Well, having spent a couple of weeks sorting the shed out so I've got a civilised workspace, I started to tear into the 63 last night. Nothing major, just pulled off the left hand running board and front wing to have a look at the heater channel, door pillar and front quarter panel. Running board was utterly stuffed, front wing was good but some helpful previous owner had pulled out 3 of the captive nuts and replaced with nuts and bolts conforming to no known thread or head standard so out came the hacksaw .

Was disappointed but not surprised to discover that the bog that I'd noticed covered up holes in the quarter panel extending from about 1 O'clock round to 3 O'clock along the wing joint line. The rest of the panel's good though so I'll be sharpening up the sheetmetal skills and repairing, probably with a secondhand patch if I can find a better one. Fabrication may be awkward due to the curvatures involved and the need to get it exactly right to avoid pulling the wing out of shape. I suspect the right hand side is similar but possibly not quite as bad.

I also discovered that the panel below the windscreen washer and master cylinder reservoirs is holed but it's all single curvature so shouldn't be too bad to deal with once the tank's out.

On the positive side, all the running board screws came out as they should and the adjacent bodywork appears to be mint.

The door pillar requires further investigation but at this stage the corrosion doesn't appear to extend beyond the area covered by the available repair panels.

Other wings and running board come off tomorrow, followed by the fuel tank .

this is where it all starts...............and never ends
sounds like a pretty solid car all in all, keep us posted
:bounce

Pulled off the LH rear wing and the RH wings and running boards today. I was wrong, the front quarter is significantly worse and the rear quarter is holed just above the wing/runing board joint. Nothing insurmountable. Also noticed evidence of a minor front end bingle putting a couple of ripples in the nose of the RH front quarter panel and making the floor of the spare wheel well a bit of an odd shape. Again, nothing insurmountable but its going to be fun getting everything lined up again once I start cutting and beating. I forsee much headscratching and contemplation before applying the hacksaw .

Oh yeah, and a bent front beam :o.

bummer
she will be in a million parts in your garage in a week after you have decided to do a full resto !!
:bounce

Perserverence...It will all be worth it in the end.
It has to be...................................
or are we just mad?.
.
If the front beam bushes (either end ) are OK then might be worth considering straightening with Big Press

Doug and i have had great success with cutting parts from donor bodies

Volkswest will lets you wander their yard and search, they even have one hell of a anglegrinder (petrol powered) to chop bits out with

Thanks for the words of encouragement. Now that I've got a bit of a wishlist together (for the panels at least) VolksWest may well be seeing quite a bit of me.

I'm not in a desperate hurry to get this car on the road so the front beam can wait. I'll probably try to source a straight one, possibly from a disc equipped car if I can. I just hope the pan's not bent .