The Alpine Project : December 2022

Alphie’s on the ground so time to reattach some appendages, but first I must treat some wounds and, of course, some cancer.

Bonnet

I have two bonnets to choose from. The first, dubbed “Bonnet Pins,” has holes for hood (sorry, bonnet) pins that someone of yesteryear thought an Alpine needed. Since Alpine bonnets hinge from the front, any air pressure that miraculously builds beneath it will only push the back of the bonnet up. And with a little 1600 cc four-banger churning along, that kind of air pressure would only come from outsized weather phenomena. My guess is that whoever was more concerned with a dodgy bonnet latch than blistering performance.

Bonnet pins on a Alpine are like a DVD rewinder...

The other bonnet has no holes, but suffers more from the lumps and cancer, which are less treatable, so I went with Bonnet Pins.

Bonnet Pins is a replacement, revealed by the cracking bright red lacquer paint beneath the black and the three holes for the Rootes Group badge at the front edge. (Only early models – Series I, II and II - had bonnet badges. Series IV and V moved the badge to a center bar in the grill opening.) As it turns out, other than the pins, Bonnet Pins is in good nick, no dents with only some small issues on the underside.

Stripped, it all has to go!

The Fix

First up, to the metal! I have my no-old-paint policy, but with the cracking lacquer it is even more important. Lacquer paint is not very flexible and tends to shrink over time, hence the cracks. And it will continue to shrink and crack beneath new paint, so I have to go to metal on the bonnet. Quick fix here – heat gun, razor blade and 40 grit on the random orbital. I got to the crannies with a 2” disc on my angled die-grinder.

The red paint is from early model Alpine

Second, filling the bonnet pin holes, which were drilled through the supports below the skin as well as through the outer skin itself. A relatively simple fix: cut a small piece of 16-gauge sheet metal, hold it with a magnet beneath the hole in the support and weld away. A quick grind, a dab of JB Weld and done. Same for the holes in the outer skin, although I may not use JB Weld on the outer skin.

The grey blotches are JB Weld over the stress cracks
and welded up bonnet pin holes

Third – please pay attention when opening and closing your bonnet – I found stress cracks in the under-bonnet supports just aft of the hinges. I think this is caused from twisting the bonnet by lifting or closing it using off-center pressure. Lift the bonnet from the middle where the catch is and be sure there aren’t any obstructions when closing it. The hinges should also move freely so there is no need for any pushing when closing. And Blast It, DON’T DROP the bonnet to close it! Oh, and I welded up the stress cracks by the way.

Doors

In this case, the passenger’s door – I haven’t got to the driver’s yet. You will be underwhelmed to learn that Alpine doors grow cancer along the lower lip, partly because the drain holes get clogged but more from the lack of any semblance of factory seam sealing. In the pics you will see that the length of the lower lip has effectively rusted through. There are other issues: a rust through on at the lower front edge of the outer skin, a rust through on the inside upper front corner and a curious rust crack at the top inside corner at the back inside edge next to the window fuzzy.

The before shot, cancerous but not as bad as the rocker panels

The Fix

Grind on Macduff! First, I ground off all the rust. I used a cutting wheel on the 3” grinder and Dremel tool to get some clean edges where I can weld in some new 22-gauge sheet metal. I used thinner sheet metal so I wouldn’t put much heat into the welding. I’ll seal up the seams from the inside once I have everything welded and cleaned up.

Some close-ups on the rust

It's worse than it looks in this pic

In the pic above, this section didn't look that bad,
but the more I cut-out, the worse it got.

One of those “Didn’t-See-That-Coming” moments: After I gleefully cutting away the inside lower lip and effectively detaching the inner support from the outer skin of the door, I noticed that the gap bowed out in the middle of the door. Oops, so, which is the straight edge? The inner support or the outer skin? And how big should the gap be? How am I going to measure it? Bollocks!

This gap is WAY too big, I had no reference of the correct gap

After a bit of head scratching, I figured that the door skin MUST be a straight flat line. If it bows out, there is no way to fix it except to cut it up again and start over. To guarantee that the outer skins is straight, I dug out a piece of square-stock and clamped it so that it forces the outer skin into a straight, flat line. The bar closed the gap and straightened things, sorted!

The square stock ensures that the outer skin is straight
It also closed the gap

Some more pics of the other "blemishes."

A small rust through caused by water pooling under leaking seals
Not fixed yet

A rust through on the outer skin - not fixed yet
Door is upside down - this is the lower front corner

Blurry pic but you can see the cracks, a rust almost-through

Welded up - it will need some finishing
Boot Lid

The boot lid work is also on page Thirty-Four (November 14, 2022 post), but here it is again with a some new details.

The boot lid was riddled with cancer along the bottom edge and near the hinges. It has also suffered a few blows over the years, but it’s the one that came from this car and its fit is virtually guaranteed.

Rust throughs at the corners

More rust throughs

Rust through the outer skin and inner support

It rusted along the bottom edge like the doors, but without a window feeding water to it, it’s not as cancerous, more pronounced at the lower corners where it has a couple of rust throughs.

The Fix

First the tried-and-true heat gun/razor blade trick to scrape off old paint and plastic filler. Someone did some good work with the filler, but I’m not trusting old filler, and along with my bare metal policy, I want any filler to be as thin as possible, no filler poured over rusty metal. Filler will only fill imperfections of my imperfect welds.

Patch welded in place

Grounded welds, ready for finishing

On the inside lower lip, I added a few strips of sheet metal but mostly welded up the rust through using welding rods and MIG wire and grinding away the excess.

The holes in the outer skin, however, required fitting sheet metal to the holes. I cut the holes into rectangles to ease the fitting. Clean metal to clean metal made welding quick and easy without much heat soaking.