It's not terribly out of square. You can see in the photos that it's had a head-on collision with a tree, and the front is slightly bent-in. This bent the front cross member, and essentially made the front of the car slightly narrower. All I'm going to do is cut this out, and weld in a new, straight bit of box, the right length, making sure the wings line up with the rest of the body. The rest of the chassis is straight and solid. Only found one little hole, which will be easy to overplate. The sills are all good. The only serious rust is in the wheel arches, but all easy enough to get to and repair.
@NurseHolliday 'proper job', I suppose. Going to remove the rubbing strips and bumpers, straighten out the creased bonnet (if I can't find a straight replacement), and fabricate a valance panel with an integrated grille, to replace the front bumper and existing valance panel, which is pretty mangled. Going to fair this into the wings, to give a seamless look. Obviously a full respray too.Using this mk1 brat as my inspiration (I know it's never going to be this pretty, but it's just an example of the style/ technique).
@danstuff that makes sense. There was a YouTube project on an e30 where the guy was removing a dodgy M3 kit and it was fascinating how the body strength all comes together from the various parts.
It's not terribly out of square. You can see in the photos that it's had a head-on collision with a tree, and the front is slightly bent-in. This bent the front cross member, and essentially made the front of the car slightly narrower. All I'm going to do is cut this out, and weld in a new, straight bit of box, the right length, making sure the wings line up with the rest of the body. The rest of the chassis is straight and solid. Only found one little hole, which will be easy to overplate. The sills are all good. The only serious rust is in the wheel arches, but all easy enough to get to and repair.
@NurseHolliday 'proper job', I suppose. Going to remove the rubbing strips and bumpers, straighten out the creased bonnet (if I can't find a straight replacement), and fabricate a valance panel with an integrated grille, to replace the front bumper and existing valance panel, which is pretty mangled. Going to fair this into the wings, to give a seamless look. Obviously a full respray too.Using this mk1 brat as my inspiration (I know it's never going to be this pretty, but it's just an example of the style/ technique).