Fitting a 90 rear wing and spraying wheelarch thingies

[Dunc]

Hi, couple of quickies;

How tricky is the rear wing to fit?

The bit that concerns me is how to do the spot welds where wing joins bulkhead. Never spot welded ally before.

Mine's got a dent on the rear corner, just trying to decide whether to panel beat it or replace the whole thing. The other option is the gratuitous addition of chequer plate!

How do you prep the bendy arch extension things on the Defender for paint? On inspection today mine seem very porous. Do i need to buy new or different ones?

Cheers

[Les Henson]

You can get a special drill for removing spot welds - called a spot weld drill coincidentally About £7 for a half decent one - they cut through the welds on the damaged panel without damaging the panel underneath (unless you go too far and then they make a hole right through). I think plastic has a special paint (synthetic?), which is more flexible than usual paints. If you don't have the means to spot weld alloy, then people usually use blind or bull-nosed rivets.

Les.

[Happyoldgit]

Checker plate would be your easiest option. Replacing the rear skin is more time consuming than difficult.

[Dunc]

Thanks chaps.

[Guest WALFY]

I did mine at the beginning of the year. If you drill out the rear corner cappings, then with a decent glove on (leather/working) you can then grip the panel and try and rip it off. But it'll be held with the spot welds, at this point use a long large flat bladed screwdriver and just lever the panel away from the truck. Then all the welds just pop off. When the panel is off you then just dress the remains of the weld with either a file or grinder. A lot easier and quicker then drilling out the welds. Done it this way to my last 2 90s'. Putting the new panel on I used sikaflex to glue it on and a fair few rivets in the original positions. Takes about 1/2 day to remove and replace each side if you do it nice and slowly.

You also need to take off the roof of whatever style you have fitted, and the body cappings, ideal time to rub down and rust treat or buy new galv cappings. Not to expensive if I remember.

HTH

[Dunc]

I did mine at the beginning of the year. If you drill out the rear corner cappings, then with a decent glove on (leather/working) you can then grip the panel and try and rip it off. But it'll be held with the spot welds, at this point use a long large flat bladed screwdriver and just lever the panel away from the truck. Then all the welds just pop off. When the panel is off you then just dress the remains of the weld with either a file or grinder. A lot easier and quicker then drilling out the welds. Done it this way to my last 2 90s'. Putting the new panel on I used sikaflex to glue it on and a fair few rivets in the original positions. Takes about 1/2 day to remove and replace each side if you do it nice and slowly.

You also need to take off the roof of whatever style you have fitted, and the body cappings, ideal time to rub down and rust treat or buy new galv cappings. Not to expensive if I remember.

HTH

Yeah, been there done that with cappings and roof, it's the wing section that's new ground for me.

Cheers