A Beta Spyder - Just a small project to keep me amused.....

[peteracs]

The driver's inner wing proved to be a whole load more work than the passenger side. Apart from a distinct lack of metal, there was a patch to around the turret which was not even welded fully and was downright dangerous.... Not an MOT  pass I feel.

[peteracs]

After sorting the turret, on with the bulkhead end and building up around the turret area.

[peteracs]

And last but not least a patchwork quilt to sort out the headlamp end. Simples (for some I guess!)

[peteracs]

Moving along, we (that is the Royal 'we' of course) attacked the door sills. The main area of problem is that area directly below the A post where all the water from the wheels gets blasted against the end of the sill/inner wing. Having looked at a couple of Spiders it is one of the classic places for some serious rust. The pictures pretty much say it all, a) how bad is was b) how is was built up in stages to a pretty impressive end result (to my novice eyes anyway). First up is the passenger side

[peteracs]

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[peteracs]

And the drivers side, pretty much the same at the end of the sill, but also there was some significant repairs neede to the upper part of the sill both back and front which required some more of the 'hand made parts' to be manufactured.

Rear part of the sill first

[peteracs]

Moving on to the front part of the drivers sill the repair here was to both the upper part of the sill next to the A post and the area where the sill meets the inner front wing.

 

[DavidLaver]

That door shut repair section is an impressive bit of work...

David

[peteracs]

David, I can but agree. As this is my first restoration, I was pretty impressed with what can be achieved with a bit of metal, a welder, a grinder and some talent and imagination.

As a slight aside from the main body, here is the repair to the battery box which I guess has suffered from either an accumulation of water or/as well as a leaking battery at some stage.

[peteracs]

Ok, back to the wings. Attached to the rear of the inner front wings is a plate which I guess is designed to catch all the crap thrown up by the wheel. These were as you would imagine in a poor state, so new ones were fabricated and fitted. As we were using fibreglass wings which would 'rub' against these plates, the outer edge has had some rubber 'padding' added to reduce wear on the wings (not shown).

[rodney3010]

What a great report. Thanks for taking the time to bother putting this together. Should be a real help to those in a similar position.
This thread and others on the forum would make the basis for a great publication! Has the LMC ever considered such a thing?

[peteracs]

Rodney, thanks for the encouragement, just what I needed to make it feel worth putting it down in words and pictures. There is a kind of satisfaction having put it down in individual sections, especially as the work so far was done by others over several weeks and I was only involved every so often. It makes you realise what work you are actually paying for and the skill involved.

Next up was the front valance. This was not too bad, but had some rusted away parts which were 'rebuilt'. The final picture shows during the spraying.

[peteracs]

On to the wings. These, as was mentioned before, were fibreglass (cost & availability) and on offering up two issues were apparent.

1) The fit to the valance required the valance to be 'adjusted', there were one or two other small adjustments required to allow a snug fit to the rest of the body, though not too significant.

2) The lower part of the wing near the A post did not fit the profile required at all. I guess that the wing pattern is off either a later car or a different model to the Spyder. Either way, it had to be cut and reshaped to allow the lower trim to fit. This was achieved with some ally and rivets. The end result was a pretty good fit, including around the headlights, which although still not as tight as some I have seen, was a big improvement over what we originally had. Photos show the mod and the wings fitted after spraying and the grill & lights fitted.

[DavidLaver]

Nice to see something looking like "a car".

David

[peteracs]

Hi David

Yes, the problem was I did not take any of the full car before it went away and still trying to get the pictures from the vendor....... Also the bodywork guys did not take any until they started spraying.

It has been a while since my last post, but thought I jhad better get on with the rest of the bodywork stuff as completed months ago now!

The final parts worth listing here were the doors. In general they were in reasonable condition, just suffering where the stainless strips were attached. First off we have the drivers door, this shows the problem areas and the repairs made.