Cautionary Tale

[Ayli Carper]

When I bought my Williams I did no research did a poor inspection and hardly haggled.

I didn't care, it was a lovely car at the right price ten miles away. How couldn't I buy it?

I knew there were some issues with the bodywork, and early in my ownership I stumbled across this comment on a thread on a Subaru site:

"rust on the arches is, how can I say....a GOOD thing.
You know it hasn't been covered up by a bodge job. If its good, buy it then get it fixed yourself properly."

And so I felt smug and muddled along, fixing a sill last year. But then this year I knew I couldn't put off dealing with the issues any longer. The wheels weren't holding air properly and I knew that refurbed wheels would show up the bodywork. I'd had a nightmare with my other car stripping it down and cutting back to sound metal and a full repaint, and I didn't want a museum piece for a car that I'd be worried about parking in a supermarket.

So I decided to get the rot cut out in situ. It looked like it would be a toughish job but not that bad. The trouble was that when the work started, the rot didn't stop, it kept on going seemingly forever. Added to that, it was clear that it had been fixed in so many ways in so many places (some very well, some very not well) that there was a false impression of how bad it was, because the work had always been on top, and never work down to the core of the problem.

I really like the outcome, and I'm sure the car feels tauter to drive as a result. (I realise this is probably a delusion.)

But the moral of the story is believe nobody on condition and expect the worst. I looked up that Scooby quote again and discovered it was written in 2004. It may well have applied then, but I think it is virtually impossible for it to apply now.

There are some before during and after pics below, for your possible amusement and/or horror!

[PhilW]

Hi Ayli,
Good to see that you have cut out the rot and repaired it proporly.
I'm in the middle of stripping mine back to a shell and building it back from there, after getting rid of all the corrosion.
Enjoy the car, now that you have refurbished it,
Phil

[talkingfish]

fair play to you for saving it and putting the work in.....

[northy]

Thats not all that bad actually - did you take any more pictures?

[Ayli Carper]

Thanks for your replies.

My main point was it really didn't look that bad, either when I was buying it nearly three years ago or when the bodyshop assessed it prior to it going in for the work.

I was suspicious because the nearside sill was better than the offside - not what you'd expect. And I knew about a rather crusty offside rear sill repair and the better nearside rear sill repair I'd done. So I had an idea that three sets of bodywork had been done. But it turned out that at least three OTHER lots of bodywork had been done, and that it was still rusting from right inside, but you would never have guessed by even a thorough inspection.

I've got lots of pics, I just didn't want to bore everyone to tears with pages of them! Is there anything in particular you want to see.

[manxseven]

Yes all of them, won't bore me and some of the rather lovely 911 as well

Simon

[Vandella]

agreed, never too many pics!!

[katbloke]

Another one saved nice one

[northy]

upload all of them pictures if you have the time....from what ive seen so far that looks like a good job is being done.

[Ayli Carper]

Sorry for the delay, I was looking at Katbloke's excellent thread and was a little knocked.

In a way, our thread are polar opposites - I think what he's doing is absolutely fantastic, and it's the best thing to do to a rare car.

The pictures I have are a bit of a bundle, some from the bodyshop (who did a very good job) and some of my before and after pictures. There's no build up like there is in Katbloke's thread, because the car was only in the bodyshop for two and a half weeks.

And there are some of my Porsche. Now that was away for two and a half years. You start pulling stuff off, and before you know it, it's so far gone, you may as well replace something, and then because we're here, we may as well do this as well, and in my case, somebody gets ill when the car's in pieces in their garage and after a while you want to tear your hair out, and when it comes back you're frightened to drive it in case it rains or someone opens their door on to it.

You know that if you pull a Williams' engine out you're going to replace all the nightmare ancillaries that you can't get to when it's in, and detail the bay, and and and and and. Let alone the suspension, and well, at least the subframe's out, but you'd better replace it really, get it shotblasted and painted in the original grey because they only come in black now for £750 or whatever.

The fact is the Clio is the best car I've ever driven in snow, and I don't want to be frightened of doing so again. It now has a few gallons of Waxoyl in it and loads of stonechip lathered on. It still has a crusty roof and some key marks.

The point is, be very wary when you buy one, and do whatever is right for you when you get it, but do try to use it.

































































































Sorry if there are lots of repeats photobucket is going very slow tonight