Almost everything aligned this weekend for some good time in the shop -
I had some time off work due to taking some elective machining courses at the community college this week, so I had some extra garage time. With the major rust repair handled, it’s getting time to put all of these panels together so the left side can be handled as a single unit.
Threw together a quick stand to hold the upper panel while the adjacent panels were clamped and fitted.
This served as a reference for the adjustments that needed before plug welding the pieces together. It was taken apart multiple times and adjusted.
Enough eventually gets to be enough and you have to start.
The factory spot weld holes were used as much as possible throughout as it was put back together.
If you’ll recall - I earlier mentioned that the flanges were coated on the insides with SPI epoxy primer. Before the welding is done on these spots, I use a modified drill bit to clean the primer off the inside of the plug weld. The outside top is cleaned as well. I learned this trick from another forum member - works great.
I got about 90% of the plug welds done before I ran out of gas - and it’s Sunday. Bummer.
Not to be defeated - I took some time to build a matching stand for the opposite side and do some test fitment to see if I screwed the pooch on this whole thing.
Crazy enough I think it may work.
Enough heavy lifting for the day, I had gotten tired of cleaning the flash rust off these wheel wells for quite a while - took advantage of the weather and sprayed a couple coats of epoxy on them - they’ll receive more attention down the line, but some epoxy is good for before they get plug welded to the new floor.
