Steve's Lexmaul widebody

[duick]

Hi
It's been a while since I've not posted a WIP here.
People that know me for years, know that I've always got a WIP ongoing. And if one is finished, the next one is started (or even a few at the same time )

This year, I did a quick WIP by converting this



to this



Some have surely seen it at Billing at the PNG stand.

Well, since a while, I had another crazy idea in mind, as I have a lot of unused parts in stock. and it makes no sense to keep everything hidden in stock
This Corsa was for sale, not far from my home. Been built and owned for 15 years by the owner, but of the road for some years



The price was too good, by selling all unnecessary parts (cage, wheels, seats and a few more) the shell cost me less than nothing.
And while the Corsa with folding roof would be at the painter, I would have enough time (about 6 weeks) to prepare this shell for painting!!
That was the plan. But as you know, normally some things are unplanned

I started to disassemble the car and found a LOT of sh....!!!
The whole wiring looked like this


So I ditched it completely.

Then I found this


and this







But as the shell was quite solid in some important areas, I decided to keep it.

[duick]

Next step was to replace the complete trunk panel

Out came the rusty one


And in the new one



With all the rust and riveted patches on the front, there was only one solution!
This one!



That gave me a look in the chassis legs, that were rust free





And took this genuine one out of the stock



Put it in, alligned and checked with bonnet and wings



and then spot welded

[duick]

I saw that someone had tried to "repair" the left rear arch.
As I had that plan, I didn't care, as both would need a bigger cutout.

Of came all that patch, what a mess That's the result after a few years, if someone patches a repair panel over the rust!!




Cut it larger, did a lot of measuring and drilled some holes



To get these attached





With some small modifications on the (new) front panel, I got the wings fitted

[duick]

When cutting the rear arches, I had a look in the LH sill and what I saw confused me
I saw 2 layers of metal, very strange
And I saw rivets!!!!! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Ok, hammer and chisel and 5 minutes later it looked like this





Someone had again tried to "repair" the sills by riveting the lower part of a repair panel over the rust and plastering everything

Out with that mess


and cut out the rest of the rust on the inner sill


Some time later ...



As I had now a doubt about the RH sill, I checked it with the camera, discovered the same mess, and opened it
And again a few hours later

[Benn]

Looking like a great project. Arches/bumper ends are different. Nice work on the metal work, must be great having that in stock.

[duick]

Then I modified the inner arches for the widebody



And due to some rust on the turrets, I had to take of these braces to repair the turrets. I then welded in new braces






Finally, as I had some van panels in stock, the idea was to transform it to a van
1 new and 1 used panel





And an early bootlid without wiper

[Benn]

Nice,

[duick]

2 weeks ago, the shell and the parts came back from the painter

[Benn]

Unsure on the colour myself, but looks like a great job. Top work.

[duick]

a few updates, about the progress of the last weeks:

Rebuilt the rear axle, powdercoated beam and a lot of new parts:



a few more powdercoated parts





Cleaned up and painted the underbody and refitted the tank and rear axle



Same treatment for the front suspension



Pedal box also as new



Firewall insulation and GTE loom fitted



Also the GTE dash



And finally the front wings and the Exip wheels