Rumor has it that the communist government in Italy during the 70’s – 80’s made a deal with the USSR for steel to supply their automobile production, resulting in cars that rust more readily than their competitors. Hopefully any historians in the audience will be able to verify or refute the accuracy of the rumor, but as anyone who’s ever owned an Italian car knows, they rust like no others. I don’t even think that a Jag could rust faster, and that’s saying something.
Meaning that 33 years on, mother nature has had her say in the matter, and the results aren’t pretty. The expert’s assessment is that this is no big deal and pretty common and far from the worse they’ve seen, and I’m comforted by the fact that they know their way around a pair of tin snips and welding machines. Blindfolded.
E.g. “The car is pretty well as I expected, PLEASE don’t feel in any way downhearted at the seeming extent of the metal repair work………….this is very much the norm.”
“First few pics show the stripping completed (including the ‘detail’ stripping of the body suages, glass reveals, rain gutters and all of the other difficult areas).”
“As you can see I have begun the metalwork on the most complicated areas…….the lower front wing/sill structure and having cut away the corrosion on the left side we found the lower A panel support had rusted out also, so removed a larger section of the front wing to enable access to cut the rust out and repair properly. I have also drilled a hole in the support panel so that we can fully protect it with a cavity wax at the end of the job. Finally new sections made for the outer panelwork (sill and lower front wing) and welded in.
Next stage is to do the same on the right side.”
Excellent work. I’m looking forward to seeing how this continues.
