Repairing/Restoring my damaged Ford Capri 2.8i

[Iamzod]

Got a little bit more done Saturday afternoon, finally got the spring, shock & hub etc off but ruined one of the ball joints in the process, they are cheap to replace so it's no real worry and i want to polybush the car anyway so i'm sure more old suspension components are going to break in the process.

Anyway, i got the inside of the suspension turret all back to bare metal and only found a bit of surface corrosion in a few small areas, it came off pretty easily but it was a bit awkward to get to all of it, once back to bare metal and I was happy all rust is removed I gave it a lick of etching primer.

You can see at the very top of the picture there is a small piece of metal missing from the turret housing, it appears to have been melted there when someone has replaced the triangular strengthening plate in the past and they have welded it in.

I know in this pic I missed a bit but I made sure it was covered afterwards.

And for Lopez, i took those measurements but they are probably not 100% accurate as the rear end of the panel is curved and i wasn't sure how far into the curve you wanted measuring.

If you want to draw lines on the very bottom pic and re-post it i'd probably be able to get something more accurate for you.

 

[Lopéz]

Dude that is spot on, thankyou! I just needed a rough idea to see if the Capri is essentially the same shape in the rear corners as the Manta.

It is, but whether it will be similar enough remains to be seen. I might order one side and see how it looks.

 

[Iamzod]

Little update.

Finally got the front panel off! Was worried about doing this as i've never removed anything like this from a car that's welded on and was worried about making a pigs ear of the headlight bowls & inner wings whilst removing the spot welds. It went quite well however, it was time consuming as I was being careful (took about 3 and a half hours!)

Took this pic whilst i was half way through sorting the welds out at the bottom under the car.

Started pulling the carpets out and been trying to figure out how to get the dash top out too without damaging it as mine is totally uncracked, need to get as much out of the car as I can as I don't like the idea of sparks flying allover with combustible stuff in there whilst there is welding going on in the front footwell corners at the bottem of the A-Panel, especially after seeing my grandad set his VW Camper on fire whilst welding when I was a kid.

Much to my relief i've discovered that the entire floor and inner sills (apart from the small bit mentioned above) is in this condition :-

Not bad for a 29 year old car, can't find even the slightest hint of surface rust down there

 

[mejinks]

Not bad for a 29 year old car, can't find even the slightest hint of surface rust down there

Thats because its all filler



*runs

 

[Liverpool-Lad]

Have you took the entire carpet out?

It looks good on the sills, how are the footwells?

 

[Iamzod]

Have you took the entire carpet out?

It looks good on the sills, how are the footwells?

Yeah the carpet is out. The footwell is the usual capri story, rust in the outer corner that needs cutting out and repairing, it doesn't seem too advanced though, i expected it to be worse. Sure i took a picture but i can't seem to find it.

Its the rear arches that worry me most, whilst mine don't look bad at all i've seen inner arches on other cars in a right mess once the prodding starts.

 

[Liverpool-Lad]

Yeah that is a worry. Ive seen ones where they have just tacked the arch over the existing rusty one and a load of filler to smooth things out

 

[Iamzod]

Done a bit more today.

Spent a few hours playing with the angle grinder and the drivers side footwell.

This is how it was under the wing

Yet more corrosion underneath once removed, although not as bad of some other horrors i've seen on other Capri's.

So the only thing to do there is chop back even further!

I did a little bit more after, the drivers side footwell is now all nice clean metal as everything that looked bad has been cut off and binned. I've got all next week off work so i best stock up on angle grinder discs as i've got some metal to cut out where the back of the wing is spot welded on and the passenger side to tackle and I suspect it'll be worse than this side!

 

[ash_scotland88]

Would love a car like this, seen a few finished examples around Edinburgh. I don't have the skills or money for it to happen though.

 

[Lopéz]

That's not too bad at the base of the A post.

Can I recommend Zintec for sheet metal work? It's lovely to use compared to normal mild steel. Also make sure you get the 1mm cutting discs, they are a revelation if you have never used them before. Oh and some flap wheels for cleaning up welds!

 

[Jonny69]

I was about to say the same thing - your cuts look like you're using 3mm cutting discs. 1mm discs last longer (the Makita ones from Screwfix last forever), put less stress on the grinder and cut a lot quicker. Well worth spending a bit more on.

 

[KnightStalker]

Looking good, really like reading these project threads, gives me ideas for when im car hunting, dad used to have a 2.8i about 17 years ago, was a nice car from what i remember.

 

[PapaLazaru]

My most wanted car from my childhood. Subscribed.

 

[Iamzod]

Also make sure you get the 1mm cutting discs, they are a revelation if you have never used them before. Oh and some flap wheels for cleaning up welds!

Before I started doing this i'd never even used an angle grinder before, in fact my power tool experience only went as far as putting pictures up for my girlfriend . I have taken yours & Jonny69's advise and got a few 1mm cutting discs, tried to get Makita ones but they didn't have any in stock. They are indeed much nicer to cut with, the grinder has not tried to launch itself accross the garage yet which is nice, but I haven't done any proper cutting today, i just feel a bit worried about them shattering as they seem so flimsy.

Spent the afternoon removing the passenger side wing, i'm keeping this one though as it's still the original ford one that the car left the factory with as far as I can tell (in fact so was the other one but it was creased) so i've been carefully drilling out spot welds as i'm hoping to save the wing mounting band too.

There are a couple of awkward welds to get off at the back of the wing tomorrow and then I properly can see if any horrors lie beneath.

 

[Lopéz]

Yeah they feel dead wobbly compared to normal ones but they're just so much nicer. Don't worry, you'll soon get a lot more confident with them. It's no big deal if they shatter, as long as you are wearing goggles!

 

[Outcast]

Oh wow.. That pic brings back memories of mine


CrunchedCapri by The1DogzBollox, on Flickr

Look for rust by the door hinges

Also ... Will that engine marry up to your gearbox bellhousing ok ?

 

[Iamzod]

Look for rust by the door hinges

Also ... Will that engine marry up to your gearbox bellhousing ok ?

There is a small amount of corrosion on the drivers side but ut was on the outside of the panel, the inside is still shiny clean painted metal, someone put some sort of sealant along the inside of the wing and it looks like it created a water trap, most of it ground back to nice shiny metal but it's perforated in one or two places.

As for the engine, yeah it'll mate up to the existing Type-9 Gearbox just fine and even sits on the standard engine mounts, i'm not planning on leaving the engine standard though so I have a few concerns about the gearbox eventually going bang and might have to switch to a hybrid MT-75 box, different prop shaft and mess around with the gear box mounting, the gear ratios look better suited on the MT-75 anyway as on the standard box it'll hit 75 in 2nd so it's a little bit loo long legged.

 

[Iamzod]

Been chopping into the passenger side A-Panel this week along with cleaning the underseal/stonechip protection from the inner wing on that side now that the wing is off.

Lower A-Bottom worse than drivers side, but only slightly.

At the top of the A-panel there was some corrosion right in the corner as so-

Corrosion removed!

There has always been some rust at the back of the divers headlamp bowl area whilst i've had the car, and in a small area above the headlight on the inner wing, nothing serious but still had to chop it all out to be safe!

Before surgery-

After Surgery-

Also had the results of a V888 form that I filled in and sent off along with a £5 cheque a few weeks back, I now have loads of photocopied paperwork from the DVLA on the vehicle including the very first registration certificate filled in back in 1983 when the car was bought from a Ford Dealership in Wales on a private plate, the first owner seems to have kept the car for about 10 years from new.

 

[Iamzod]

Been a while since I've done an update on this, not had much time due to Christmas approaching but still been trying to get a few hours in here and there.

I've since cut out all the rust shown in the first picture in my last post, but forgot to take any pictures, it wasn't fun as I had to disconnect the fuel line or risk slicing through them if I slipped with the angle grinder, only problem then was I had to give up that week as I ended up spilling petrol on the floor, didn't fancy blowing the garage up with sparks from the cutting disc.

Recently had the windscreen repaired too as was worried about a stonechip turning into a large crack when I remove it soon.

The inner wings now look like this to protect them from moisture until the welding can be done early summer after which it'll all be coated in a proper anti-stonechip coating.

As i have 5-8 months 'till the shell has the welding done i've started tidying up suspension components as most of them are just caked in rust. The front struts don't appear to actually have any paint left on apart from the bits that were visible under the bonnet.

The top mounts looked like this -

I bought 4kg of "Bilt Hamber Deox-C" as well as 2kg of Deox-C gel as it seems to get good reviews and it got recommended on here as without it even after attacking the top mounts with a wire brush drill attachment they were still a rusty mess after an hour.

After a 3 day soak and about 10 minutes spent on each bit they came up like this, that stuff is truly AMAZING! -

(yes there is still a little bit left in the above but I hadn't finished )

I've also stripped the legs themselves as far as I can short of removing the inserts which i'd like to avoid if possible and given them a generous coating of deox-C gel, shall see how they come out tomorrow, fingers crossed.

I also got my hands on a box full of these things-

BMW E30 Projector headlights for a little headlight upgrade

 

[Iamzod]

Having finished with the front end of the car for now and it now being back on 4 wheels i have decided to make a start on the rear arches, i thought i'd start on the drivers side first with it being the one that was starting to have the odd bubble appearing.

Whilst doing it i found that there was a hell of a lot of filler in the rear quarter panel, not due to rust but because it looks like someone has dented it in the past just below the fuel cap, not sure what to do about this yet.

Anyway, as for the arch i took it back to bare metal to see what it looked like under the paint.

Not too bad but there was some small rusty bits coming through, i figured that this had been welded over the original arch, which obviously is not the best way of doing this repair job so it was coming off regardless of how little corrosion i found!

A bit of cutting has confirmed my suspicions!

The inner arch doesn't seem bad at all though, just needed some of the lip cutting off along the rear half of it and the rest of it was totally solid.