1962 Vauxhall Victor FB - Making Panels

[tonybmw]

My friend Gordon bought this FB Victor several months ago, and it has been under wraps ever since, I had some time off work so decided to give him a hand get it kick started. The deal is I will carry out all the welding and some painting and he will strip it and then rebuild it

Some pics of the car as he bought it







It is an original car, very low mileage only approx 20K miles, it had been owned by an old lady who only used it to go to the shops, when she died it was then left outside for several years. This means that the interior and trim are excellent, and whilst the car is solid on the outside, it is very rusty on the inside, as it has had water standing in it for years, time will tell if this will be a problem or not.


Once Gordon had stripped the interior and trim it was out with the engine



This is typical of the surface rust on all the interior panels



And off with the panels





And then we can see what lies under the surface














Then it is loaded up and taken to mine for the weldathon to commence

We hired a cool trailer from the local trailer place





and this is where the work starts



A quick jet wash even took the underseal off the inner wings so that was useful



I decided to start with the inner wing repairs first as they looked the most straight forward, after a going over with the twist knot brush this is what we had



How wrong can you be, once the first layer was cut off it exposed another rotten layer, and then another, all the way back to the bulkhead



The only way to deal with this properly is to cut it right out



And then the patching commences



Of course there are very few repair panels available so most parts will have to be made by hand from sheet steel.

Panel number 1



Tacked in



Welded in



Cleaned off



Primered



Panel 2



small patch



Then on with panel 3, each of these parts took a while to make so this was it for that day




The next day saw me completing that inner wing section





A repair then needed to the windscreen surround and scuttle area



That was the beginning of last week so more pics to follow soon

[welder]

That's some neat work going on there. Looking forward to more of this.

[dreadnort]

Lovely metalwork!!! Love these old FB Victors.

[briandamaged]

Epic fabrication and welding skills there.

On the plus side it looks as if it's never been repaired before, so at least you're getting a clear run making repair panels instead of having to undo other people's bodges.

Bookmarked this thread, looking forward to seeing it progress!!

[fordf350camper]

You should have done some extra repair panels to sell.My brother has the estate fb and needs all the same panels.Very good work there mate.

[MK2VR6]

I don't usually comment on welding and fabrication photos on here (can't weld myself so don't think it would be fair to judge other people's efforts ) but I wholeheartedly feel that if I ever need any welding done, I will be sending a pm your way in the hope you would be able to help. Stunning work.

[akku]

good work, nice to see an FB being saved. I hope you are going to keep the original colour, it really suits it

[ukmercman]

serious quality fabrication and welding there - wish i could do it that well!

[Lankytim]

This Victior is going to be 100% bodge free when finished- great fab skills there!

[manbearpig]

fantastic fabrication. Looks good mate.

[tonybmw]

Thanks guys for all the great comments

It is much easier when the car has not been "restored" before, as you never know what lies under the plates or shiny surfaces

Yes colour will remain the same, Primrose yellow with the Honey Gold roof, I agree a great period colour

It seemed logical to stick with this side so I moved down to the door pillar and sill area, as it turned out the sills had been repaired before at the front ends, very nicely done with plenty of filler and pop rivets, looked great but not very structural.







Once the rot was cut back we were left with this, I had to remove the bottom part of the pillar to remove the full sill section, Gordon had been lucky to find a genuine full sill for this side, so I wanted to use as much of it as possible, to try to replicate that factory look




So I made up a patch for the bottom of the closing panel, apologies for not taking more pictures, (note to self : must take more pics when doing the other side)

Anyway here is is, welded in cleaned up and primered, concealed wing fixing also swapped over, onto the new panel, also patch fitted by the jacking point




At this point a Really needed to think about getting the sill on to line everything up, so it was off with the old one





Note spot welds all drilled out, I find that if you rub the area with a piece of sandpaper on a flat block, then it is easier to identify where they are, they all need to be drilled out, to release all of the old sill.





At first I thought that the inner sill was going to be okay, and it would just be a matter of cleaning it up and welding on the new sill, after all it was very clean and solid, when viewed from underneath.



But the fact that this car had been standing so long in damp conditions meant that it was rotting from the inside out, so once I started grinding it clean, it soon became apparent that further repairs would be needed.



So off with the rot



and new panels made



And welded into place, as I could get good access from both sides, I decided to spot weld these on, welding them to the inner sill and the floor pans for maximum strength







And then trial fit the sill, don't worry pop rivets are only temporary and will be removed later, honest







What I have not shown is the doors and wing being fitted, adjusted, adjusted again, taken off, refitted, adjusted, you get the picture.
I wanted to be absolutely certain that once these sills were on, they were in the right place, with good equal and even panel gaps. I have seen far too many jobs, where the doors overlap the sills, or scrape against them every time the door opens and closes. And as my old woodwork teacher used to say, amongst other things, was

" If a jobs worth doing its worth doing well"


Thats all for tonight, tune in tomorrow for the sill fitting.

[mirafioriman]

Excellent work and lovely panel making skills. Perhaps you could share with us a few tips for making similar. For example do you have a shrinker/stretcher or are you just using a vice and hammer etc?

[tonybmw]

Aug 17, 2009 22:05:04 GMT mirafioriman said:

Excellent work and lovely panel making skills. Perhaps you could share with us a few tips for making similar. For example do you have a shrinker/stretcher or are you just using a vice and hammer etc?

I do have a shrinker stretcher but have not used it on this project yet, I tend to use just rudimentary tools, like as you say, vice, hammer and angle iron.

I spent years welding peoples cars up lying in the gutter in their street, so you learn just to make do with whatever comes to hand.

As the repairs will be the same on the other side I will take some more pictures whilst I am doing them, I did not really know what people would want to see, but if the panel making pics help then I am all for it.

[mirafioriman]

Thanks for that. I'm doing my Fiat 130 at the moment (see my thread on here) and am having to make most bits as I have great difficulty buying anything for it!

[retrowagen1234]

wow this is kool i had an estate one of these.... purple matt, and lowered... shamefully never got it back on the road

[smeigel12000]

That's a very nice job.

I don't know this model but I like it a lot :-)

[poproddernot]

hi,
some excellent fab skills there. did your mate buy it this time last year, i was within a nats cock in buying it as i was struggling to get my fe done for nats.

[tonybmw]

Aug 18, 2009 19:10:48 GMT @poproddernot said:

hi,
some excellent fab skills there. did your mate buy it this time last year, I was within a nats cock in buying it as I was struggling to get my fe done for nats.

Yes it would have been about then, not sure where from though

[tonybmw]

Update for the sills

Once I was happy that the sill and door gaps were good, it was time to weld it on.
I am trying to replicate the factory look where possible, so the spot welder was used where possible, and the posts were pool welded in place to be cleaned off later

You may remember that some of the spot welds had been near the edge of the post, so I had to use a copper block against the edge of the panel, to prevent the weld spreading out over, hence the corner welds are a little lumpy, but once cleaned up it should be fine









Then they were cleaned off with a 40 grit flap disc, and then a Roloc scotchbrite disc and then finally a DA sander with an 80 grit disc





Pretty happy with them I must say






I had to use a Dremmel to get into the corner weld at the rear, if you have never used one of these, then I do recomend that you do, I have to admit that I thought they would be a mickey mouse type of tool, but their not





Then a quick coat of etch primer to stop it rusting









The seams were looking good from underneath too, once seam sealed and painted it should look factory fresh







Meanwhile Gordon was busy stripping the paint in the boot, I set him away with a clean and strip disc on a drill






I was just tacking the front pillar back together when I ran out of welding wire, and that now brings us up to date, so progress will be slower now, only the odd night time and weekend

[mirafioriman]

Looking good. Just been looking at your website. Some good work there too. Are you restoring both the blue and the silver E12 then?