This really explains all the water ingress quite well. The other side was pretty much the same story. I gave up creating snow with a wire drill and went in with a chisel. It was far more effective and came away leaving metal with only slight surface rust. So that left me with two options.
1) Spend a small fortune on panels, sell myself to Russ and loose Hetty for the Spring/Summer whilst epic cutting/grinding/welding/painting is undertaken... having just done that with the D*lly (and I still need tp put it back together) I was disinclined.
2) 'make good'

I went with two.

I don't really believe in filler. I'd rather see painted up and protected dodgy welding, than hide it in layers of filler so you can't see what's going on. So that's exactly what I did.







And she looks fine. In the future she's going to need a lot of new panels and a lot of work. But right now, she'll soldier on. My decision was also weighed by the fact Hetty is only really used for weekends and holidays as I live in London and don't have a car here. I'm pretty chuffed and the leeks have stopped, although the next task really IS to sort the windscreen/vent flap out as the water has caused some damage to the floors.

When the floors were welded in, the transit primer wasn't removed so it's all flaking off, with a lot of surface rust, but nothing major underneath. I therefore removed the old under seal and painted the underside of the floors before giving the whole of the underside a good waxoyling.




Removable wings are FTW by the way. There were so many potential trouble spots that I've got on top of and prevented future rust issues. I would never EVER recommend anyone welds rear wings onto a van, the ease of maintenance once they're off is fabulous.

So she continues on, all is good and I can't wait for some more adventures in her later this year. I like knowing my cars are well protected and sealed up. I can then do this without feeling bad

no not filler!!!

No, none I removed it all and used seam sealer to watertight her...

When did you get those smart wheels Sam? Can't say I noticed before..

Got them at the French national, fitted them for reg day.

Last year.. How embarrassing..

Thought i read you used filler?

Nice work, sam!

I've got a ton of water coming into my van at the exact same area, and i know for a fact that there's a ton of filler in there. Some day I'll work up the balls to take off the filler and see the damage Just a pain in the ass not having power and shelter to work in the same places, so just need to wait for nice days :p

If you have removable rear wings you should blatantly make a spare parts shelf in there.

Jesus wept. I knew the body had never been put together very well, but that's just criminally bad. Poor Hetty.