I've managed to sneak two whole days on this puppy this weekend, and managed to get a fair bit done (for me, anyhow). Firstly, the front suspension has been wire brushed and coated with black hammerite - while this may not give the optimum show standard coaing, the idea of pulling it all off, getting it bead blasted, and coated just sounds like huge amounts of work and trouble, not to mention expense!
Also, the passenger door is now good enough to be flatted and painted - where the trim had been was pretty untidy, so that has all been filled and smoothed, and there were a couple of dents and rust spots that needed tidying.
And the pics below show the passenger sill. Wirebrushing the paintwork found the whole in the first pic - an 8" gash in the sill... So after bending back the edges and hoiking out the crappy guts of the sill, getting back to clean metal as far as possible, flooding it with rust converter, followed by waxoil, I was able to start making good... I'm pretty chuffed with the result - as each part of the body is done, I'm feeling more and more pleased with the work I'm doing on it.
The final part was starting to look at the drivers door. This isn't quite such a good story... After finally getting the window down (stupid electric motor and it's stupid hidden mounting bolts), and drilling out the stupid wing mirror bolt, I removed the window trim at the bottom... Not sooooo good. A fair bit of rot means it's a bit touch and go on the door. Rather than giving up straight away, I think we'll have a go at removing and rebuilding what we can, but I've not got high hopes for it...