Back At It. RH Rocker panel and new Wheels

This Saturday I was feeling well enough to try working in the garage. Welded up the cut I made in the rocker panel and welded the fender lower B pillar patch. But before that I made a trip to a salvage yard and picked up some rims. I think they look nice.

Still need to do some sanding on the fender patch but I think I have all the holes welded. The rocker welding and sanding back turned out really nice. I need to use a block sander on the inboard flat edge just to get it perfect. Then that seem will be invisible. Well other than it is nice and straight. Not sure how it was from the factory but the replacement parts seem to have not correctly adjusted the dies for the spring back.

There is still a bit of a miss match at the front lower edge of the door. I haven't decided what adjustment to make there. Many will say shim the door out. But the door inner edge to the sill where the weather seal will be needs to stay at a fixed distance. For a convertible may not be a big concern but I am trying to make it so the door will seal correctly. So that leaves bend the door skin out or cut slits in the rocker and adjust it. Will look into it more later.

RH B-pillar Fender Patch Fitting

Sadly not much happened on the GT6 this week. I had done a little on earlier in the week but then Thursday I took a vacation day and was planning to pickup some parts for the the later customizing of it. But I hurt my back before the day got going (partly from too many years setting at a desk) and that ended that. Waiting for that to get better before I can work on things again. But before all that I started getting the B-pillar patch ready to weld to the fender.

In the pictures you can see I've done a bit of hammering and reshaping of the patch to fit the door and the contour of the car better. Also did a bit of this on the fender as well. I think the door gap is starting to look pretty good about right. Also cut the top of the fender patch and the fender on the seem. Seemed like a good idea (punny). The fit there is about ready to weld. The edge on the wheel arch isn't perfectly flush and needs a bit more work to fit nicely.

Straighten RH Rocker

 This week I took the paint off the RH fender. Looks like it has been repainted at one time. Had really thick primer and some lead on a shallow dent (very surprised it was lead not bondo. Maybe it was done looong ago). Removed the paint and lead so I could do a little "dent flipping" on the dings before doing much fitting.

Saturday spend the day fitting the RH Fender patch for the lower part on the B pillar and rocker. I found The lower door edge is straight (at least on my car) but the rocker was a bit bowed out in the middle, outboard vs inboard. And at the rear part it was inboard about an 1/8" too much. I've seen some other car pictures and that rear corner of the door to rocker gap looked similar. So not sure what all is going on there. But I decided I couldn't leave it be. I had to try and improve on it (deviating from original again?). I had planned to fix just the back edge but one thing leads to another and I had cut a slit through 75% of the rocker and adjusted the fit. Turned out great I think. Very hard to show in pictures. But I can hold a straight edge up to the outside edge and it follows along nicely. Didn't get a picture with the B-pillar patch in but maybe I'll add that later.

More Fender Patches

I'm really not building a car but a patch work quilt out of metal in the shape of a car. Or so it feels :-). This week I welded in the patch below the tail light on the RH fender. And patched the lower rear part of the LH fender. And a bit more work on the upper valence. And work on tail light mounting.

The patch on the LH fender was interesting. The original fender was still intact but had rusted thin with some small holes at the bottom and the flanges. And the bumper bolt location was wrong for the MKII (fender was from an MKI). There wasn't much guessing to the shape of the original fender. But try as I might I couldn't seem to get the patch to exactly match the car without some adjusting. And even then it still isn't 100% flat along the joint. I'll try to do some more adjusting but it may be a bit of filler has to go there to make it smooth.

The upper valence patch work I did this week turned out better than expected. The flange where the upper and lower valence weld together had rusted near the LH tail light. Maybe 3" of it was gone. But the outer surface was still perfect. Well almost perfect. I hated to cut it as it looked so nice. So I welded in only a new flange. I started by welding a fillet weld from the inside. Then finishing by welding from the lower outside. Then sanding the outside welds flat and smooth. Turned out pretty well. Except I need to do a little more sanding to get it a bit straighter. But over all it is a success and was much quicker than making or buying a patch.

One fairly simple but fun thing to have done. One of the bolts broke when removing the tail light on the fender. I tried drilling out and extracting it but it wasn't working. So I cut out the nut and welded in a new one. Using the tail light to ensure it was all aligning. On the RH side I had made a new plate but hadn't added the nuts. So did the same for it. Was funny to test fit the lights. Will be a while before they are needed but one less thing on my mind.