Hi all, so last weekend got the car back, here's some random pics:
I think they technically missed a spot on the B-Pillar, where there's a bit of primer that wasn't covered with white, but it's nice and lacquered, so not going to worry. The rest is not too bad, and the use of the stone chip for the sill underside hopefully helps.
The benefit of having relatives in this industry is that from their overall quote of £2800, I was asked for less, and paid £1200 for the job.
Given the amount of effort, I'm very happy with the result. Most of the rust they encountered and ground down appears to have been surface rust somehow rather than my fear of coming from the inside out.
I'll give the car 3-4 years before I go further with it, and hopefully by then there'll be more power and whatnot assuming all's well. Assuming none of this comes back again...
Only niggles were that the doors were off which triggered the airbag light, but nothing the VCDS couldn't clear (missing sensors, which makes sense as the doors were missing).
The other niggle was that the car was left standing for long periods of time, which took its final toll on the battery. Despite leaving it overnight on a trickle charger, a trip to the petrol station to fill up left me stranded and standing like a lemon when my backup jump starter couldn't give it enough juice to tick over. I was at the mercy of a kind white van man who drove over and lobbed over his jump leads. Was super lucky he was around and it was early enough in the morning to have not caused a massive queue at the forecourt.
That poor original Moll battery was ditched, and amusingly, lying around in the garage was a 096 battery.
Specifically a Yuasa YBX5096, so technically not compatible with this car due to not really being suited to start-stop.
However, that's been on the trickle charger for years, and it starts up the car without issue, so will suffice whilst I recover from the bodyshop bill and swap it with a proper one. Wife doesn't like the start-stop so disabling it is usually the first thing she does, so the battery will tide me over for a while.
Would make sense that a YBX9096 is the target.
I think that's that for a while though. Maybe I'll take pics of a battery change if really required, but other than planning for the future and maybe some tiny bits, the car's ready to be used!
Maintenance: £3540.22 (+£1200.00)
Upgrades: £1595.25
Miscellaneous: £820.07