And what a summer it's ended up being! For international readers, record temp's here (50+ degrees C in Melbourne suburbs and hundreds killed in recent bushfire's - absolutely tragic).
But back to the car. As expected, getting the final panel fit right for the new guards has been the biggest pain. But overall it wasn't too much trauma when compared to prior phases in this rebuild.
But in a similar scenario to the doors, when I went to get my patch panels to fix the rusty lower rear sections of the front guards, it turned out much easier to just get new guards. The quality of the new guards is excellent so this has again saved me many weeks (elapsed time, not hands-on time) of work fiddling around trying to match panel contours and beating out ripples caused when patches are welded in place. Whoever previously owned this car had again cut corners in the past by simply riveting on patch panels directly on top of the original panel. As you'd expect, this created a "metal sandwich" that held moisture which rusted both the new patch and the area of the original panel that it covered - not to mention the huge amount of filler used. Check out the old decals I found under a patch panel......
Surprisingly, the cost of the whole new guard was not hugely greater than the patch, and a whole new panel gives me a running start at fine-tuning proper fitment. For my project, I've had to modify the mounting point on both guards that attach it to the sills, because my custom chassis rail occupies this area now. I've had to trim the sill mount back on the guards so the guards themselves would sit properly at the sill area. I then welded a nut in place on the chassis rail to be the new (very solid) mount. You can see what was done from the photo's below. I will rust-proof his whole area thoroughly as its a prime spot for the front wheels to drench in water on a wet road.
Here you can see the custom sill mount for the guard (just a nut welded in place on the chassis).
And here you can see the guard in place with the door gap approximately correct - but the gap is expanding as you go up the door!
Something obvious here is that the sill panel surface (the surface exposed before it necks-down and tucks under the guard) finishes just short of the leading edge of the door. This was my mistake in an earlier phase and will be a pain to fix no doubt!
Once the guards sat on the body shell OK I bolted the guards down only at the point on the sill shown above so that the panel gap between the lower front edge of the doors was correct with respect to the same point on the guards, I could then insert the bolt that secures the top of the guards. This bolt is accessible only when the doors are open and it "pulls" the top of the guards back towards the doors. See below.
So depending on how far you tighten this bolt (once the guard is locked in place at the sill), you draw the guard back as far as required to get the entire leading edge of the "door to guard" panel gap correctly done. There are other bolts that assist in lining things up but for me these two do a majority of the work. Once satisfied with the fit, I then shimmed any remaining gap the bolt still had so that everything bolts up tight and solid from now on.
While this may seem simple enough, there was plenty of "massage work" required on the new guards and body shell to get the overall fit right. For instance, where the new guards fit up against the upper cowell and lower windscreen, I had to trim the new guards back to fit around the windscreen pillars and gently bend the hidden lower flange of the guards (had to bend this flange further up & under the top surface of the guard) where they interfered with the cowell on each side.
The photo below looks like nothing special (appears to be just an "upside-down" guard sitting on an old couch), but that bottom edge closest to the camera was originally much higher along its length (the left half of it) and only bent over just a little more than 90 degrees with respect to the upper panel surface. But it's trimmed back as needed and the right half bent back as far as it would go! I had the guard on and off the car many times to get things right!
I also had to make several cuts into the "cowell/windscreen" area so that I could repair some prior fixes that had warped this area such that the new guards could not be drawn back far enough to get a proper door gap. Basically, an old repair (using bronze and an Oxy/Acetylene torch) had deformed the contour that the new guard (on the American passenger side) needed to fit into. Once I made the grinder cuts, I could tap this area back with a dolly to the correct shape and then MIG weld the cuts & replace the old brazing work to finish the job. You can see the grinder cuts and neat panel fit in the photo below. Most of this gets covered by the polished stainless window trim though....
Now that all the major hanging panels are in place with correct gaps - its starting to look like a car again! The doors close beautifully and cleanly and it feels rock solid. I'm just about to get a complete "weatherstrip kit" so I can re-test panel gaps with the door rubbers in place. This will no doubt change things again but I have room to move to adjust as required.
Here are some shots of how it's looking......
Floor, firewall & sub-frame connectors are next on the agenda.
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