Went over to a friends to have a look at the rust in a bit more detail at the weekend, we've decided that we're going to tackle it ourselves and then get a professional to do the paintwork. He is trained in this area of expertise, I will be mainly fetching drinks and food and trying not to make anything worse!
Currently looking for an OSR outer wheel arch as this looks too bad to be repaired, we'll find out for sure when we start grinding it back but I'd like to have one just in case if any one has one.
Are the inner arches meant to be sealed to the outer arches? They're not on mine which seems like a damn good way to create the perfect place for rust to occur, they will be getting sealed when we redo them anyway!
The top front panel (above the headlights and grill) looks like it will be holed too but we're planning on creating that out of sheet metal, I assume I'm right in saying these are only available in GRP now?
Also fitted my Ipod stereo inside the glovebox, and wired up the speakers. Fitted a new modern fusebox in place of the old horrible one for further reliability and to allow the stereo to be wired up correctly. Also leaves me a couple of spare fuses if anything else is needed in future.
Found the source of my knocking noise under the car, the centre prop mount is completely shot. Are these easily replaced or is it more of a prop shaft specialist job?
And last question, this may be a stupid one as although I've driven 100 + cars I've never owned one without power steering, the steering seems to be really hard to turn sometimes at speed, more so on right hand turns. Is this normal for non-assisted stereing and just down the camber of road/other steeringy factors or should be fairly light when moving?
Any for anyone who's bothered reading all of that here's a nice photo I took at the weekend