| Be
Warned!
When I bought this car I
made the classic mistake of examining it late on a winter's afternoon. It
seemed to be basically sound. There was no corrosion under the carpets.
There was some filler on the sills and at the corners of the wings, but I
was very taken by the overall good condition of the bodywork, chrome and
interior, and I assumed it to be cosmetic repairs. Little did I know what
this filler concealed
|
Lesson 1- it's
always worse than you think |
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The
rear valance was corroded at each corner. What you see here is after I
bought the car, and started to test the panelwork by bashing it with a
rubber mallet. This is one sure way of showing up corrosion- but not easy
to do before you buy the car. |
| It seemed at first to
be just a little filler, and I assumed these were just cosmetic defects
which someone was in the process of repairing. The fact that the filler
was not concealed made me think that the panels were fundamentally sound. |
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The driver's side rear
wing had one perforation which was cut out. This allowed an examination of
the remaining area from the inside. |
| More filler on the right
hand sill, at the bottom of the right front wing |
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The rear section of the
front left wing had at some time been repaired. Unfortunately the repair
was poorly executed, allowing water to penetrate to the bottom of the
A-post where corrosion started. The design of this section of the Silver
Shadow is poor, and integrity of the wheel arch liner is essential to
prevent severe corrosion. |
| Another view of the right
hand wheel arch, behind the wheel. Once again the wheel arch liner had
been damaged or incorrectly fitted- water and mud had penetrated into the
space, leading to rot at the bottom of the wing section. On this side, the
A-post was not corroded (apart from some surface rust). |
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 |
The bottom corner of the
front right wing was corroded- not badly, but enough to warrant fitting a
repair section. (The "bubbles" on the chrome are just drops of
water- all the chromework was in good order) |
| The rear end of the
right hand sill. The sills were basically reasonably sound- however there
were some perforations where water had entered through the holes for the
chrome clips. I decided to replace all sills. |
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The boot floor was sound,
but corroded beneath the underseal. Removing the underseal was a messy
operation, revealing what you see here. |
| Directly beneath the battery
was the only perforation in the boot floor- probably caused by acid from
the battery |
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