Here's my Mini, without the engine and pretty much stripped to a shell. There comes a time when you just can't cover up rust or cut out and patch and if you want a great paint job, you can't have rust.
Out came the disc cutter and cut the front wings off. I bought a lot of cutter discs from Ebay and flap grinder wheels.
I considered a carbon fibre flip front which would probably have been cheaper and much more cool, but they're not as strong as a steel front end and it can be difficult getting it through an MOT.
So without the wings I discover the flitch panels. Flitch panels are the inner wings and were completely shagged.
I bought some new British Motor Heritage flitch panels at £103 each from Minispares with the idea of cutting them down and welding them into the good metal. Then realised, for the same effort it's just better to cut out the old and fit the new.
Cutting out flitch panels are a bit of a nightmare. They're welding on the inside of the cabin as well as the outside. So it was a case of grinding off the leading edge of the A panels, using flap grinder discs on the flaps welded to the floorpan and drilling out the spot welds, trying not to disturb too much the metal you want to keep.
Passenger side Flitch panel
After what seemed like many hours the passenger side flitch panel was removed. Care was taken to remove as much paint, filler and rust as possible from the good metal to make welding the new panel as easy as possible.
I had to remove the front Subframe to get at parts of the panel to be removed. I had wanted to keep the subframe attached to keep the car in alignment.
The car was now light enough to pick up and push around like a wheel barrow. I rested the shell on the front wheels. The tyres cushion the spread the load. By doing one flitch panel at a time it'll keep the shell in alignment.
Weld through primer was sprayed on all the surfaces to be welded. Etch primer was sprayed into that square bulkhead piece in the picture.
Before fitting of the panels all edges were sprayed with weld through primer which has high conductibility.
This is quite a frightening part of the build. Trying to align up the new panel. Even though British Motor Heritage pressed the panel from the original Austin Rover dies, it still needs tack welding and beaten into position.
As you can see in the picture below is a new triangular bulkhead piece tack welded to the bulkhead. I used this as a point of alignment. The top of the triangular panel aligns to the top of the flitch panel.
By clamping and tack welding I got the correct position of the panel. I also pressed up the bottom lip of the panel to the floorpan and tack welded to that. The panel also needed to be stretched, so that it could meet up with the parcel rail on the inside of the car.
Stretching a panel involves hammering dents into the panel until the panel stretches. Hence the term panel beater. I tried a rubber hammer which didn't work as well as a ball peen hammer, a normal hammer and a 2kg lump hammer.
Using a MAFF blowtorch helped warm the metal up and also annealed the metal to prevent any metal hardening or splitting. All that though still wasn't enough to push the panel close enough to the parcel shelf piece so I drilled a hole in the metal. Passed a rope with a big knot through the hole. Secured the other end, and twisted a metal bar into the rope. Turning the bar like a tourniquet pulled the panel close enough to the parcel shelf panel to put tack welds in. Plus a lot of blowtorching and hammering.
Equipment
For all grinding I wore an ex army S10 respirator bought off Ebay for £20 and ear defenders. Hand protection was Gorilla Grip gloves and welding gauntlets. The Gorilla Grip gloves are cheap and good, giving protection from cuts on sharp metal. They don't really stop hot sparks though.
British Motor Heritage panels are electrostatically primed and made from better steel than the original steel used.
I used 1mm welding wire and CO2 gas. I've used Argon mix gas in the past and sometimes I prefer it.
Clarke welder used which works ok but I'm sure there are better welding machines out there. I'm not blaming the tool but it feels a little bit like being in battle with the thing trying to get the weld just right.
