Putting The Boot in.

I cannot proceed much further with the work at the front until the remaining battery box panel arrives, so I decided to have a look at the boot floor.

Part of the exhaust mystery is now solved, as you can see the left hand rear of the floor has a Stag exhaust hanger (fixed with bolts - not weld), so it must have had a modified Stag twin box system

The removed boot floor also reveals 2 brackets with hanger straps - I am not sure of the route the system would have taken to the twin tail pipes from this point. As to how this floor got removed read on.

Fuel tank was removed first - its PI one with the fuel return blanked off
Tank is good, only light surface rust and no leaks

The boot floor was in a bad state with holes every where so its got to come out

More holes
Rear valence is rust free, but has a dent on the drivers side, although I have a spare I am undecided if I will replace it yet, I will try a slide hammer to pull the dents first and see what shape it can be brought into before making a final decision

In the car, the load bay supports shown here need to be removed carefully to be reused - right

Middle
Left hand
And now removed (by grinding off the welds) in one piece, to be refitted later

After removal of the floor there are a lot of flanges to be cleaned up, this is the progress so far, showing the box section behind the diff carrier - good metal here

And a view of the garage floor where the boot used to be


There is 1 to 2 days work to clean and prepare all these flanges, then I will look at the valence.

On the panel hunting front, I have found good doors for the front left passenger, and rear right passenger, so I just need a good drivers door.

I think I have also found an estate roof, subject to confirmation with the gentleman who has offered it me, I am going to cut it off an estate in Cornwall next weekend, its supposedly good apart from a little rust at the passenger rear - we shall see - so if you see a Vauxhall Zafira carrying an upside down estate roof on the M5 next Sunday its me. At least the car its coming from is already scrapped, so I have not taken one off the road to fix this one.

Still looking for black velour front seats.