1981 Mini City 1000

[ctwomey]

This was heavily corroded on both sides so needs repairs to the underside of the gutter and the roof panel



No corrosion on the inside which is good



Starting to remove the spot welds



Patch panel made from the donor roof



Almost welded in place. Really happy with the finish

[Billy]

So you should be

[ctwomey]

Thanks Billy.

The next two repairs are now lined up. The right-hand side is the upper side of the previous repair.

[ctwomey]

Working through the other repairs on the roof. It's slow progress and tedious. Had to do two additional cuts to relieve stress on the joint after I did the first couple of tack welds.

[colinf1]

I don't know how your welding in this heat, I had to help make some jigs at work so had to have welding PPE on, literally only 15mins and was sweltering!

Looks like your almost there with the roof repairs! Keep it up!

[ctwomey]

Wasn’t too bad temp wise Colin. The stone walls on the garage keep it cooler.

What do people feel about lead loading vs body filler for smoothing out over the welding? Is it worth the extra effort for the lead loading? Or epoxy prime first and body fill over?

[woody]

My painter reckons modern fillers are as good as lead

[ctwomey]

Yes woody, it certainly seems the consensus out there. Found a decent review of all the good fillers out there - https://everydayshowcar.com/best-car-body-filler/

[ctwomey]

I am back from holidays and time to tackle the damaged area above the passenger door



I have cut a section from the donor roof, however, the leading edge of the donor section needs replacing.



I have cut out the corroded area from the donor section





Difficult weld to do and get right as it will be very visible on the car once completed.



Hopefully, I kept the original shape. Next is to cut out the damaged section on the car and offer it up.

[colinf1]

Good work Conor, nice weather to come back from holidays, nice weather to be in the garage making progress!

[ctwomey]

Thanks Colin.

My brother is driving over from the UK in a couple of weeks so I jumped at the opportunity to pick up some bits and pieces including both passenger and driver floor quarter panels from M-Machine and some new stainless steel bumpers.

[ctwomey]

It's time to cut out the damaged gutter from the roof. My approach is to cut across the door opening as it is the shortest path for the butt weld. The rest is all spot welded.



Initial cut is to just leave the spot weld faces to grind down.



I cleaned up the roof panel edge.



The edge of the roof panel has a good bit of pitting here so I will need to fix this before welding in my patch panel.

[ctwomey]

Haven't been in the garage for a good few weeks. Lots of other commitments took priority.

Various stages of tack welding. I didn't weld the ends until the end because I didn't want the expansion and contraction of the patch to warp the roof.







Controlling the penetration of the welds from the other side



Blended the welding into the roof. The tag on the lip is to help to pull the edge of the roof to the edge of the rain gutter





The roof lip cleaned up nicely



Sizing up the door frame and gutter to the underside of the roof

[colinf1]

That's a tidy looking repair, should be fairly invisible once it's welded and dressed down...plenty of zinc primer too, should hold back the rust for a few weeks...

Good to see you back at it!

[ctwomey]

Carrying on from my previous post, tack welded in place



Grinding down the welds, it should require very little filler



All finished inside the door frame



Before and ...



After



and the door still fits in the frame which is a bonus

[ctwomey]

I have started work on the driver-side rain channel. This will be repaired from underneath.



Remove the existing corner to make way for the patch panel. The lip on the roof panel will need some repair but the rest is solid metal.



The patch from the donor roof has been cleaned up. I have a small patch weld in to finish it off. I still have some fettling to get it to fit.

[ctwomey]

I cut out the rotten lip of the roof panel



I always leave extra metal so it dissipates the heat better



Tacking it in place



Follow up with welding the pinholes between the tacks



Good penetration through to the other side of the roof panel



Finished up the underside and will spray it with zinc primer in prep for adding the patch panel I created in the previous post

[ctwomey]

Here is the finished underside

[ctwomey]

Patch panel is tacked in place



Ground down the first round of tacks so I can get to the gaps in between



All cleaned up and spot welds completed against the existing panels



Spray of etch primer to keep it rust-free until I get around to epoxying it

[ctwomey]

Sizing up the patch panel for the rear passenger roof corner



Initial cut of the corner



The lip of the existing roof is very badly corroded in this corner

[colinf1]

Thats a brave repair! I'd say yor were quite nervous doing that cut!

[ctwomey]

Thats a brave repair! I'd say yor were quite nervous doing that cut!

Oh yes. The challenge will be grinding out the old corroded lip. At least in the corners you can get behind the roof panel and do a little bit of pushing. Also, the corners tend to hold their shape when welding compared with flap pieces. Fingers crossed.

[ctwomey]

Repairing this corner of the passenger side rear quarter has proven tricky. It took hours just to get this patch to fit and align properly.



It welded in nicely but where it joins the spot welded seams I don't have a tool to grind down the corner. I will need to buy a small barrel-shaped carbide head to get in there.

[woody]

Looks good. The seam cover will cover most of that weld

[ctwomey]

Looks good. The seam cover will cover most of that weld

Agree, just need to blend it a small bit. I have an off-cut for the seam cover from another mini and I just need to create a radius in that corner.