Rusty Justy

[Paul Baldwin]

Hi.

I've been helping a mate out with his girlfriends project car just lately. I've always been a fan of the old school scoobys as my parents had 3 of the old boxy estates back in the day including an 1800 turbo! Sadly there are very few surviving as although they were mechanically bulletproof after a few years the bodywork would look like it had actually been shot at with something large calibre!
I've not ever done any repairs on bodywork, just bits of fabbing really and over the last couple of years a few bits on zx_volcanes bolt on engine bits to make it breathe a bit better. It was a bit to take on and really is not a pleasant job. The cheap under-seal on this particular car is really nasty and the fumes make you feel physically sick. Working on it in a shed that's barely weather-proof with no heating in December isn't much fun either, especially as I had to lie on the floor for hours as I didn't have the luxury of a ramp. The weld burns don't make up for the lack of heat sadly, no wonder nobody wants to do this sort of work anymore lol.

Anyway, here's some photos of what the previous owner left me with. It turns out the car was properly clagged at some point i its history. It was more sculpting with filler than a bodywork repair the rot was just covered over and left to carry on doing its thing. The second owner started to cut into it with the intentions of repairing it but soon threw the towel in. In places I wish he hadn't touched it because I had no reference of what to build back to.

Here's a photo taken by the previous owner before all the filler  was hacked off it.



and some of how I first saw it!











The better of the two rear seat belt anchors



The other one lol





Thankfully the car came with 2 rear wing panels. They were however spurious parts and left a lot to be desired. No other panels are now available for these cars, not even the sills so all the bits to go back in had to be made from scratch.
That's not all the holes btw. I forgot to take photos of some of it.