Today we’ll start with a blatant attempt at the sympathy vote. I rearranged the garage slightly, to make my workflow better. Unfortunately, while moving one of my tool boxes (I have two of these towers) – the trolley / drawer sort with three separate sections on top of each other, the top two sections decided they had vertigo and made a dash for the floor. My quick job turned in to a longer job, as firstly I had to straighten various drawers, then collect spanners from all over the place, and of course the myriad little electrical pieces, etc that made a break for freedom.
While collecting the various tools, I then decided to rearrange what was stored where, and took the opportunity to shuffle tools between the two towers.
First issue was that when picking up various pliers, etc, I grabbed the working end of the medieval torture tool that is nowadays used for fitting RJ45 plugs to the end of Cat 6 cable. This tool has a pair of extremely sharp blades just before the end, so this bigger tool ended up with a loss of blood
. The cut was quite deep, so I reached for my first aid kit (more commonly called masking tape), but there are still some nice red smudges around at the moment. The cut is on the very top of my middle left finger, which makes typing somewhat awkward. Cue sympathy. I can wait. Of well, never mind.
Naturally, as tools are in different drawers, and the two towers are in different places in the garage to before, when I next tried to do something, I couldn’t find anything
Anyway, getting onto more serious matter, I’ve managed a couple of sneaky visits to the garage recently, while SWMBO was distracted
.
First up was cutting out a major part of the inside sill to remove the heater silencer (otherwise it would be destroyed by the planned heat treatment / paint removal). Having learned a lesson or two about the size of hole to cut out on the near side, I set to with the cutting disc. Having poorly cut my hole, the next challenge to is to actually remove the section cut out. The silencer is attached by clips to the inside sill, so the section cut out doesn’t want to leave the silencer, and until the silencer is out it is hard to release the clips. The silencer is attached to the heater tubes at both ends, and doesn’t want to leave its hole. Here, until the section is removed, you can’t get access to slide the ends of the silencer off the heater tubes. All a bit of a catch 22, so the only option (that I saw), was to pull like a beast until it popped out at one end, then slide the other end off and out. Anyway, after much huffing, puffing and a few stern words to the whole shenanigans, it was finally free and away.
Another benefit of having the inside opened up and the heater silencer removed, is that I could check the state of the inner sill. The outer sill (apart from the rearmost 6 inches) looked sound, so I was hopeful. The good news is that the inner sill is sound (breathes sigh of relief)
It doesn’t really show up in the photo, but there is a patch of rusty bent metal right at the front and to the inside of the heater tube. A patch has previously been applied on the outside (under the floor) in the same dubious quality way of other repairs – just welded over the top of the rust. I’ll see what I can do later. Hopefully I can get a grinder in there and just grind away the rusty bit back to the welded patch. If not, then I’ll cut out the patch from underneath, remove the rust and butt weld a new patch in.
Back then to the targa support panel. This was prepped, clamped in place
… welded. I may be going a little over the top here, as the original appears to have had just a few spot welds, but mine is not going to fall off in a hurry, that’s for sure.
… and finally ground and primed
Next visit and it’s time for the sill. First off I worked out where the sill should lie, using the three holes along the top and checking for the appropriate alignment at the front end.
Next a few registration marks
…. Work out where to cut and put the brave pants on again
I think that I mentioned this before, but the eagle eyed will notice that although the existing sill is just cut square at the moment, the replacement sill has been cut at an angle. My logic here is that it gives me a longer, and therefore hopefully stronger, welded join. Once everything is aligned, I will mark and cut off more from the existing sill.
So then came ‘chucking it all (sill, kidney and B-post) on’.
It’s all looking good so far, but I need to fit the wing piece back to be sure, so (what’s left of) the original B-post needs to come off. I hacked off the majority of it and wire brushed off the copious underseal to present the spot welds.
There’s less repair needed to the base of this wing than the other side, but I knew that the torsion bar hole would need replacing, so I’m glad I made two of the patches when working on the near side.
So, all in all, a happy time to leave the garage. Still a fair bit to do, but I can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel for this rear quarter.
. Maybe I should save all the mini-posts up for the occasional mega-post. Anyway, that would mean thinking, so onto the final part of the NS sills, etc – making the torsion bar hole.
), was to joggle a piece of flat sheet steel – I joggled the circular hole and didn’t pre-shape it. I did a second one , knowing that although the OS ‘hole’ is in place, it is quite rusty, so much / all of it will need replacing. I now have my patch made and waiting.
. [url=https://flic.kr/p/26XhVUE]
. The kidney bowl has almost disappeared this side too, but first impressions of the metal behind are positive.
