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PAGE 28

 Saturday 7/17/04 through Sunday 7/25/04

I really know how to screw things up.  I'm learning to do everything twice.

After welding in the inner rockers to the cowl and floor supports this is what I ended up with when I closed the door.

Pardon my language but DARN!

After further inspection I came to the conclusion the lower part of the front cowl had shifted forward when I removed the inner rocker panel. 

The evidence for this conclusion was the A pillar support that connects the cowl to the floor, front floor support and inner rocker had rotated counter clockwise as shown above.

Time to start cutting my welds again.

I  cut my plug welds and .....

I used my tie straps to pull the cowl back into it's proper position. This helped a little but not nearly enough.

What is going on?  The doors were adjusted perfectly before! AAAAARRRHHH!!!

Then I started thinking of the of how high the scrap metal prices had gone.....hmmm, no I can't let them melt the Belle down.

I began running through my mind what could have changed or what I may have done to change the alignment of the doors to rear quarter.

Here's where my lack of intelligence really shows itself.

The only other change I made was moving the jack stands that were supporting the rear of the car....

Originally I had the stands at the rear of the frame as shown here from an earlier picture.

I had temporarily installed the rear dif and springs.....

and moved the stands to under the dif.

This is what happened, the frame flexed upwardly in the rear when supported at the rear, when I moved the support to the rear differential where it will be when it's on it's wheel the frame flexes a little differently.  This caused the door gaps and body orientation to change.

I'm so stupid!  I will once again need to cut some very solid welds and re-orientate the rear quarter area to achieve a perfect door gap and alignment.

I am sooo frustrated and angry with myself for such a foolish mistake.

The only positive part of the weekend was cleaning the shop.  There was sand blasting sand everywhere and the old parts, tools and assorted un-needed stuff was piling up adding to my frustration.

I spent several hours cleaning from stem to stern.

I used an empty space above the bathroom to store all the old metal I'm not quite ready to get rid of yet.

After I cool down a bit I'll be back and get the old girls figure back in shape.

See ya next time.

 Saturday 7/31/04

I finally found some time to devote to the old girls resurrection this weekend.

I Getting the door back in alignment was less of a chore then I originally thought.

I pulled, pushed, jacked, loosened. tightened, raised, lowered, tweaked up. tweaked down and jumped on to get the door back into proper alignment with the remains of the rear quarter.

I then re-welded the A pillar brace as pointed out by the red arrow.

I The outer rocker was then temporarily installed using self tapping screws and vice grips.

I was really impressed at how well it lined up.  The gaps all around look great.

The next big hurdle is the passenger rear quarter.  See page 29 (just click NEXT below) for the start of that!

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