2010. Days of innocence before becoming aware of the rear spring hanger problems and the challenges of the front valance and areas around the fog lights etc!!

                  Andy

[DavidLaver]

Am remembering my foglight surrounds and bumper irons.  Thankfully someone else had done all the sills and floors.  The bootlid I lived with and seeing what it REALLY takes to make one good am happy it was the right call.  Back then I was just wanting it on the road, I guess you having waited 40 years to get started there's a different attitude!!

Thinking about it the boot lid SKIN was alloy - those must "just" be wrapped over the frame...

One question you never need to ask with an Aurelia is "I wonder if there's a better boot lid out there to start from" as you KNOW it won't fit.  I got another grill and it must have been half an inch out in places.  I used to know how much different left and right doors were in length.

Keep at it !!   At least keep making the tea for Jim...

David

[the.cern]

Making tea is all that Jim allows me to do .............. having seen me take a panel beaters hammer to a wing!!!!!!!!!!! And as to his comments when I was found with the shrinker/stretcher ..........

                       Andy