One of the oddities of this car is it was designed as a convertible and then the hardtop added later with changing as few parts as possible. This creates a few strange design and manufacturing choices. Where the side/quarter window part of the B-pillar has been added is one of them.
Where the side/quarter window post is welded onto the car body it has no passage into the lower part of the B-pillar. The red line in the attached picture. If one drills the rivets out to remove the quarter window frame the ends inside just fall down and are trapped and can't get out. Not a huge deal but what about moisture or dirt? And how did any primer of paint ever get in there? Also found that the forward edge of that horizontal metal is not even welded to the lock plate ("A" in the attached picture). Touches it but isn't joined. I could grab the edge and bend it back exposing the cavity in the upper B-pillar and let the rivet bits out.
Another part is shown as "B" in the attached picture. Best I can tell it looks like the spitfire part interfered with the GT6 adaption so the factory just bashed it out of the way leaving the flange hanging in space inside the rear quarter. (I have parts cars from other years and they are the same)
On the RH side of the car there was a rust through this part of the "B" pillar. Not sure if this mad design is the cause but it sure didn't help. Wanting to blast the rust out I cut away both pieces of metal that were just hanging in space and not welded to anything. Then media blasted it. Not sure how much I could get up into the side/quarter window post but it at least got the area's below it cleaned. From there I decided to cut the middle B-post down lower and fabricate a web similar to what was there but lower. But I made it extend all the way to the lock plate (which I welded) and have a opening directly below the side/quarter post channel to let out whatever might get in there. This seemed to stiffen it up and still gave plenty of air space to keep things from getting damp. And probably enough room for me to get some paint on it from the inside.
Oh one more change. Since I will not be brazing the fender on I choose to weld the side/quarter window post solid at the bottom. And also instead of using the vertical flanges turned to the inside of the car, I cut those off and added a horizontal tab. This way the fender joint there will be backed by some metal and I can hopefully weld a nice joint there without burning through. Will see how that turns out.
Well a lot of information that is uninteresting to most people. But I'll post incase there is someone in the future interested in such things.
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