01.03.04

Started to rebuild and weld.

Fitted rear inner stiffener to rear quarter, I found that the edge of the rear quarter which is meant to bend over the stiffener is best flattened before welding, then hammered back once welded NOTE, I have welded the hood frame bracket to the other side of the rear quarter before I've welded the stiffener.

Next the side up and over bracket. I welded the up and over bracket to the rear quarter and then bent the edge over again and welded again, I also added a few welds  to the inside with a MiG welder just to add a bit of strength.

Dimensions for rear reflector holes.

From the right of the photo (by the hook) to center line of hole is 15mm. Hole center to center is 35mm, from bottom to center line is 42mm, holes are 10mm

Looks messy but the weld marks to the left are where the spot welder arm touched the rear quarter, the middle weld marks are the MiG welds to the inside. all will clean up and look worse than they are as its just the paint burnt.

OK so I have welded up the rear quarter and now offered it up, managed to get the ribs to line up and the door clearance. BUT!!!!!

Hard to see from the above 3 shots but the original inner wheel arch is sitting about 10mm higher that the new edge which is meant to butt up to it.

02/03/04

Ok so I've managed to start the other rear quarter today.

Again i have fitted the hood bracket first then the inner stiffener.

Then the side up and over bracket

I decided to MiG the inside of the up and over bracket first this time, then I spot welded the outer lips, then bent the other lip over and spot welded that!

Managed to get the bottom corner much better on this side

This shows where I've MiG welded inside the rear quarter to the side up and over bracket

Got some cleaning up to do but i am pleased with the straight effect of the joint.

Note the original bottom part of the stiffener, I've got to remove this tomorrow but I need to make sure i do not remove too much of it because on the other side that I did yesterday the new stiffener is short by about 25mm!!

03/03/04

So now after cleaning up all that needed to be cleaned up I've now started to weld the rear quarter on the one side to the body, this took ages to try to line up, Things to look for.

Make sure the ribs on the rear quarter line through with the door, make sure that the wheel arch is close so that you can weld and then cut back excess, check the rear bottom where the quarter meets the lower most part of the body by the engine, there the quarter as a rim that turns back over the lip,  a bit like the quarters do to the side bracket up and overs. also in the hook area make sure you have slackened the rear cross brace off but leave it in place to help with width, i found that part of the up and over side bracket was catching in this area stopping me getting the rear end down enough. check that the engine side wall is located correctly. Drop your tool box lid on so that you can get a correct width spacing, not that important at this stage but it wont hurt. so much to line up!!!

While removing the old cill i found a small set of tin snips!!! original WH i doubt it but we all dream.

For those of you that have spent many sleepless nights wondering whats behind you bottom cill now you know!

This shows the gap between new inner stiffeners and original inside part of door area to wheel arch

This shows the difference between the repro rear quarter and the original wheel arch, if I had taken the quarter up then the ribs on the side would not have lined through.

As with the other side this side is not lining up to the wheel arch very good, so what I aim to do is to weld the underside of the new rear quarter to where it touches the old wheel arch, then cut off the excess, smooth and fill with filler (if needed)

As they say often in Cricket "Rain stopped play" what a bummer!!!! 

13/03/04

Managed to do a bit more on the one side.

Managed to get the wheel arch welded to the new rear quarter on the underneath and then disc cut the excess old wheel arch off, got a nice even finish once id cut the old arch I then welded again on the inside of the Kˆ¢bel and again disc cut the weld back. I was very pleased with the result