KEEPING
DELTAS
DRIVING
Lancia Delta Integrale specialists and enthusiasts
Bravery..knowing something's going to be difficult, but doing it anyway
Brave!
This is Mark's UK car purchase, it's red and was stripped down by the previous long term owner, then left for several years until recently being listed on Ebay.
Mark bravely bought the car, and shipped it home for restoration.
Click pic to
visit Belgian
8v rebuild
page...
This 8v Delta has always been a UK car, originally supplied by Walkers,
it spent its life in the north of Great Britain, where it was subject to the
usual bad weather.
The car was completely stripped down a good few years ago and left in a garage, the Ebay listing showed a bare shell with engine and wheels, but with everything else stripped off and stacked against the garage walls.
To transport the car, Mark and the vendor refitted the doors and bonnet,
and taped in the screens
The car was Ziebarted from new, it has a 6 year corrosion warrantee booklet, however only the first year's record has been signed, so subsequent years it was left to its own decomposure.
The underseal holes are drilled with the plastic caps fitted, but it must have been a quick job done, the Delta has happily rotted away in all the usual corners, and more besides!
Mark rightly decided his first job was to find a 16v bonnet, he found a rust free red item and fitted it right away
The 8v came with a very good Evo2 Lord Blue tailgate.
Grief sticker fitted by Mark.
With great care, Mark has removed the rear suspension, fuel tank and diff support without shearing many bolts at all. The long bottom bolts were preserved, the only casualty being small exhaust support bolts.
The bumper support brackets were rusty, and the inner captive nut
sheared off.
Diff cage will be blasted and refinished. Mark will prepare, prime and paint this metalwork, not powder coat, which of course I agree with.
Mark is starting at the back, and working forwards. The complicated rear box sections are quite badly corroded, Mark's starting to cut these away and fabricate repair metalwork.
The front of the rear wheel arch is quite bad on the passenger side, so a ready made repair section will be bought. These ready made repair sections are expensive, and they might not always fit perfectly, but the complicated curved wheel arch section is difficult to reproduce by hand.
Mark is well able to fabricate the other sections.
Mark is continuing with the substantial body repairs on his Delta, we join him still
on the back end....
Mark has fabricated and secured the rebuilt rear crossmember,
this is a vulnerable section that has nooks and crannies for dirt and moisture. Mark's new hand built section is an excellent reproduction of the original item, and is well primed for future protection.
Picture above shows inside the repaired rear rear floor, the washer bottle lives inside the wing panel, with its leaks and spills a dripping torture for the innocent Delta metalwork.
On the right is Mark's careful repairing of a rear strut, this complicated area is again a magnet for corrosion, Mark is repairing it with care and great skill.
You can see the strong and neat welding.
The area around the fuel filler is very vulnerable to rust, the pipes pass through the boot floor with rubber grommets, these go hard with age and no longer protect from water entry.
The inner wheelarch itself splits at its joint with the outside section, Mark has fabricated a repair section. Mark has cut away some inner metalwork to allow better access to this work.
These areas are hidden from everyday viewing, and rot will go un-noticed for many years, this will happen on 8valves and Evo2s just the same,
rust has no favourites.
Modern cars have these rust traps designed out at the engineering drawing stage, our Lancias have quite a lot of them.
Mark's Delta came with some spare doors, he's cut out the curved arch section on one of the rear doors to repair the rear wheel arch section
and maintain the correct curve.
The time has now come for the sill repairs,Mark bought some sill repair panels
and is now going to fit them. These need careful attention tor fix properly, Mark has warmed up on the back end of the car, and is now ready to install
these new sills.
This is the major repair job Mark was faced with. He supported the
body well and made sure everything was safe, Mark checked the body was secured straight and true, then he began cutting
away the rusty metal.
The jacking points needed to be fabricated, Mark did this on the bench, he also recreated the rear mountings. These aren't really for jacking up, they were installed to transport the Delta body shells around the Lancia factory.
These are often crushed when supporting our cars, Mark has rebuilt his stronger than original, with a metal tube in the centre.
Jacking points fabricated and installed on the new inner sills,
with strengthening from behind.
Here is one of the rear body production line mounting points,
Mark has fabricated new mounts with a tube in the centre.
These points are useful for supporting our Deltas, the single centre
jacking point isn't much use, and not safe, for many of the jobs we have to do
under our cars. The Lancia front and back items are lightly made, and with a
little corrosion they easily collapse.
Mark's new mountings are substantial enough to allow for use
as a safe jacking point.
With the new inner sills in place
Mark replaced the floor panels
We'll leave Mark today as he starts to recreate the rear wheelarch front end. He decided to make this himself and not buy the ready made item.The door shuts onto this, so it'll have to be spot on.
We won't look over his shoulder, we'll leave Mark to get on with
resculpting this difficult curve.
There should be some items back from the blasters soon,
the diff carrier and suspension parts are on their way.
