Almost all the slot holes in my rear wings (fenders) are double punched, like somebody at the factory had them positioned in the punch press wrong and had to repunch them.
A couple of places the second punch cut through the edge, so they are notches rather that double oval holes.
My bag of rear wing fasteners has all the normal BD542/2 oval washers and C725 internal star washers.
Then there are four very large 2" diameter flat washers that are not in the parts catalogue. Two are bent to fit against a curve in the inner body panel.
My '36 2.5 had evidence in similar places of factory stuff-ups. I replaced the mating surfaces on the guards, and wired the inner edges, which made them much easier to handle, paint, and install later.
Chris L-S
Bootlid hinge mounting holes in sides of boot, these holes were cut bigger with a gas torch, obviously the punched hole spacing didn’t match the hinges, both sides have the same error.
Fuel tank door hinge. This hinge is spot welded to the body so they must have done this when they tried to put the door on and it didn’t fit.
Door latch attachment holes, all 8 are hogged out with a hand held drill.
Center pillar outer trim plate, apparently it was supposed to have a screw at the bottom, but the bend at the bottom was wrong, made it too short by about 1/8", so they cut off the bend and welded it on. I can see the remains of a hole where it was cut off.
What’s surprising is that mine is the 5468th Mark V saloon body built.
You would think that after building so many they wouldn’t be making mistakes like those and having to do so much rework.
But it reminds me of the time when I was at International Harvester and the union went out on strike. They took all us engineers out to the shop and had us building tractors. First thing we did was clear out the rework area, fixing all the union workers’ mistakes. Then we started up the assembly line, and built a few dozen before the strike ended. We weren’t fast, but those tractors had zero defects.
On my DHC, finished July 14th 1950, only the rear wing holes close to the running boards (the ones to the front of the car) have those double punches. The rest of the holes are ok, except one which I thought had been cut by a PO or PO mechanic, but it may be factory…
The punches are clearly factory work, no bodyworker used much else than bondo on the car later…
G’day there.
Looking at your pictures, they are almost identical to my Mk V.
Especially the petrol filler hinge and boot lid hinge mounts.
My chassis number is 625787.
I also had a few enlarged holes in the guards, but I cannot recall exactly where - but it wasn’t many and the oval washer was all that was on them when I dismantled it.
Also, regarding the centre pillar lower mount for the body work strip between the doors, after the door pillar lowers were rebuilt, it was discovered that the bottom of the centre pillar was too long.
So I went looking for the easiest solution.
I sourced a 2nd had pair of the body strips and I cut the bent piece off the bottom of them and had them painted.
Using a rubber plug about 15mm round and 15mm long, I then fitted them to the car with the rubber jammed betweeen the strip and the pillar about 2 inches from the bottom. So far (12 months) they have not shown any signs of moving.
