Fist step is to cut out all of the rusted and damaged panels that will be replaced – BEFORE the shell is blasted bare. This will allow us the most access possible to all of the areas of the shell that are usually enclosed.
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- This is a shot of the shell after our initial dissection. Thankfully, the forward bulkhead was ROCK solid – man, I love to see that! And, the firewall and forward tunnel area is unmolested – except for the two small rectangular holes cut into the LH pedal box top panel – see those?…
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- But the back of the tunnel was a different story, and it was not save-able. There’s not much left here! We’ve left the main floor rails in place so it won’t fall apart before it is mounted into the rotisserie/jig.
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- Ouch! This is painful – we will have to replace the entire tunnel from the gearbox panels all the way back to the IRS.
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- Here is a shot of the piece that was pulled out. This did all turn out to be standard 3.8 panels – all of which we reproduce here with our PERFECT patterns!
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- Off to the recycling bin she goes!
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- This is a small piece remaining from the outer sill, just below the forward bulkhead side panel. See that small extra piece of steel spot-welded in there? I CANNOT figure out what that is or why it is there – but this is not a special early car thing, ALL original E-Types have this in there! I guess it was something that helped during assembly – it’s very strange…
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- Everything you see here that remains is VERY solid – this shell is going to be GREAT when completed!
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- A new boot floor will be installed, but the rear panels of the inner rear wheelwells are in unusually good shape.
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- We can see the damage around the top of the drip channel in this shot – this is going to be tricky to repair right – but we’ll get it! You can also see that we have had to pull out the LH bellhousing side panel
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- There’s not much left here, and these are the type of photos that scare the hell out of the customers! But everything that is missing from this photo, will be back – in the form of NEW cold-rolled steel!
