I've made a bit more headway coaxing that stubborn indentation out of the spare wheel cover. Progress is glacial, largely because it's virtually impossible to get behind the dent and give it a proper shove. Still, I'm inching forward—armed with a motley crew of paintless dent repair tools, bent metal rods, and a crowbar that’s seen better days. The panel is slowly, grudgingly returning to its original shape.

The real troublemaker is the bottom edge, where the outer skin wraps around the tyre cover frame. That section of metal has clearly decided it’s had enough of being pliable. Short of cutting it out entirely (which I’m not keen on), I suspect I’ll have to resort to a skim of lead to smooth things over.

They really did build cars differently back then—thicker metal, more resistance, and a general attitude of “good luck fixing this.” One new wrinkle in the saga: the panel now exhibits classic ‘petrol canning.’ That delightful phenomenon where you press the metal, it caves in, then pops back out like a mischievous spring. After a deep dive into YouTube tutorials, I’ve learned this means the panel is under stress and needs a bit of thermal persuasion.

Cue the oxygen-acetylene torch. Yes, I finally worked up the nerve to try it, despite having no real idea what I’m doing. Tonight was the night.

The method? Heat a small area where the metal’s stretched (without accidentally turning it into a molten puddle), then quickly cool it with a cloth soaked in cold water. The panel has stopped popping, which is promising, but it’s still not quite firm. I suspect a few strategic whacks with a dolly on the backside might help.

On the bright side, I’m picking up new skills at every turn. On the not-so-bright side, I do wish someone who actually knows what they’re doing could show me the ropes.

I have shifted my attention to repairing the panel that covers the spare wheel which also hosts the rear lights and the number plate (inside what is called a light box). The light box surround is that black piece of trim which I am also in the process of repairing.

This panel has at some point also been impacted and ‘pushed in’ on the right hand side (a co-incidence?). You can see in the picture below that the light unit does not fit flush with the panel so I have been trying to pull the dent out over the last couple of weeks. The pen marks show the extent of the damage but you can see it has been pushed inwards (by 11mm)

Progress is slow, but all progress is good

One challenge that is taking a while is removing the door handle and the window frame. The door handle mechanism unbolted very easily but refused to exit the door. Much head-scratching ensued before having to give in and ask an ‘idiot question’ on the SS part of Jag-Lovers Forum who kindly advised that the door handle is fixed to the external chrome trim strip that runs the width of the door.

'Be careful' they advised, 'the trim strip is made of brass and the fixings are made of steel with no corrosion protection so undoing the nuts from the studs is likely to be tricky'. Well, that was an understatement, all the studs had rusted into blobs of metal and needed to be cut off. The problem is these fixings are inside the door within narrow box panels. There is very little room to wield tools let alone a cutting tool. Many hours later and using a Dremel with a small worn-down cutting disc - I had removed the 6 studs and the trim (with the door handle) came loose. I am pleased to advise that the trim strip was undamaged by this process and the handle is simple to remove.

Clearly I need to remake all the fixing studs but that is fairly simple to do on the lathe. Not shown in the picture below is filing a couple of flats to the round screw end so that it can slide within the channel but not rotate.