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PAGE 34
Saturday 9/18/04 - Sunday 9/19/04
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9.0 hours |
My goal this weekend is to finish the metal work on the passenger side.
I have basically two jobs to perform: 1. finish the repair to the lower b pillar, 2. weld the outer rocker in place.
Sounds like a cakewalk!
Here is where we left off last week. This is the lower B pillar on the passenger side where it transitions into the to of the rocker panel.
The photos above show where I used my cutoff wheel to cut through both the new and old metal at the same time to achieve a nice gap for welding.
After I was reasonably pleased with the fit I cleaned the metal and sprayed my 3M weld through coating on all areas that would be overlapped and inaccessible .
There are a lot of curves and bends here and it took some time to get it to fit true and straight.
Arrows 1 and 2 show where my gaps got a little wide. They'll work ok though.
Arrow 3 points out where I drilled three holes to plug weld the part to the rocker panel.
Once again the tedious task of tacking the part in at several spots and going back and filling in the gaps between slowly until it is one continuous weld was used.
After CAREFULLY dressing the welds with my die grinder the seam simply disappears.
This photo does not do it justice, in person the seam is invisible. The door jamb appears as one piece of metal as the original.
Next was permanently fastening the outer rocker to the floor pan.
The photo on the left shows where I drilled several holes several inches apart to plug weld the rocker flange to the floor pan flange.
I forgot to drill these holes prior to placing the rocker in place. (old fogy syndrome)
It was a little fun drilling them on the car.
If you look closely below the red line you'll see the plug welds.
Once these are ground down they will approximate the look of the factory spot welds.
This is the BEFORE picture of the same area from last summer.
What in the world made me think I could repair this!
This picture turned out very poorly.
If you look really close you can make out several high tech gadgets I used to verify the trueness and continuity of the angle of the outer rocker panel to the rear quarter.
Red string and a welders magnet vice gripped to a metal square! I love high tech stuff!
Mostly I used the eyeballs to verify it was correct and tack welded the lower portion to the inner rocker laying on my back. I'll finish these welds when the body is off the frame.
I can officially say with a few small exceptions the metal work on the passenger side is DONE!
Time for a beer.
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