I have had a productive day off, even with a lazy start to my day. Didn't start fantastically well when I managed to nick a plastic LHM pipe, I assume this is low pressure so I can probably put a splice or joiner in it with no ill effect. My own fault this one, I thought I'd moved everything out of the way and hadn't. I put some blue tape on it to remind me that it needs sorting as this is the sort of thing I'm likely to forget about otherwise and be a nuisance to find when the car is running.
I nicked the pipe when cutting out the inner-inner wing. Although the rust was much worse on the other side, a much larger patch was required to this area on this side. The welding went really nicely too, some of the best I've ever done, and I wasn't overlap welding this since the steel is a good bit thicker than that used on the outer panels.
With that in and doused in relevant potions, I could get the outer panel on. Originally I was going to keep the original arch curve and put a patch in the middle until I cleaned up the piece I chopped off and decided it was too much work to repair. So a big patch again it was to be. The marker pen spots are for where to drill the spotweld holes, a job I didn't get around to doing today.
After welding in the big patch I moved on to the next most difficult area to repair while the big patch cooled down. The strengthening leg that runs from the A pillar and across the inner wing had holed in the bottom edge, and had quite a few pinholes. I cleaned it back, poked out where the metal was thin, and worked out how much I needed to chop out. It ended up needing a much larger repair than I'd anticipated.
It was also a slightly peculiar shape so I employed my tried-and-tested masking tape solution to making awkward repair panels. You start by putting a border of tape around the edge of the piece, and then filling in the gap in one direction with tape. Once it's filled, run a few strips of tape in the opposing direction to tie it all together. Make a note, mental or otherwise, of which piece of tape you laid first as this will help you remove the template afterwards.
Using an old fashioned pencil, use the edge of the graphite to rub along the edges of the cut hole. A softer pencil like a 2B is better for this rather than the HB I had to hand, it's also less inclined to poke through the masking tape.
Once you've marked all the edges, simply peel the template away starting at your first piece of tape. Don't try and flatten the template out straight away and try not to handle it too much. Offer the template up to your piece of metal, if it lays flat then you can simply stick it down (providing you haven't handled it too much) and use it as a cutting template. If the template doesn't lay flat you can simply cut into it wherever it curves to help it to do so, which is particularly useful for even more complicated panels. If the tape won't stick, simply use a little more around the edges or double a piece of tape back on itself and stick that to the back of your template. Once you've done all this (it's much quicker in practice than this makes it out to be), simply cut out your metal as usual and then peel the template off.
It saves so much time! Now you can fine tune the edges and add any folds required and get a much nicer finish to the job. It certainly made my life easier. For the lower bend on this panel I used a socket extension clamped in the vice with the repair panel to get a softer radiused curve while the upper bend was just done in the vice with a hammer and no former, the old fashioned way. This meant the panel matched the shapes of the original panel much better and made welding it in much easier too.
That's the last really big bit of welding done on the car (I hope). The only nuisance was when I was starting to clean up my ugly welds I noticed a couple of pinholes and went to just blob them up. Instantly blew big holes. So I'll have to let another small piece in to repair that. Underneath the strengthener where it meets the A pillar is another selection of ugly welds as I couldn't get any of the tools available into the very tight space. I'll do my best to clean it up with the tools I do have and the sealant and paint and underseal will hide the cosmetic sins afterwards.
I didn't have time to do more, unfortunately, so it was just a case of assessing what's left on this side to do and it's really not a great deal. The aforementioned bit of thin metal to cut out and replace, a small piece below the strengthener, and a larger piece that I'll either do as three small patches, or one large piece, depending on how it looks once cleaned up.
I did notice there's no drain hole under the driver's side washer bottle so I'll have to add a hole once I've finished filling up all the other holes that shouldn't be there.
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