Body work

[Fieldo]

Hi can anyone recommend a decent body shop in the west Yorkshire area??? I have just about got the mechanicals sorted now need to sort the rusty bits outs

[Toledo Man]

Welcome to the forum! I'm quite local to you and I might be able to sort you out with welding (It will be Adam who does my welding for me. My welding is like pigeon sh*t!). Sorry I can't be of much more help. As the local AO (Area Organiser) I can spread the word among my local members. Get to the next meeting if you possibly can. Details are in my sig below. The next meeting will take place on the 1st of November.

Don't forget to join the Club. It is worth every penny of the membership fee and you need to be a member to buy the panels that you may need.

[RobSun]

Depending on how much work you need doing and want to spend, I know of a really good restorer but he does not like doing the odd bit of cutting out and replacing. Based in Baildon near Bradford, Yorkshire Classic Restorations, recently he also took over the very well known MG specialist and restorers to the rich and famous Naylor Bros. on the same industrial estate. He prefers to strip the whole car of all mechanicals get back to bare metal and go from there so isn't cheap. Does this because he says if a car needs work doing you can see you can guarantee it needs stuff you can't, and doesn't want to work on a car and two years later after a good paint job rust is coming through somewhere else. How often do we see that happening with supposedly a good resto or respray. Says its not cost effective having to do work again and in his opinion poor practice. The work he does is absolutely first class and he has an excellent reputation on all cars and has recently completed a members Sprint started by Naylor's.

I asked him to do a small amount of work on my Dolomite and he refused saying it was too good and originality is important and how a car should be seen for as long as possible. When it really needs it I will then.

[soe8m]

I'm not quite based near you but I would not recommend Adam.

Jeroen.

[Fieldo]

Great thanks for the responses. The body work is not severe its just some bubbling/rusting at the bottom of drivers door and a little bit on one of the wings so I'm not sure whether to mess with it or just keep it original as it is.

[xvivalve]

I'd recommend dealing with it, especially the door. Bubbles in the skin are resolvable quite easily, even severe rot in the skin can be remedied with one of the Club's unique door repair panels that just replaces the metal beneath the lower swage line, but if you let the rot get into the frame of the door, then you have a far harder repair to deal with.

[oily66]

As Alun states, start to do something about protecting it, as the winter is not too kind to our cars.
I am looking for a local body shop (to us both) to get my inner and outer sills replaced, I made some enquiries but not firmed up anything yet.
Engine/gearbox and complete sub-frame out then its just a shell. I may need to build up some bits to get it mobile to get it on a loader.