[body_work] Project Gibbo

[Gibbo GTI 0]

Well I thought it was time I documented the work on my car. This is the car as I bought it, originally a 1.6 GTI that had been converted to a 1.9 with the original gearbox.

 

 

 

About a year later I bid on a 2.0 MI16 engine with a 1.6 gearbox, ECU and modified harness on ebay on a whim never expecting to win at such a low price. After returning from holiday a week later I found that I had indeed won the said auction lol.

 

 

When I replaced the GTI engine with the MI16 one it was a rush job as this was my only car at the time. As such I was never truly happy with the installation, not quite tidy enough. Eventually I bought another car and so the 205 was taken off the road with the intention of restoring it. Unfortunately money had to be diverted to other area's so the car sat in my garage for just over a year with no work done to it.

 

At the start of this year I decided I had to get this car sorted so I started stripping back the interior to see what state the car was in. I was greeted by the following mess:

 

inner wing

 

Boot floor

 

Under the rear seat

 

 

[Gibbo GTI 0]

Rear panel

 

Chassis rails (inner sills are both ok, suspect fuel tank stopped crap getting in there as it's a very tight fit)

 

 

General underneath rear end

 

 

My mate Keith came over to help me with the bodywork, will update later with some of the repair work carried out.

[j_turnell 134 3 Cars]

Blimey that has got some rot, a worring amount!! Fair play for persevering! Look forward to some repair pics

[DamirGTI 323]

Looks a bit nasty though it's perfectly repairable and not as hard as it might seems (fixed one in so much worse state than this one myself )

 

Ditto , looking forward to see some bodywork repair pics , cos , i'm fed up with engine conversion stuff

 

Damir

[Pugnut 9 1 Cars]

wow, as Damir says, its about time we had a good welding thread on the go! good luck, once you cut away the crap it wont look nearly so bad. Have you had a look at the front panel yet, judging by the rest of the car i would imaging it's quite bad too (if its still there!!)

 

Al

[Gibbo GTI 0]

The rest of the car doesn't seem too bad but i've only had a quick look lol.

 

I'm in too minds with regards to the boot floor, either cut out and weld in new steel just in the area's that need it or to cut the whole boot floor out and replace with a piece of 1.6mm steel. The boot crossmember could do with replacing as well.

[DamirGTI 323]

Would find a 205 with good rear end at the scrappy and cut complete rear panel with a piece/section of the boot floor and use this for fixing yours .. replacing entire boot floor would be a bit OT as the rest seems sound apart from this the corner area near the rear panel ..

 

Damir

[Pugnut 9 1 Cars]

Would find a 205 with good rear end at the scrappy and cut complete rear panel with a piece/section of the boot floor and use this for fixing yours .. replacing entire boot floor would be a bit OT as the rest seems sound apart from this the corner area near the rear panel ..

 

Damir

 

or go one step further and find a 3 door shell and swap everything over.

 

Its going to be like Triggers broom by the time you have finished.

 

 

[Tom Fenton 1,524]

It is perfectly repairable- just ask anyone who has ever owned a Mini or old Ford etc- repairs to that level are just a yearly task for the MOT test!

 

Anyway good luck with it, and as someone has suggested, it may make things easier for complex shapes/curves to cut parts off a non-rotten scrapper.

[DamirGTI 323]

 

.. yes but it's a fully overhauled broom !

 

Id certainly give it a go and fix this up , the rear panel with the section of boot floor will be piece of cake if donor rear panel can be sourced .. just trim it precisely , cut this rusted one off from yours , weld donor one in , grind off the weld a bit , respray , and if done tidy no one will ever notice that it's been repaired

 

Then this the crap around the fuel tank might be a little bit more tricky (will need some sheet metal shaping/bending activities ..) but here as a bonus you have fact that the repair doesn't have to look "nice" (cos it wont be visible !) just done solid , with good strong welds and properly treated/painted afterwards cos , clearly , moisture just loves this area ...

 

When done it'll be as good as new just as Triggers broom !

 

Damir

[Gibbo GTI 0]

Well it has been a busy couple of weekends. I work on the car in a storage room we have at work. So long as I leave the place clean and tidy and the car is not in there during the working day then a blind eye is turned

 

I removed the fuel tank on the friday evening and left the car so any fumes could dissipate before grinding and welding. On the saturday (13th), my mate keith (welder) and I (tea maker) set about takling under the rear seats and the chassis where the fuel tank lives with the intention of finishing that area so the tank could go back in. I only had keith helping me on the saturday. We were making good progress and decided to push on through the night to finish it when we ran out of welding wire at 11pm whilst weding the last chassis piece on the passenger side. Gutted, we could have left hours earlier and he could have spent some time with his wife and kids.

 

Rear seat area patches welded in (welds still to be dressed)

 

 

Under the rear seats

 

Chassis area

 

 

Keith hard at it

[Daviewonder 533 3 Cars]

Wow, thats the most rot I've ever seen on a 205. Good work so far though

[SurGie 54]

Wow thats a fair bit of rot you got there, my 1986 GT has rotten doors,wings but underneath/sills etc are solid. Its weird how some rot a lot and others very little. My 1.9 gti car only has surface rust in the usual places as well as underneath the MC.

 

It looks more like steel grey than Graphite grey to me ?

 

Cracking progress there, wish i had more time atm.

[roote 0]

as tom says we have been putting mini's and escort's back on the road for years, as for pug's give it 10 year's and well we will be thinking it's almost a minter ? well may be but it will certanly be more of a common thread, but it also show's not so much how easy it is but they will good for another day, keep up the good work

[DamirGTI 323]

thats the most rot I've ever seen on a 205

 

... no it isn't could beat this one easily

 

Anyway , the repair patches are looking good nice and tidy job ... would've been shame to scrap this shell just because "little" welding job as it can be seen everything is repairable ... well , almost everything ..

 

Keep up with the project will be watching this unlit it's done !

 

Damir

[Gibbo GTI 0]

Bit of an update from this weekend. I removed the fuel tank again friday night ready for finishing off the welding on saturday. We finished welding up all the areas around the fuel tank area. This was then seam sealed and given 2 coats of Waxoyl Underseal. Whilst this was drying we made a start on the boot floor and rear panel.

 

Rear panel chopped out

 

We also removed the bracket as the area it is spot welded to was rusty as well, so that was chopped out as well.

 

New rear panel welded in and seam sealed.

 

The rear panel is stainless now so should be no problems with corrosion lol.

 

Close up of bracket welded back on

 

My first ever bit of welding

[Gibbo GTI 0]

Next up was the boot floor. The offending rot was cut and new metal welded in. The rear piece was done in one piece and is welded to the new rear panel. The back end feels so much stiffer now lol.

 

 

My second bit of welding, not the prettiest but it is solid. Once painted it will look fine and it'll be covered by the carpet anyway lol.

 

A couple of shots of a few other jobs i've recently done on the car.

 

Battery relocated to the boot

 

 

Bonnet pins

[SurGie 54]

Great progress there.

 

Is the centre bracket you welded on a little of centre from where the original one was, the holes in the bracket dont look in line with the hole at the top ?

[Gibbo GTI 0]

Great progress there.

 

Is the centre bracket you welded on a little of centre from where the original one was, the holes in the bracket dont look in line with the hole at the top ?

 

The bracket is where it should be I drilled the hole above for the wiring grommet in a different place so the loom wasn't strained

[SurGie 54]

Im thinking of using stainless steel for my project, however. After speaking to an old friend who's been a metal fabricator for over 40 years, he told me that welding mild steel with stainless will produce a bad consistency, unless today's welding tech is good enough for a good strong weld ??

[Gibbo GTI 0]

My mate said there wouldn't be any problem and he has been a fabricator for few years (not as many as your friend though), time will tell I suppose lol.

 

Whilst stripping out the interior I came across the following on the drivers B Pillar

 

 

The bottom part has corroded throughh completely so it is no longer attached at the bottom. Can I just cut this piece out or does it need to be repaired?

[Gibbo GTI 0]

Been having a break from working on the car.

 

Only updates are that i've replaced the GTI rear 1/4 windows with none opening ones as the seals had shrunk causing water to seep into the car causing the majority of the rot i've sorted. I'd bought a job lot of 205 spares ages ago and they came as part of that I've just bought 23mm torsion bars and a 24mm rear anti roll bar from Anthony which should be ready in a few weeks These will be paired with Bilstein dampers. The fronts will be coilovers with 275lb/300lb springs.

[Gibbo GTI 0]

New OMP steering wheel and boss kit arrived today

 

Edited April 7, 2010 by Gibbo GTI

[Gibbo GTI 0]

Made some more progress on the boot floor tonight. Cut out all the rot and prepared the areas for welding tomorrow.

 

 

 

[Gibbo GTI 0]

Busy weekend welding, my body is aching all over I also managed to get Ray Burn on my left arm as it was so warm on sat I only wore a T-shirt. Spot the welding newbie lol, won't be making that mistake again.

 

 

Pics of the weekends progress

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zinc 182 primer and seam sealer applied, hopefully have it all properly painted soon