Wing and A panel removal

A hammer, chisel & angle grinder, or it you have lots of time drill all the spot welds out & use a hammer & chisel to ease it off, to replace either buy a spot welder or drill lots of holes & plug them on, you will still have to seam weld in places, the book mini restoration by Lindsay Porter is a good reference,

Steve.

Hi Martin

In addition to Steve's suggestions there are also some useful responses if you search inside this newsgroup under 'wings'. I found some of them helpful when I started.

I'd start off by saying remove the old panels with care. If you hack them off like an old pro you may struggle to find something to fix them to. Plan ahead. Take pictures before you start. Your memory will desert you just when you need it. Its also about ensuring all the panels around align before you fully weld. Use the bonnet (for the wings) and doors (for the A panels, sills etc.) and use lots of clamps.

Measure twice weld once. Good penetrative welds, not ridges of weld sitting on the surface.

Someone also said whatever tinworm you can see, there's a whole lot more waiting for you behind that panel. They must have seen my Mini because they were spot on...

Finally, wear a full face mask when grinding and wire brushing with the angle grinder. When (not if) an grinder decides to leave your hands on full speed there's no saying where it will end up after it has bounced. In my case it hit my nose. Some say I'm much better looking now, but I was lucky.

Hope this helps

Peter

Be carful with the hammer and chisel as you need something accurate to align the new panels to.

Drill the spot welds with a big drill to leave the spot and drill the surrounds. Sykes Pick did make a tool to remove spot welded panels which was a spring loaded centre point with a small circle cutter 3/8" - centre punch the spot and use the point to keep the cutter centralised.

There are a few other tools to remove the spot welds this does make a better and easier job of it.

one other point, cover up your car windows with something like a canvas sheet as angle grinder sparks & welding sparks will ruin the glass, also when welding have an assistant at hand encase it goes on fire, you cant see the flames through a welding mask, a small plant sprayer normally does the job to extinguish small flames,

Steve.