New Project VA485 - RPJ 7L

[Tony Burd]

The factory did do this, unfortunately the sealer tends to go hard and crack .....

.

Yep I can see evidence of the factory sealant but it is comprised, dried and disintegrating.

A bit like the T25 seams Tony!!!

I've been looking at T25 Westfalias recently

Nice one, your kids will love it. We've had some great holidays in our Westy, wish I got one when our kids were younger.
Yep 'seam rash' is a big problem

And you can fit a Dolly roof in the back!

[xvivalve]

I've been looking at T25 Westfalias recently

So have I, unfortunately. The neighbours opposite bought one and it is parked like a massive fridge, in plain view of my bay window!

[Tony Burd]

Roof is off!

I'm going to remove the skin and see if the gutters are repairable before really making a mess of it.

[Tony Burd]

Now the roof is off I can see the construction of the gutter and roof rail. The gutter is a separate piece that is spot welded to the roof rail. This is good, it means if I can remove just the skin from the donor roof I should then be able to drill out the gutter spot welds and replace the gutter, I think this will be easier than replacing the whole roof.
This gives me a bit more confidence about the job.

[new to this]

Tony

didnt know the gutter was separate panel, when it comes to refitting the roof are you going to spot weld it

Dave

[Tony Burd]

Hi Dave,

I will plug weld the gutter in place.

I might look at bonding the roof skin with something like Tigerseal, not sure yet. When I had a panel replaced on my campervan they bonded rather than weld so as to avoid heat distortion.

[Tony Burd]

Having looked into replacing the rotten gutters once the skin was removed, I made the decision that it would be easier as Steve suggested to chop the roof at the pillars & butt weld the new roof in place.
As this was such a major structural job I decided this was best done by a professional. Matt Cotton used a mobile welder named Scott & highly recommended him, he works on alot of classics & spent 2 seasons as project manager on the TV show Car SOS.
For the last 2 days (about 12 hours) Scott has been doing the roof swap. Previously I had braced the shell across the door shuts, between the B posts & across the A posts.

We took some careful measurements of the front & rear screen apertures as well as the sill to gutter heights at the door openings. With careful marking of both the car & the donor roof cuts were made.
The roof was then tacked into place & adjustments made to ensure all the measurements previously taken were replicated. We test fitted the screens & doors to check all was OK before all the joints were fully welded.
The B & C posts are straight forward as they can be fully welded from inside & outside the car. The A post has an inner section that cannot be accessed, so once the rear section had been welded Scott opened up the front section of the A post to access the inner part so it could be fully welded to ensure all parts of the A post were joined. This was then closed back up & fully welded.

It all went very well & I am very pleased that it is all sorted, a big relief!

[new to this]

Looks like a lot of work

[Tony Burd]

Yep it is alot of work, but worth saving these early cars.

[Carledo]

Nice one Tony! And more Kudos to Scott!

Steve

[sprint95m]

+1


Ian

[RSi]

Nice one Tony, looks good and much better than starting to replace the gutters.

[Matt Cotton]

Great result Tony and I'm glad Scott did a good job for you too.
Is there much grot requiring repair?

[Tony Burd]

Yep a bit more to do

Boot floor
O/S lower rear screen corner
O/S & N/S rear lower arch
Both front sill ends
Inner Scuttle
Couple of bulkhead repairs
O/S front chassis leg repair
Front wing & front panel repairs

I've not had a proper look underneath yet but from the inside the floors are solid and the inner sills look ok.

Next job is to strip all the paint as it has been badly painted in the past so it needs to be stripped.

[Tony Burd]

Couple of weekends ago I pulled the engine out & got a bit of a surprise (if you are on Facebook you would have seen already)



It came out easily with the box attached, once on the ground I gave it a bit of a clean up to see if I could find the engine number. The previous owner told me that is wasn't the original engine. i found the number & it was something I had not seen before CH43HE.



The forum was down at the time so I asked on FB whether anyone could identify this engine code. It turns out this engine code was used for Sprint engines fitted to TR7 Sprints, it is quite rare as only about 63 genuine factory TR7 Sprints were produced.
Jim Prince said I should contact the TR7 owners FB page which I did, the guy who runs it confirmed it was a TR7 engine & that he actually owns the car this engine belongs to!
It looks like we are going to be able to do a deal so that he gets this engine in some kind of swap for a Sprint engine he has. This will have to be after lockdown etc.
The engine has a lightened flywheel, not original & was fitted with a brand new clutch.