It came with 11 months rego, logs books & is 100% original down to the hubcaps, factory black trim, carpet & factory fitted Air Chief radio. The body is OK but has minor rust in some of the common spots, so while i've been using the car as a daily driver of sorts, i've been slowly repairing the worst areas to keep it from deteriorating further. The first area that needed attention was the windscreen plenum as everytime it rained the floor would fill with water.
So one afternoon when i was bored, i made a repair panel.
A few hours after work of measuring & trial fitting then i was ready to start cutting away the rusty metal.
A sunday afternoon's work had the section welded in place, sealed & painted. Before refitting the dash etc, i sprayed around half a can of cavity wax inside to prevent the rust coming back any time soon.
Within days, it poured rain but this time the floor stayed dry
. Not so the boot. The RH tail light recess was badly rusted allowing water to enter the boot.
The boot floor is pretty good on this car but i knew it wouldn't stay this way for long if i didn't attend to the rusted tail light recess, so i started by making a repair section one afternoon when i had nothing to do.
The fun part of cutting the rusted area out. This was one of the most challenging rust repairs i've done to date.
I spent the best part of a rainy saturday doing this repair but it turned out OK so i'm happy.
While i had the welder out, i attended to some minor rust on the sills. The car has a stainless steel trim mould affixed to the top of both sills & rust had come up around the welded studs & plastic clips that attach the mould to the sill on both sides.
This was also a tricky repair as i am retaining the stainless moulds, so i had to weld & grind without damaging the studs. I cleaned the rust up as best i could with a small air sander & a die grinder with a wire wheel, then used a silicon bronze welder to fill the holes. The silicon bronze welder doesn't generate as much heat as a MIG, therefore it doesn't blow holes as easily, doesn't distort the panel as much & the welds are alot easier to grind. The finished repair, all studs intact & very little body filler needed.
I've done these repairs, plus a couple of other minor ones, over the past three months or so when i'm not restoring my SL/R or working on other people's cars. Next repair is a cut-n-shut on the lower radiator support panel. It is completely rusted through the tie bar & the rust extends along the base to where the front guards bolt on, so it's easier for me to replace the whole length of the lower support. I managed to score a damaged support that is actually rust free here so it'll be a good challenge to do the cut-n-shut while the original support is still attached to the car.
