Heater Channel Repair (Driver Side)
Next up was the heater channel. Although initially inspection suggested there were only a few holes in it, once it was cleaned up with a wire brush I realized it was worse than I thought!

I decide to replace just the outer channel rather than the whole thing as the inside was rock solid as was most of the bottom plate. Also I’m trying to keep the car as original as possible.

The inside of the heater channel was cleaned up and painted.

An aftermarket repair panel was fitted from GSF. However this did not have the original ‘indents’ so I made a tool up and pressed them in! (Geek alert!)

Finally after painting the inside of the reapir panel, I welded it in.

A Post Repair (Driver Side)
Next up to be repaired was the A post. For this I used one of the Hookey’s excellent repair panels (God I sound like a commercial for panel suppliers!). For once this panel went in pretty straight forward.

Rear Quarter Repair (Driver Side)
The next job was to put the rear quarter back in. This actually took me two attempt to get right, as I wasn’t happy with the fit the first time, but it went in well in the end! (I don’t seem to have many photos of this. Thank god I hear you say!). Thanks to my neighbour Woody for all his help with this, as he stepped in and helped after I messed the first attempt up!

I wanted to get the panel exactly the same as the original, however the GSF repair panel that I used did not have the original drain holes (the 3 half moons at the bottom, see below picture). Therefore I made a pressing tool to put these back in (Yes I really am a geek!).

Heater Channel Bottom Plate Repair (Driver Side)
The only other bad bit around the heater channel was the bottom closing plate, near the front of the car. Usually repair panels for this do not have the correct pressing. However Wolf Panel's do a excelent reproduction of early closing plates, and thus one was imported from Sweeden and fitted.

The inside of the heater channel was cleaned up of any rust, and painted.

Then the bottom plate was welded in.

Rear Inner Arch Repair (Driver Side)
Now the inner wheel arch took a lot of work as you cant get repair panels which are anywhere near the correct pressings! Thus with the help of my friend Phil again, we hand made most of it.

As can be seen in the first photo this area was pretty bad, so using measurement taken from the other side I tried to recreate the panels as per the original.

The panel actuall consists of two parts, a inner and a outer panel. Heres the inner panel we made.

And the outer panel made and installed.

Underneath the rear seats, although solid for an early car, a bit of rot had crept in. Although I could have got away with a simple flat plate here I again decided to copy the original pressing.

From the picture above, you can see that all that is left to repair in inner arch repair is a small bit of the lip where the rot had set in. That was quickly sorted out.