Restoration: Where to get car body panels....

[Martinslost]

...at reasonable prices?

My dad has had a Mk2 1600E cortina in the garage for over a year now, just waiting to be restored. Half the reason for me buying a welder was for this job as I plan on doing a lot of the work.

The problem is we will need panels like new front wings, passenger side front floor pan e.t.c. but unfortunately the ones available are priced to a point slightly higher than your average student, and thus above what either of us are willing to pay / can afford.

There are of course the fibreglass alternatives, which are relatively cheap and would help with a bit of weight reduction (as we may end up aiming at a performance cortina) but to be honest with safety in mind first and the usualy poor fitting of fibreglass panels we would prefer decent steel replacements.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Ta muchly!

 

[Unclefista]

The best place to find out would be

http://www.turbosport.co.uk

Have a look in the "Restorations and Projects" catagory, there's plenty of old Fords being welded and having panels replaced there.

Have a look for the threads started by "Dave_Roberts" he's a farmer, who should've been a professional welder/restorer (Esc MK1 but the thoery is the same ).

 

[Spot the welders dog]

steelpanels Good panels: priced such
Beevers Cheap & cheerful
oldpanels Sometimes has OEM stuff, but fairly good prices.

Or: find a 'rolled' tina and cut the floor out??

 

[piman]

Hello Martin,

"The problem is we will need panels like new front wings,"

are the wings very bad as generally it is better to patch repair as there is far less alignment to worry about. You can sometimes adapt 'pattern' wheel arch repair panels from your local motor factor? Floors can be repaired by just buying the correct gauge steel, (probably 20 gauge for the floor0, again you local motor factor, not too expensive.

Alec

 

[Martinslost]

cheers for th help guys, we'll be looking into this more as the winter progresses.

Alec, we will be patching the floor with a floorpan from a discovery, as its more than 3 times cheaper for a larger area than a pattern original cortina floor pan. Cut to fit job, with surprisingly similar strengthening ridges.
To be honest the front offside wing isnt the best, its already had a half section repair...badly reapired at that as the welding wasnt cleaned up properly, or smoothed over well either. Until we can strip it down properly we cant yet tell the extent of the rust, but we're not too hopefull. We do have one spare nearside wing, which has been used but could be patched, its just the bits that need patching are the areas with bends and creases e.t.c. so findind something to patch from is difficult. The main problem is the area round the headlights, both sides are 99% filler 1% rust flakes.

All good fun!, just waiting to get the loft floor in the garage so we can strip the 'tina down and store the usefull bits in the "loft".