Shoyer.com

When I bought the car, the seller pointed out a few rust holes in the wheel wells.  He said that it would probably cost about $500 to have them welded.  I didn't know what to look for back then.

 

At one point I picked up the carpets along the sills, and found myself looking at the ground.  There were rust holes along the sides of the floorboards.  I learned that this was not just a little job.  My doors still closed OK, and the car didn't fold up when I stood on the sills, but I wanted to make sure that the car was in good shape structurally.

 

I had gotten a recommendation about a guy in Maine who did a good job on British cars, so I took the car to him in January 2001.  Seven months later, the car was ready.  He had replaced the sills, both front fenders, and the box sections between the floors and sills (along with the drive shaft u-joints and the motor mounts).  I left a camera so I could have a record of the repair.

 

Here's the car, before the work was done -  it doesn't look too bad from here:

These were the rusty pieces that were removed:

I hadn't planned on replacing the fenders, but they fell apart when they were taken off:

The other fender was almost as bad:

The driver's side, after cutting out the old sills:

The view from the passenger's side:

Here's what it looked like after the new sill was in place:

The inner box section on the passenger's side:

The driver's side was only slightly better:

Here are the new fenders, in progress:

The repaired driver's box section:

Repaired passenger's box:

Here's the finished car:

The driver's side looks nice (no more holes!):

The door gaps look uniform, and everything looks straight:

The new paint is Brooklands Green acrylic enamel, close enough to the original (well, not original, but what was on there already):

The sign says "Leyland Auto Repair" and he's in Arundel, ME:

 

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.  I haven't decided if I'll replace the side stripes, remove them completely, or remove these and put on a gold LE-style stripe.  There are other tasks to be done before I deal with that (like replace the exhaust and gas tank, and get the car inspected - only a couple of weeks overdue!).  Now, all I need to do is replace the interior, replace the suspension, have the car repainted, ...