Long time lurker, but I finally convinced my mum to let me do something with the XK8 thats been of the road for 3 years.

I initially thought I would only be dealing with a rusty A frame, brackets, chassis legs and rear wings.




Started poking around the rest of the car, rear sills were starting to crumble as well as the front sill lips.

It wasn't until I started ripping out the interior to deep clean everything that I saw some pretty drastic rust.







Chassis legs were done first.




We then started stripping the rear sills, the passenger side was ok, the lips were gone, but only surface rust on the sill, looks like someone had been near the drivers side sill with blocks of filler falling off...




What was uncovered under the driver side...





Inner sill was fabricated, inner skin was used with the offcut of the passenger side sill and then drivers side sill repaired.



Rear wings were also a similar story, the more we dug, the worse the rust became.

Mostly cut out and started fabricating the inner structure and then patched up




At least the side hangers are still intact I suppose

Floors now, decided to weld up the plugs in the floor as well as they rotted through.




Driver's side went fairly smooth. Passenger side was much worse.
Transmission tunnel rust as well as finding a hole in the seatbelt mount




Cut out, welded up and seam sealed.

 

Interior has started going back in.




A new stereo was fitted before the carpets went back in. Took inspiration from extheaterkid and went with the joying 8.8 system.





Everything works and I now have a reverse camera!

New headliner has gone in and A pillars have been recovered.




Have to refit the bumper with new mounts. Not entirely sure how I will go about the stuck bolt, but all part of the fun I suppose!

 

UK cars..........typical unfortunately.
Going through the same right now.
The more you look the more you find, and all good fun !!!!
Good luck.

 

It still astounds me how bad some of these can be.

Looking at your rear subframe refurb has got me itching to do that as well, but part of me just wants to enjoy driving the thing now :')

 

I know what you mean about driving it now, it was a hard decision for me to carry on with the refurb, and miss this summer driving it.
Well once the decision was made to keep going with the refurb, that was it,
But i know that next summer it should be all sorted, and for lots and lots of summers to come hopefully.

 

I feel for you.

It's ******' disgraceful for an upmarket vehicle. The first edition workshop manual waxes lyrical about how much effort is put into corrosion prevention yet issues like this appear over and over

Kudos to you (and XKR-DAY, RD et al) for your fabrication skills and tenacity.

They ain't half fun to drive, though

 

Just been looking at your work (FIRST POST)

That is some achievement, and lots done....
You have even managed to sort out the chassis drop leg, (with out removing the rear sub frame) WELL DONE, My agility and welding skill did not go that far and i had to remove the sub frame.

I still have the rear bumper to remove, and work to do in that area, i will be getting good visual info from this thread for that, so thanks for this.
i use RaceDiagnostics threads for lots of good info on the rust areas, and how to sort it out, and now this thread...........

What more could a man with a welder and a rusty XK8/R wont.

 

In truth it was just me not wanting to disturb anything and risk breaking anything else

The bumper was probably one of the easiest things to take off. Side blocks were not rusted and came off straight away.
The rear mounts fell apart with a little tug on the bumper so no cutting required

Just that pesky bolt in the brass now

 

Hats off.

It never ceases to amaze me what those of you in the UK have to put up with in the way of corrosion and also the lengths you will go to save a car from the scrap heap.

I do wonder, however, if it might not be less work to import one from some desert region and convert it to right hand drive.

 

WOngu,

Charlie and I can't understand how much damage can be done by water....Arizona and Texas Cars don't have damage like this...I guess we don't have as much Rain,
Fog or whatever as you Guys in England.....I can't imagine this happening to a Car here in the Houston area although we are only 50 miles from the Gulf.....I was in the London area for a week in 1998 during the Spring and it didn't rain a drop......What causes this problem? Is it Fog, Rain, or what?

Billy Clyde @ Cinco Ranch

 

It's just rain, it rains a lot in the Autumn, Winter and Spring. Every now and then we get some nice weather but then it's just raining all the time otherwise. It doesn't help that they spray salt on the roads.

 

+1
And lots of it too.

The climate here is much the same as the south of England, the only difference being road salt - or lack of it. It's easy to tell an english car more than a few years old, even if it has been registered locally.

We do occasionally get the 'floaters' caught out by the large tidal range. Not much you can do about that.

 

OK! Now I understand....It's SALT that's doing this....Is this why they started using Aluminum on the newer Cars? Because of the Salt? and has that helped stop the corrosion on the 2007 and newer Cars?

What about the Guys up in Illinois and those States in the North? Do you get Salt dumped on the Roads also? Is that why you put your cars in storage during the Winter? I always thought it was because of the Wide Tires.....I guess there is some advantage for us Guys down here in the South.....

Billy Clyde

 

Aluminium hasn't really changed anything. Aluminium still rusts just as well as steel does. Actually the aluminium trim on my car looks just as bad as the steel does in some areas. You also have a problem with galvanic corrosion as well. You don't see modern cars rusting as much simply because they aren't old enough yet. Age them 20 odd years and they will look just as bad as our cars do now.

 

God Bless ya man!! That's dedication. awesome work you are doing too. Makes me more and more grateful for my California it's whole life car. Ohio uses lots of salt in the snowy winter but mine never goes out when it's like that. I even put a dehumidifier in the garage. However, I replaced the front subframe on my Acura a few years ago. That one came from New Jersey, where I was born, btw. TM

 

If I knew how far it was gone, I might not have gone through with it, but after getting so far, made no sense to give up on it.

Managed to snap the hand brake cable 2 days before its MOT booking... not the most pleasant thing to replace on this car I must say.
Thankfully it all paid off and it passed its MOT with no advisories to my surprise

Not done much on the car since my last update, still needs filler slapping on, still needs painting.
Epoxy painted all the sills and stone chipped them to protect them.
Epoxy paint the inside rear wings and underside to prevent anything rusting them again.

Carried out the flip key modification, the central locking on the remote actually works without me being right next to it now, which is nice

Agreed on the salt being the killer, I think this one was had its fair share of negligence as well.

 

WOngu,
You definitely have your work cut out for you. Any chance of finding a donor car with good body you can combine with? If not you will have a great project for about the next few years. Good luck with your efforts.

 

BROTHER!
I've already purchased your plane ticket to NYC!!!
Check your email, lol
BEaUtiful work. It's in my future!
​​​​​​

 

In a country where is rains continuously, the British seem to have no concern at all about corrosion protection. WHY IS THAT ?

 

my 97 is much the same with the LH side like new and the RH bodged by previous owners..I wait for an MOT failure.
The reason you would not beleive.
there is a grommet in the trunk that lets the wire through to the number plate lights. top right when you have the trunk open..Its not the seal to the body but the little tube that seals to the wire that has perished and lets the water through. It drips onto the plate below and if the car is nose down it runs into the sill via the wheel arch or goes under the back seat.
So go get your silicone and check out this little tube