Re: Project Poppy - 1987 MkII GT

[Cpt Custom]

Things are moving forward nicely !!!

Thanks Mark.

It seemed for months as though all I was doing was collecting parts, but now things are really happening.

Loving it!

[The Autoad]

looking great sir

[Cpt Custom]

looking great sir

Not sure about great Ant, but she's coming along.

Looking forward to the NEC by the way - hope we see you there Saturday!

[DT1]

Glad you are persevering.

Be interesting to see a full body shot before the respray just to see how much has been replaced.

[Cpt Custom]

Glad you are persevering.

Be interesting to see a full body shot before the respray just to see how much has been replaced.

Don't worry Colin, you'll be fed up looking at my photos before long!

[GTXTRA]

excellent stuff - good to catch up at the NEC!

[rocco1982]

She's certainly not going to be standard, but I keep changing my mind about what I want to do and how far to go. Body wise my intention is to certainly de-trim and de-badge her. I want the body to be as smooth as possible so even those things that aren't necessarily being removed like the door handles will be altered. The gutter rails are also being ditched and the tramlines filled over. I also want to change the lights and have been thinking about something similar to the Mk1 round light set up, but maybe even something a bit different though not quite sure what.

Really looking forward to seeing the finished article! I bet it feels really nice getting new panels on. Keep the pics comin'! Good work so far...that is one lucky car.

[Cpt Custom]

Really looking forward to seeing the finished article! I bet it feels really nice getting new panels on. Keep the pics comin'! Good work so far...that is one lucky car.

You're right Helen it does feel good to see it moving along.

Hope to have stripped to a rolling shell soon so she can go off and be blasted.

As for being lucky, I think Lily's getting jealous - lol.

[Cpt Custom]

Postman Pat has been good to me lately. First he brought me these nice reproduction parcel shelf clips, which I sourced from Tempest here on the forum …



I’ve read recently that you can still get the original parts from VW, but these are an excellent alternative if you’re having trouble getting OEM bits.

Then yesterday he brought me this nice big box …



Now don’t let the Honda livery fool you because inside were a nice pair of rear arch repair panels …





Again as with the parcel clips these aren’t original parts, but decent quality reproductions. I got these from MarkyMark on the forum who had initially bought them for his own, sadly now abandoned, restoration.

These are the ones that Joost (Blueshark) promoted a while ago through the forum on a thread oddly enough entitled Rear Wheel Arches. Not sure if his mate overseas plans to get more made, but if you’re in the market for them it might be worth giving Joost a shout.

First impressions of them are very good although I’m waiting on my welder checking them out.

One other bit of news this week is that we’ve now sourced someone local who can blast the shell. I’m going with RNR Powder Coatings at West Tanfield. However, before she can go off to them there’s still a fair few things need doing, namely:

• Bonnet, wings and doors to be replaced with ‘new’ panels;
• Rear wheel arch repair kit to be fitted;
• Engine to be removed and bay cleared;
• Glass and rubbers to come out;
• Dashboard to be removed;

If all goes to plan it looks like she might be blasted this side of Christmas.

Needless to say I’ll post more news and photos as soon as there’s anything more to report.

[83mars]

Postman Pat has been good to me lately. First he brought me these nice reproduction parcel shelf clips, which I sourced from Tempest here on the forum …

forgive my ignorance, but ive been wondering where these actually go, and since all my cars are tucked away i cant have a proper nose about,
could someone point them out to me??
apologies for the hi-jack.
keep up the good work tho, im interested to see how you get on with the rear arches...

[ianaudia4]

These brass clips replace the black plastic clips that hold your parcel shelf in place, just behind the rear seat.

[Cpt Custom]

forgive my ignorance, but … could someone point them out to me??
apologies for the hi-jack.

No problem fella. Still being a newbie on here it’s not often I get asked a question I can answer. Typical then when one does come along someone else beats me to it. Mind you I seem to remember it might have been Ian who told me where to get them in the first place!

They really are a good alternative if you can’t get an original set. Here’s a shot of a new one sat above an old one so you can see how they compare. If you were fitting the brass one though it would need to be rotated 180 degrees horizontally as the lip needs to sit over the edge of the parcel shelf.

[83mars]

cheers for that, couldn't figure them out, never had a problem with them so never took any notice.
keep the updates coming man, am enjoying your thread.

[Cpt Custom]

We’ve been really busy this last week or so working on repairing the rear arches and over the weekend I’ll be putting up some information on how this work is progressing. In the meantime, just thought I’d post up a few more photos of the rear panel now it's tacked into place and the rear lights have been refitted.

[Cpt Custom]

Finally got working on the rear arches over the last week. We started with the nearside as it was the ‘better’ of the two!

All the bad metal on both the outer and inner arch was cut away with the air hacksaw and the paint on the surrounding areas removed with a belt sander so we could see what we were working with. Surprisingly, given how bad the arch looked initially it wasn’t that long before we hit good metal.



Once this was done, Steve (the welder) was able to assess how much of the replacement arch we’d need to use. In the end we only used a small section of the new panel. This was partly because we didn’t really need to use it all, but also to minimise the likelihood of the bodywork warping when the new section was welded into place.

Given that some of the inner arch was also shot we salvaged a ‘replacement’ section from the cut-off arches I’d got from markh a few months ago. To get that Steve just drilled out the original spot welds along the edge and ‘hey presto’ off it came.

Once this was cut to size and welded into place we cut up the new panel to the necessary size so that it could be joggled to fit into place with a small section of it being inserted behind the existing body panel.



Before this was welded into place though all the bare areas were sprayed with weld through primer (Normfest Elox). Then we applied some PU adhesive sealant (Tiger Seal) along the existing inner arch so that when the joggled repair panel was slipped into place it would help provide a decent seal between the layers of metal.



That done the repair panel was clamped into place and then tack welds were applied at about 6” intervals, then tack welds were applied in between each of the first series before Steve laid down some continuous welds to finish things off. The idea behind this approach was to prevent the panel from warping as much as possible and it certainly seemed to work on the whole, but there is still some warping visible.







Next we drilled some holes in the outer arch rim to expose the inner arch below and then through these holes we were able to tack weld the two panels together thus giving extra strength to the repaired arches.



Finally, as Poppy is still sat outside during the day, the whole area was sprayed with some zinc primer (Normfest Galva 97) just to keep the nasty rust at bay.



Right now the repaired area still looks a little rough, but once we go over the welds with the belt sander and then prep the body for paint everything should look good.

Then it was time to turn our attentions to the driver’s side rear arch. When I removed the bodykit a few weeks back this was by far the worst area of the car. As you’ll see from the photos, in addition to cutting off the arch rim we had to cut out quite a large area of the rear panel to the front of the arch and also down into the outer sill.





Overall the work involved was pretty much the same as with the passenger side and we followed exactly the same stages when affixing the new section. On this side though there was also a large area of the inner wheel tub that needed to be replaced. If you look back at the photos I posted after I stripped out the interior you’ll see there was an awful lot of damage in there. It was so bad not only could you see daylight through the hole, but I could have fitted my hand into the gap!

Steve rather cleverly used some of the unused metal left over from the second repair panel to form a plate, which he then cut to size and welded into place along with a small section of inner arch salvaged from one of the cut-off arches (from markh).

















One thing I hadn’t noticed until this week is that there must have been a fair amount of work done on the driver’s side rear quarter before I bought her in 1993. Two reasons I say this. Firstly, where I’d taken the trim off we noticed that the swage line between the rear arch and the passenger door shut is almost non-existent. Secondly, in cutting out the rusted section of metal we found that underneath the paint there’s an awful lot of filler, which probably explains the fairly non-existent swage line. Still that’s something to worry about another day.

So, that’s how things are at the moment. I have to say I’m really pleased with how she’s came on over the last couple of weeks and hope to have more to report soon.