Begin Agin

Could I have done this earlier?

Lets start with the excuses.
10 years ago I jumped in to a major restoration on my S-Type Jaguar, but realised I didn't have the money to finish when I had stripped the body and found all its faults.
I managed to do the engine, gearbox, interior and a nice paint job, but realised the body work required to do the job properly was beyond my budget (and the cars value?) at the time.
In fairness, the body has had serious accident damage at some distant time in the past and has been repaired only just well enough to make it this far. Which is 50 years after it was built, so is any complaint fair?
What had I found?
Well it all started from the roof.  That started to bubble, and my curiosity got the better of me and I scratched through an found 'a bit of rust'.  I thought, its not too hard to respray a roof, so I went looking for a quote.  To my amazement (and disappointment), most spray shops did not want to touch it, and those that did either quoted $10,000 or would not quote, saying "we'll see..."
Not having $10k, or the bravery to start an unquotable job, I decided to learn to paint myself, and set off to night trade school.  6 months later I was skilled up and had the roof fully stripped to reveal the sorry story.  The whole roof was rusty, having had its original primer stripped off at some stage in a major repair, and then had polyester spray filler applied direct on the metal... Naturally 30 years later moisture had got in and festered across the whole roof.  Happy days.  Many days of wire brushing, phosphate converting, brushing again, filing, grinding and swearing then ensued before I was able to get the paint system started.  Fortunately I had made a friend at Sikkens Automotive Paints by this stage and was getting good guidance on how to progress.  At this stage I bravely decided to paint the whole car.
Stripping the roof had been easy, the rust allowed the filler and top coats to come off in sheets, so I was poorly prepared for the difficult of stripping the body.  Doors off, interior out, I tried all the usual methods (except stripper gel which I hate) until I found that a heat gun and wood chisel was the best way to progress.  Then I started to find the old accident damage. Bog, file marks, panels that didn't fit, bronzed repairs to pillars, and then the rust.  Of course, all the usual places had rust. the four dog legs, a couple of door corners, not forgetting the roof.  Clearly repairs were needed, but again I could not find anyone to quote within my budget, and now I had a completely stripped out (but drivable)car. All I could afford to do was get a willing panel shop to put fibreglass and filler in and hope for the best.  The job flowed OK from there and 10 years of use and enjoyment passed...

So here we are in 2015.  Doing a job I could have done in 2003, if I'd had the money.  And has the rust progressed at all?  You bet it has !