Joe's 1972 Firenza Project

[chrismc]

Ive been on this forum for a while now and have decided to post the project on my sons Firenza project. Joe had been saving up for around a year for a classic car, His first choice was a Magnum, Firenza, Viva Coupe but after a while this was dismissed as they seemed to be made from Unobtanium. He then started looking at Chevettes and Mk1 Fiestas and the story seeemed to be the same.

We decided that it would be good to get a basket case and restore it as a learning experience (for both of us) and also because it was being funded by pocket money with me contributing too.I had finished my V8 Magnum the year before and fancied another project.

Just before Christmas the Firenza below cropped up on the forum and was nearly sold several times before we decided in a panic that we were going to buy if. I phoned Matt up and bought it over the phone without seeing it.





A couple of weeks later we turned up at Matts house with a hired trailer, dug the Firenza and loads of parts out of his garage. Matt was great and owns his own car restoration business mainly restoring VWs but will take on anything. (Matt Gill Restorations 07919091057)







Joe is very impressed!



Smug Git!

I had realised over the years that even though I was still capable of rolling aouund under cars, it had some how lost its appeal. Luckily when I had my garage built a few years ago I made sure it was tall enough for loft storage.
I was surprised, when looking on eBay at the price of 2 Post lifts and realised that if I cut a hole on the loft floor there would be just enough space for the roof of a car to protrude into. I took the plunge and got my credit card out....





You can see the Firenza has the early style square vent and genuine 1972 rust proofing.









Luckily the car came with several panels which had been cut off scrap cars. This saved so much time and produced a better result than I could ever achieve. Ultimate Recycling.



Someone had done a lot of high quality restoration to the floorpan previously. All this needs is surface derusting and seam sealing. Unfortunately they started at the front of the car and lost interest just before the rear axle.

Onto the other side with no panels to help me


Plates over rust...
The rear arch repairs are sound and have not been put over rust to I have decided to leave these.



This doesn't look right.





I decided to start again





This is were it all became a guessing game. Having nothing to compare it with (the Magnum isnt standard) I decided to make it up.









The aim is to get the car done by Billing 2016,

I will update as I go. thanks Chris

[droopsnoot]

That's a fair bit of work you've done there, I've been through the same with the hatch. Having the inner arch flush with the outer towards the bottom (as it seems from the photos) does at least stop the usual mud trap. It can be challenging trying to figure out where stuff goes if there are significant bits missing, I've spent quite a long time photographing other cars, Fred was kind enough to allow me access to some cars in his shed for me to take detailed photos too. If you need pictures of specific areas let me know, I'll have a look through.

[hbpeter]

Brilliant, good to see another one being saved, whats the reg number?

Peter

[chrismc]

Thanks Droopsnoot, I wish I had read your post earlier as a few photos would have helped.
After I posted this morning I went down to the garage determined to finish the spare wheel well and came up with this...





Which after Seam Sealer and Primer looks like this.





The well is only just deep enough so the boot closes with the spare wheel in place Luck rather than planning.

Next up will be replacing sections of the rear chassis legs, repairing the boot floor, attaching the inner wheel arch to the outer on the passanger side and fitting the rear valance.

Peter MXD 596K. Already on the register

[droopsnoot]

That's not a thousand miles away from the original shape, and with an original replacement spare wheel well in my HPF I can't close the boot with it vertical. On snoots they had a special clamp to hold the wheel at an angle, but I just mount mine flat and use the well for stuff like the jack, spare fan belt etc. This is the spare wheel well I made for the hatch, test fitting it at this point though it's all welded in place now.



Rear chassis legs aren't too bad. I've had to do the sections behind my trailing arm mounts, though the mounts themselves were fine. I took one half out at a time, leaving a bolt in place to locate the bolt hole properly which is the only bit that matters there. Boot floor was also a pain, that said there aren't many panels on the hatch that I haven't had to replace.

[Retro morgs]

Great work so far,well done! Hopefully my firenza will be on the road for billing 2016 too Nice to see another coupe being bought back to life

[1972nail]

Looking forward to following this one. Good to see a family interest!

[junkyarddog]

Excellent work so far

[chrismc]

Thanks for the encouragement guys

Had a bit of time in the garage this weekend. Joe came to help which was a great motivator when doing time consuming, tedious work like repairing inner wheelarches



The near side rear needed patches fabricating through the whole of the radius of the arch. I had to make these from many pieces because of the compound curves. Bit of a patchwork quilt but now solid.



Joe came down to the garage to help and spent several hours with a hot air stripper scraping off old underseal from the floor. He stuck with it and managed to get the whole floor back to bare metal. I'm a proud Dad




Once the wheel arch was done I moved onto the back of the car to the corrosion at the back of the boot floor behind where the rear valance will go.


Pretty crusty.



Up close even crustier.



The best thing to do was cut it all out and replace.



Luckily I had some angle iron hoarded away so this was used as the basis of the repair.





Jobs to do next include fitting the rear valance and replacing that rear chassis leg.


Quick question. The car came with these wheels. They seem to be 4"PCD but I havent seen them on another car. Maybe they are later Vauxhall and 100mm PCD? Anybody recognise them?



Many thanks, Chris

[pbottomley]

Those wheel spook like GLS ones?