Welding other bits at the rear

rust at bottom of rear wing

A sheet of steel that used to locate the bottom of the rear wing had rusted away.

The only access to this area was from beneath the car. There is a boot floor immediately above, so this repair was going to be fiddley

   
Rust treated with zinc primer

Fortunately the rust hadn't spread into the chassis. The whole area was cleaned up and painted with a zinc rich primer.

   
Repair welded on

The new section welded in. I've forgotten to include the hole at the front for the fuel filler drain tube so this will need to be added later with a hole saw.

I'll make the hole oversized to allow any water or mud collecting in this area to drain away.

   
Rust in double skinned wheelarch

Meanwhile, the rear wheelarch was suffering from rot between the 1mm wheelarch and the 4mm structural sheet just beneath the damper mounting.

   
Wheelarch metal de-rusted

The rust was very localised and was easy to cut out and clean up. A patch was welded in place.

   
Watts Linkage mounting rust

The right hand Watts Linkage mounting had rusted very inconveniently on the face that is hidden by the boot floor.

   
Boot floor cut away for access

Access was only possible by cutting a rather large hole in the boot floor.

The photograph shows the rusty metal cut away from the mounting. It seems I have lost the photographs of the actual repair, but a repair section was fitted to complete the structure of the mounting, then a second repair section was used to complete the reinforcing panel.

   
Boot floor replaced

Following the Watts Linkage mounting repair the original boot floor panel was welded back into place.

   
Watts Linkage reinforcement rust

The Watts Linkage mounting on the other side of the car also needed a little repair to the diagonal reinforcement.

This box section had looked perfect until I removed the underseal. Sadly it had rusted from the inside.

   
Watts linkage reinforcement

The rear axle had to be removed for this repair. This was no problem as I had already removed the axle to access the rear brake calipers.

The reinforcement was cut away, the rear skin repaired, then a new diagonal was fabricated and welded in place.

   

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Aston Martin V8