After the shell was blasted last year, it went straight to a guy to get all the rust cut out, new panels welded in and various panel fills from small rust holes. Apart from the fact that delay after delay caused the work to blow out to six months, I was exetremely disappointed with the overall quality of the work when I got it back and so I have had to take to someone else to get his bad workmanship repaired (at a significant extra cost). I was shocked to think that anyone would think this kind of work is acceptable. The second guy has done a pretty good job to fix what he could considering the sh!t he had to start with.
I thought I'd post some pictures of the worst repairs that were performed. In addition to the rear bumper, many of other welds had to be ground back and redone, minor panel fills where a sheet looked like it had literally been welded over the rust hole had to be cut away and redone, the new front bumper that was not aligned properly had to be fixed. And I lost count of the number of pinholes I found in welds throughout the shell - putting a lamp on one side of a weld was like looking at a star-lit sky in some parts of the shell. However, the rear bumper was the worst area - a half-rusty rear valance was welded on to replace the old fully-rusted one.
So if there is anyone in Perth, Western Australia, don't hesitate to email me and find out who NOT to take you car to!
Misalignment of new boot opening panel
More misalignment and you can see the panel overlap (not welded) in the boot area. This overlap causes the rear subframe trunnion not to sit flat when bolted on. The difference in height between the two trunnion bolt holes is something like 5-6mm!
Dodgy patches of bumper (patches welded straight over a rusty hole)
Misalignment, and replacement panel was dented to hell.
The rusty rear valance and closing panels that were welded on
More misalignment
I thought I'd post some pictures of the worst repairs that were performed. In addition to the rear bumper, many of other welds had to be ground back and redone, minor panel fills where a sheet looked like it had literally been welded over the rust hole had to be cut away and redone, the new front bumper that was not aligned properly had to be fixed. And I lost count of the number of pinholes I found in welds throughout the shell - putting a lamp on one side of a weld was like looking at a star-lit sky in some parts of the shell. However, the rear bumper was the worst area - a half-rusty rear valance was welded on to replace the old fully-rusted one.
So if there is anyone in Perth, Western Australia, don't hesitate to email me and find out who NOT to take you car to!
Misalignment of new boot opening panel
More misalignment and you can see the panel overlap (not welded) in the boot area. This overlap causes the rear subframe trunnion not to sit flat when bolted on. The difference in height between the two trunnion bolt holes is something like 5-6mm!
Dodgy patches of bumper (patches welded straight over a rusty hole)
Misalignment, and replacement panel was dented to hell.
The rusty rear valance and closing panels that were welded on
More misalignment
Man thats bad!
ReplyDeleteThose are good reasons that we are going to do the body metal work ourself.
Hope you get this fixed and work can go on on this nice project!