1974 Ford Capri Mk1 RS3100
This RS3100 has come to us from Bristol. The car has at some point in its life had a colour change to black and some rather choice modifications to the rear wheelarches in true 70's 'carlos fandango' style. The brief is of course, to fully restore the car and return it to its original from factory specification. The owner, Paul, had already removed all the trim, interior etc and supplied the car as just a rolling shell. In order to carry out the restoration a fair few panels had to be sourced. Luckily, Paul supplied us with a whole host of genuine Ford replacement body panels along with some which we sourced and with joint effort managed to locate some other very rare panels required for the job.
The first thing was to get the car ready to go to soda blast cleaning, not much to do at this stage as Paul had already done most of this work himself. We were only required to remove the rear axle and associated parts and the front suspension. We always remove the front wings prior to soda blasting to allow them the best accesss to the inner wing area's. Once the car was returned to us it could be clearly seen the extent of corrosion to the car. It had also suffered some previous repair work which was just not up to standard and would need addressing. At some point in its life it had been in a slight rear accident to the nearside which again the level of repair work was questionable. The car was coated with an active etch primer to protect the substrate from corrosion prior to the metalwork commencing.
The front end of the vehicle was the first area to be dealt with. Both inner wings had suffered extensive corrosion. Fortunately we had been supplied with a pair of new genuine Ford complete inner wing panels. The old inner wing was removed ready to replace with the new item. The section of the chassis leg front member to floor member had corroded, so a small repair was needed here prior to the new inner wing being fitted into position. At this point the panel is only held into position with a couple of tack welds and some screws. This is to ensure all alignment is correct before anything is welded into position. Adjustments once the panels have been fully welded are not ideal hence this initial dry fit process.
The same was needed on the nearside of the vehicle, so again the full inner wing panel was removed. The chassis had corroded in the same area so this was repaired as the other side prior to the inner wing being fitted. At this point a new inner and outer front crossmember was fitted to the car. The whole front end was screwed into position to check alignment with the car prior to being welded for the final fitment. A new front panel was also fitted along with a pair of new headlamp bowls.
Once the new panels had been fitted to the front end, the next area needing attention was the bulkhead panel. The bulkhead is made up of two panels with the heater bowl panel sat on top. The seam along the top section and lower section had corroded so the heater bowl was removed along with the corroded sections to the top and lower panel. A new piece of the lower bulkhead was welded in once the corroded section had been removed, the top section had not suffered as bad so just the corroded sections were removed and new sections fabricated and welded into position.
Moving on to the rear of the vehicle, we had a pair of new complete rear chassis legs to fit and these are a tricky panel to replace. The rear section of the outer and inner sill needed to be removed to allow the complete rear leg to be positioned so at this point just enough is removed to allow for this process. We were aware of the fact the car had been involved in a rear end impact at some point in its life. The offside leg still had evidence of this damage and the nearside leg had a section welded in previously along with a new rear panel, boot floor and nearside quarter panel. None of which, to be honest, had been done at all well. The area to the nearside leg forward of the previously replaced section still had a nasty crease in it. After much measuring and re-checking we discovered the rear floor of the car in the boot area was still pushed up due to the accident damage. Again, both the rear legs needed to be dry fitted along with the othe rear end panels to check all measurements were correct and aligned. Once we were happy that all the rear end of the car was correctly aligned and the floor repaired correctly the legs could be welded into position.
The next area to tackle was the floor pans, inner and outer sills and the A-post areas. The lower sections of the A-post were removed to gain access to the areas needing repair to the floor and sills. Rather than fitting new floors the existing ones were repaired. This was done by cutting out all areas with corrosion and previous repair work and new sections fabricated in order to repair the floor pans. The front end sections of the bulkhead needed some very small amount of repair work and had amazingly not suffered as bad as expected. Once the floor repairs had been completed, the new inner sill was dry fitted to the floor to ensure all alignment was correct prior to any welding.
Once we were happy that the panel fitted corectly the new outer sill along with the A-post, kick panel were fitted to the car. The door, wing and the rear quarter panel were all dry fitted to the car prior to any panels being welded into position to ensure all the shut lines and alignment were correct. All the panels were then removed once more from the car so the new rear wheelhouses could be welded into position prior to the new quarters being fitted. The panels were then re-fitted to the car, again with the door and wing fitted for alignment purposes. It was the same both sides to check everything fitted correctly. The new rear quarter panels were both fitted dry at this point along with the rear panel and bootlid again for alignment purposes. Once we were happy with everything all the new panels could be spot welded into position bar the rear panel which was screwed on for temporary alignment.
The inner rear scuttle panel had corroded quite badly but unfortunatley only end repair sections are available as opposed to a complete panel. This meant the new end sections were welded in and the rest we had to repair with a fabricated section. Once all welded in, the joins were blended in with filler rather than being just brush seam sealed. A bit over the top as this section can't even be seen once the outer scuttle is fitted? well, maybe but enough can be seen through the vents in the outer scuttle panel for us to decide to do this. The inner scuttle will be etch primmed and painted prior to the outer scuttle being fitted to ensure maximum protection from corrosion in the future. Again, some may think this to be excesive. The boot floor on the car had been replaced with a new one when the car had suffered its rear end damage so was in great condition corrosion wise so we decided to re-fit the floor to the car. Unfortunatley it had been braised in previously so had caused a fair ammount of heat distortion to the areas above the chassis legs. Once we had welded the floor back into the car a skim coat of filler was needed to remove the ripples from where we had hammered the floor back to its correct shape.
Once the rear quarters and the floor and rear panel had been welded in, the roof was the next area to be adressed. As you will see earlier the car had been fitted with a webasto sunroof. Although this had been fitted from new it did not leave the AVO factory with this, so in effect not at all original. A rust free used roof was sourced by Paul. The used roof was pain-stakingly unpicked from its frame prior to be blast cleaned and etch primmed before being fitted to the car. You will notice only the outer skin has been used and all the inner frame work of the original shell kept intact. Contary to common belief it is not correct practice to cut a roof through the pillars and weld a new one on the pillars as in my personal opinion this is a highly dangerous practice and as bad as cutting and shutting a car. It is very important to keep the cars structual intergrity intact in key areas like this.
Once the panels had all been checked and checked again for correct alignment they could then be finally welded into position prior to the car being mounted to the rollover jig. Some work was needed to the underside finishing welds and some other small jobs prior to any repaired or replaced areas and panels being re-etch primed. The car was then removed from the jig to allow the preperation process to the shell to begin. It will be re attatched to the jig at a later date to seal and paint the underside.
The next stage was to check around the complete body to pick out any imperfections that may have been overlooked prior to the car being wheeled into the booth and masked in preperation for primer. Any bare metal areas regardless how small were re-etch primed and then three coats of high build primer applied to the complete car.
Now the shell had been primed it was time to move on to the next stage, the interior and boot compartment of the car. The boot area had to be completely primed with a high build primer due to repair work to the boot floor itself. This was repaired and sealed as required. The interior cabin was re-etch primed prior to all seams being sealed and new anti-drum pads being applied to the main floor areas. The car was then taken back into the booth and masked ready for the interior and boot compartment to be re-finished in its original Diamond White. A wet primer was applied to the interior passenger compartment prior to the new coat of diamond white. The next stage will be to start preperation of the underside for refinishing along with the engine compartment.
Further updates to follow shortly.