Beware the Artful bodger!

Working with classic cars means we get to see the best and sadly the worst of the art of restoring and maintaining old cars. Our current restoration project is definitely one of the latter. I bought this as a rust free shell, it had been hand painted but it looked rust free and would make the basis for a very nice little Austin Healey Sprite. On much closer inspection however the full horror of the bodger craft became apparent. The chassis and sills - which are the strength of the monocoque construction - are sound, so it’s a good start. But whoever fitted the outer panels was definitely not thinking about a quality finish. It is such as shame, to buy new repair panels which would make a great job and then ruin the panels and the car with such poor fitting. In this case both rear wings had been repaired with ¾ panels. These are good panels but you have to cut away the old wing first BEFORE welding on the new panels. It’s no use just trimming away a bit of rust and then tacking the new panel on top! Then trying to cover it all up with tons of filler. There panels will have to come off and be refitted. The same applies to the front wings where a very good bottom ¼ panel is available for the worst affected area, we will have to scrap these repairs and buy new panels. Despite these setbacks the Austin Healey Sprite MK3 restoration is progressing. We have stripped the car and painted the engine bay, we are now in the process of rebuilding the front suspension. The cylinder head has just come back from the engineers with new value guides and hardened seats for unleaded fuel and I have ordered a new clutch so the engine and box should go back in next week and we will continue to build up the front of the car. Meanwhile, we will be removing the rear wing repair panels and doing this job again. Classic Car Restoration http://www.selfdriveclassics.co.uk - never a dull moment!