After all that it was time to go water leak hunting, a job I dislike at the best of times and not one I fancied doing today, needs must as it's easier to do it now with the car interior in bits. Rust stains are really useful here, they give a visual clue, that meant I could easily find the most likely route water is getting into the boot.
Quite a bit of water is getting in and sitting in the passenger side front. This one is a bit confusing, there's no obvious route I could see for it so I carried on looking.
If you look on the leading edge of the driver's door here (door card removed) you can see a rust stain running down from the door card holder rail. Water was getting in between the moisture membrane and the door card, running down the rail and into the foot well, or at least that's what the rust stains hint at.
So, when you're getting water in the front footwells it pays to check the scuttle section. Sure enough, the drains that should go down the A pillars behind the wings were completely blocked both sides. These wings are coming off anyway so I'll clean up behind them even better at a later date.
All cleaned out and tidy again.
Bit of cleaning on the interior. The seats are in REALLY good condition but filthy as anything. I had thought the parcel shelf wasn't, it look seriously badly faded. Amazingly, it was just a thick layer of dust as you can see from this half-and-half. The parcel shelf is by no means perfect underneath the dust but it's far better than I'd hoped for.
Stuck the seats back in. It might look like two single seats but you can scootch across the car side to side like it has benches, there's only just enough space between them for the seatbelt stalks thanks to the gear lever and umbrella handle handbrake being dash mounted. The seats are also phenominally comfortable.
It's been a stunning day here today so the car got really well aired out and was almost bone dry when it came time to pack up.
The paint is hilariously bad. At some point this car was metallic blue, repainted with flat green, done inside and out but prepared badly. However, the spare front door appears to have been metallic green, painted metallic blue and then painted a different metallic blue on the outside again. Sadly, the overpaint on the car is quite fragile, you can brush it off without trying too hard so I'm not sure how much of the current patina will survive, perhaps it will develop into something even more interesting?
The big job I needed to do were the gutters. Where the roof is crushed the gutters are in bad shape on the outer skin but happily not on the inner skin. They can be repaired, I'm under no illusion it's going to be difficult. I got them both a lot straighter and I can probably salvage the damaged stainless gutter trim which is badly kinked and dented in places.
I did get some of the bad passenger side dent out when I straightened the gutter. I'm going to have to remove the headlining, which is annoying as it's perfect and well fitted. If I remove the headlining I can get the hammer and dolly out and get the metal back to shape properly, it reshapes really easily so this damage isn't as bad as it seemed. The problem is that this side the gutter has started to erode the roof and the two skins have separated. Again, it's repairable but it is going to be difficult.
I found a spare set of keys in the Stuff that came with the car, the rusty one is for the blue door and works, the brass one I think is an old AA phone box key. The workbench wire wheel thing worked a treat on the rusty key and I shall keep it this way rather than getting a new one as it works perfectly well.
If anyone has a spare headlight do let me know. I suspect that's going to be a very difficult part to source as I need a RHD one.
That's your lot for today. This is a super little car that's far more solid than expected. The roof repairs are scary but not impossible, I'm considering getting some silicone sealant to plug the gaps until the car is otherwise sorted so that water doesn't get in where it's not wanted.
