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.
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