Fix One Hole and Find Another

Today has been spent filling and repairing holes in the bulkhead.

Mundane and not very satisfying work, takes a great deal of time and not much to show for it.

First job was to patch the original servo and clutch cylinder holes and mounts. With the modified ABS servo fitted, these holes were left open to the engine bay, and must have allowed noise and fumes into the car.

So plates fitted and mounting bolt holes filled. To fill the bolt holes, I did not let in plates, but held a copper plate to the rear of the hole and simply filled with weld - the weld does not stick to the copper, so it makes small holes easy to fill, although there is a fair bit of weld to grind back after.

 

And from inside the car

Rusty hole in the plenum

I cut an area out approx 3cm by 2 cm and let in a plate

More rusty holes in the plenum, because the rust was extensive, I cut the metal away and fitted an L shaped plate into the metal

Finished here

And a view from inside the car showing the penetration marks from the spot welds in the edges of the plate - this is always a good sign and confirms that the spot welds created by welding through a small hole in the plate on the other side have taken and actually formed a weld into the metal behind.

Finally the last hole, not as bad as the one on the driver's side of the transmission tunnel.

 

And repaired here

 

Thats it, (I hope) bulkhead repaired and no more holes currently visible in the engine bay that shouldn't be there.

Apart from this blog, I have been keeping a record of the hours worked on the car (not counting parts finding expeditions) and I am now up to a grand total of 293 hours. I wish someone was paying for this at £40 per hour or so!