Spare Bulkhead, Stripped.

Over the last two days I have stripped all the parts off the spare bulkhead. I was happy to find that the upper and lower fascia (dash) are in good condition, from what I've seen on forums, it is common for the steel backing to rust away completely, leaving only the foam and vinyl holding it all together. The steel backing on these only has a little surface rust, so a light scuff and some black paint will have them good as new.

I didn't encounter rusty bolts that needed to be undone with an angle grinder, however I was amused by the strange mix of metric, UNF & UNC threads. I guess British Leyland started to convert to the metric system during the 1970's. Anything that is shared with the series 2A seems to be still imperial, but the 'new' additions such as the plastic dash, etc had metric fasteners.

With everything removed, I proceeded to remove the 'bodge' done by the PO. I bought a spot weld drill from Trade Tools, which proved to be really handy. I'd never used one before but it was pretty straight forward. Dot punch the centre of the spot weld then drill, being careful to only drill through the first layer. This removes the spot weld, and leaves a hole that you can plug weld later upon re-assembly.

I removed the patch in the passengers footwell, where the PO had widened the tunnel by cutting the corner out of the footwell and moving it laterally by the same width as the section removed. That left a hole which can be filled with the same section later.

I then removed the centre panel that had also been hacked at. This involved removing the stiffener from the engine bay side, as the centre panel sandwiches between the stiffener and the upper panel.

I then took to the footwells with a paint/rust stripping wheel that goes on the drill, which worked pretty well. I just wanted to make sure there weren't any holes lurking unseen, however it seems to be pretty solid still. 

I also made a 'jig' out of 40x40 box section, that is bolted between the bulkhead mounts. My theory is that it will hold the bulkhead 'true' while it is cut and welded. (I did this before removing any of the panels) 

My plan is to remove the centre panel and the 'inner' sides of the footwells from the bulkhead on the vehicle and weld them into this bulkhead. Then have it sandblasted, etch primed and painted.