Rear door repairs

 The offside rear door Id bought second hand looked really good but on closer inspection there were some tiny rust spots in the corners showing through the coating applied by SPL. I’d already sorted the door gap so this was a problem I should have spotted sooner. Off with the door and after poking around with a screwdriver it was an even bigger problem needing a repair panel. The lower door skin curves top to bottom and includes the curve to match up with the sill. You can buy a repair panel but with my benchtop English Wheel and bead roller and tipping die for the flange I was able to make one (2 days work!). Of course when fitted back on the car the door gap was wrong again which meant re-leading the sill line.

 

     

Rear Bulkhead/Firewall

 All MK7,8’s and 9’s have a big strong chassis so the structure of the body in some places looks flimsy. The rear bulkhead is stiffened simple by two cross braces and no panels sealing off the boot where the fuel tanks sit from the passenger compartment. For racing this is simply too dangerous so when my car was modified the boot was all sealed off with aluminium panels. I wanted a better, more permanent solution that provided some extra stiffness to the body so I removed the aluminium and made up some filler panels with stiffness added using the bead roller, in its place.

   

Spat Modifications

The spats don’t clear the wider wheels so need modifying

The radius of a wheel/tyre

That doesn’t fit!

Marking out

Looks about right

 That will need some adjustment 

New seats have arrived!

 

When I bought the car it had no seats, as built for racing in 1976 it was fitted with a seat from a powerboat but that was long gone and I’ve  only seen it in photographs.

It’s a little early for these but I discovered some electrically operated front seats with picnic tables from a Daimler XJ40 on E Bay and matching rear seats on Facebook marketplace from a Jaguar XJ40.

The front seats fit well, they are much smaller than original MK8 seats. The back seats are the exact width but the backrest is shorter so might need some modification. It looks good though.

 

Shiny New Wheels

 

Can’t wait to get these fitted! 

6 x 15 inch rather than the standard 5 x 16 and with a bigger offset they will fill the cavernous wheelarches perfectly. Same as were fitted to the magnesium bodied Mark 7 built by Jaguar.

 

Rear screen pillar rust repair

Rusted holes in several places due to the padding behind it getting wet.
Awkward shape in that it curves in several dimensions. 

Started by making a mould of the shape with body filler 
using masking tape to stop it sticking to the metal

Cut the sheet metal and folded an edge on it then
started to shape it with a shrinker/stretcher 

First of many trial fits

Nearly there!

Butt welded after cutting out the exact matching shape

Fully welded ready for grinding smooth

Ground flat and ready for lead loading

Leaded and filed ready for primer

Finished and trying to decide on a colour

Rear Valance