Similar to the other side.
Grotty:
Pullmax wizardry etc, and a fair amount of fettling (it's a tricky shape):
Not Grotty:
The seatbelt mount area on this side had some nasty pitting / small holes:
So the mount came out for blasting and priming, and Barry hammer-formed the replacement section of panel:
You may be thinking - but where does the mount go?
If you put it back in the wrong place, the interior trim will need to be hacked about.
Luckily Barry has thought of this. Did you notice the two small holes in the remaining section of good metal? Here's what they are for:
Making a start on the RH side now, beginning with the sill.
These photos show another example of the previous restoration work - a weld approx every 100mm. Barry tells me one every 20mm is about right. They had also left the freshly-opened seam as bare metal. At least it came off easily!
Barry fabricated a new sill flange to replace the battered old one. Same as the other side.
With the A-post base out of the way, the true condition of the inner wing was revealed. Also, some welded holes could be seen a bit further forward, so we elected to replace the whole area.
As Barry says: You can buy this panel, but I have the tooling here, so can make it out of full 18swg, which gives plenty of meat. Frankly most of the time is tweaking the fit to suit a particular car, and this would be the case with either my panel or a bought-in one. This way, I can tweak it as I make it.
End fit has ended up fine, and you can see what those MIG welded pin holes look like from inside. Definitely better off in the bin.
