The Bond Bug

[Matt of the Vivas]

Here it is:















Its a 1972 model, probably a 700ES judging by the various bits of interior. Its been a "customised" at some point, with extra gauges and an oddly installed radio, also the white paint and number plates - which have "night fever" at the bottom..
Its been off the road since 1991, but someone has done some work on it at some point - the chassis has been very neatly repaired and painted, lots of the suspension and brakes are new, and the engine has been rebuilt. Sadly, this all took place prior to the chap i bought it off buying it in 2001, and nothing further has been done since then. The engine is siezed, it may free off but more likely needs a rebuild. The bodywork is not bad, the canopy has been repaired properly and is excellent, the body has some cracks round the skirt and one rear arch which should be just about within my meagre fibreglassing skills to fix. It will need painting but im quite tempted to keep the white....
It came with a massive history file including a complete list of all the previous owners and some old photos. Im very excited by it and am looking forward to making a start on it soon.
I would not normally buy a car blind, but in this case i think its paid off.
It was also, in Bug terms, very cheap indeed.
Matt.

[Matt of the Vivas]

Still trying to formulate a plan to tackle this one, and need another car shifted from my garage before ive got the room to get the body off and start the resto properly. So while im waiting, i started on the light surrounds.
I bought a repro pair off eBay, when they arrived, as described they needed "trimming"...



One full day and several evenings of trimming, grinding, fibreglassing and filling later, they fit:



Useful practice for the rest of it...

[Matt of the Vivas]

Original plan was to just do the minimum, get it on the road and ignore the bodywork.
Looking closer, its just too bad for that. Theres filler everywhere, cracks in the lower skirts, the rear arches are badly bashed, the reinforcement plates for the canopy are dust.... It needs a full body resto.
Bodywork is not my thing :lol:

Starting point. Ok from a distance, awful up close.



Close up of the cracking, its all over the entire car.



Starting to remove the paint. Most effective way ive found is simply to scrape it off, carefully with a chisel.



Filler in the nose, hiding old accident damage. Filler on its own does not work, it cracks as the GRP flexes. It needs to be ground out and fresh GRP added, then a skim of filler used to finish off...



... which is what ive done here



Nose mostly stripped, damage made good properly and starting to flat back ready for primer. The duct section still needs to be tackled and one headlamp bucket is putting up a fight - you just can't use excessive force or heat on seized fixings so its a battle of patience!

[Matt of the Vivas]

Finished and primed. Little bit of inspiration to tackle the rest of it now....

[Matt of the Vivas]

I was told the engine was seized when i bought the car. To check, i decided to remove the head so I could look at the bores....



Yeah. yeah thats seized :lol:

So if anyone comes across a nice 700 / 750cc Reliant engine on their travels, do shout..

[Matt of the Vivas]

Bit more bodywork. Cant bare to look at the whole thing just yet, so just taking a panel at a time :lol:

Front O/S wing:



Large unstable crack, hanging out and no strength left



Damaged area trimmed up so it sits flush, then held in the right place with tape on the front. 3 layers of fresh GRP matting laid out on the back side, graduated outwards to avoid stress raisers. This puts the strength back in the panel and bonds the damaged area in place.



Next day, crack ground right out, through to the new fibreglass. Damaged area built back up with multiple layers of grp matting.



New fibreglass ground down to the correct profile, ready for final finishing.



Fill, rub down, fill, rub down, fill....



Primed. Quite happy with that.

[Matt of the Vivas]

Did a little more flatting on that side as i could feel a bulge, and extended it out toward the rear of the car.



Big work this week has been sorting the nearside front corner, or The Corner From Hell as ive been calling it. Its horrendous, cracked, distorted, bodged with bits of alloy plate, full of filler.. Its clearly been crunched here several times before.


Starting point.

First job was to grind the edges of the crack so they sat flush, and gaffer tape the front of the cracked areas to hold it all in the right position. Then laminated behind the whole area with a couple of layers of mat and resin to put the strength back and stop everything moving about. With that done, the tape could come off and the edges of the cracks ground out.




Then i could start to lay new matting in the cracks







Then ground back, ready for filler



And filled, skimmed, filled, skimmed....

[Matt of the Vivas]

Many skims and much rubbing down later...



Front valence next.

[Matt of the Vivas]

Large crack in the front valence sorted, front end now completed...

[Matt of the Vivas]

The moulding for the pedal box was smashed, it sits right behind the front wheel so possibly something got flicked up?
Anyway, it was a simple repair:





Anyway, can't put it off any longer, time to tackle the canopy hinges. The Bug has a reinforcing plate glassed in under the mounting point for the hinges. On mine, the plates had rotted and pulled out of the fibreglass, allowing the hinges to punch through the top of the nose cone and meaning there was no way of attaching the canopy.
First job was to sort the hinges - theres no adjustment so the hinges have to be wear-free to get the panel gaps correct. Mine were knackered - but luckily, as they are Mk1 Mini door hinges you can buy a handy repair kit..


New brass bushes pressed into the hinge bodies


Worn hinge pins... nearly worn through!


Next, the old hinge reinforcement plates (or what was left of them) were removed, and the GRP holding them in place chipped away.


I made a couple of new plates in Stainless, copying the rusty old plates.






Next, the plates were bonded in place under the nose cone, and clamped up until the bond dried. Then, the original GRP was ground away back down to the level of the new plate and the edge tapered.





Fresh GRP was laid in the hole, tapered out to meet the original material






Then the new GRP was shaped, and drilled to take the hinges.



Hinges bolted on. Does it work? YES!





Skim of filler... Squirt of Primer.... That should do it.

Im intending to beef up underneath the mounting plates with a layer or two of GRP, i'll do this next week some time.

[Matt of the Vivas]

Engines a bit, erm, rubbish.
If i could find a set of liners it might live again, but a second hand engine might be more sensible.
Have some pictures of the rear end bodywork, more cracks, more grinding out, more fresh GRP.....



















Ive noticed that the rear body mounts have metal plates bonded in, they have rusted between the layers of GRP and cracked, so this needs sorting out next. I'll probably make up some new plates in stainless like i did with the canopy fixes, then bond them in. Also the battery box in the boot is cracked all along the back edge, so thats on the list too.

[Matt of the Vivas]

Body mounts then....



The fibreglass surrounding the old mounts had to be ground away to expose...



.... the rotten steel plates, which were removed and new ones made up in non-corroding Dural.



The bonding areas were cleaned up,




And the new plates fitted.



Both sides were then glassed back in to complete the job.





Fairly neat and hopefully strong.



The battery box in the boot was also repaired.

[Matt of the Vivas]

Im also starting to repair the back panel.
Its got a really odd crack at the bottom, possibly as a result of something being dropped in the boot at some point. Someones fitted ugly reversing lights, that seem to have required at least 3 attempts to drill the holes - behind the lights its like swiss cheese :roll: so i need to fill that whole area with fresh GRP so i can do away with them. The boot hinges were possibly fitted by the same person - many many holes..... - so that needs fixing, and the glassed in reinforcement under the hinges is rotten. So plenty to be getting on with.

[Matt of the Vivas]

Close up of the "swiss cheese" boot hinge panel. I need to fix this next.




Rear panel filled and primed. Theres a ton of filler in the O/S/R arch, thats also to be dug out and repaired shortly.

[Matt of the Vivas]

Carrying on with the boot hinge mounts:


3 new Dural hinge mount plates shaped up to replace the rotten steel originals.
These were then riveted and glassed into place.


There was 2 gaps in the seal flange, i thought they were meant to be there but no - some one has cut them for some strange reason. So they needed to be filled with fresh GRP.







A little filling and a splash of primer and it all looks good. I have fitted the bespoke and very, very expensive* boot hinges as well.



Rear arch looks ok but it seems to have a little filler in.... Better investigate?



Hit with hammer



Thats quite an impressive piece of bodgery....


First stage of rough shaping some fresh GRP.

* B&Q, 72p for 3