Journal: Mark's Mgbgt Adventure

Saturday I clamped the inner fender to the rear fender and clamped the assembly to the car. After adjusting the position of the inner fender a few times I was able to get it to fit nicely against the inner body of the car and the rear fender was still lining up nicely. I then turned my attention to the sill and it fit quite well, except at the fire wall where more grinding of old weld was needed. I've made good use of my air die grinder during the restoration; getting into tight spots with a pointed stone. So after frigin' at the front I finally got to sill fitting right, it lines up at the back just like it is suppose to (I don't know why it was so far off earlier). Even the gap around the door is pretty good. So, with everything fitting well, I marked the position of the inner fender to the body with a China pencil and took all the panels back off.

I bought two tools especially for this project: welding pliers (ones with a copper plate on one side for clamping metal together) and a combination jogger/metal punch, and they have proven to be the most useful of tools. The metal punch is so nice to use for putting all those holes through metal, and there were a lot of them to do on the inner and rear fender. The other valuable tool has been the 80 grit flap disk for the grinder. The flap disk is so much better than a grinding wheel for removing paint, prepping a surface for welding, and for grinding down welds. It is easier to control the pressure and the amount of material removed compared to the grinding wheel.

I aligned the marks on the inner fender and temporarily attached it to the car with a couple pop-rivets and re-fitted the rear fender - great fit. So I dug out the welder and firmly attached it to the car. I then painted the inner body of the car and the inner fender with POR 15. End of day and time for a beer.

Sunday was another good day. Once again I fitted the rear fender using vice grips and clamps and everything lined up well, the fit of the rear fender to the inner fender was perfect, and the sill fit was still bang on. So off came the pieces and the door once again and out came the metal punch. I must have spent close to half an hour punching holes in the rear fender and sill. Using every vice grip and clamp I had I clamped the rear fender to all the metal it was to touch and the welding began. Welding the rear fender on was so easy, mainly because I could do most of it sitting on my rolling seat. The worst part was the 1,000 W of light behind me lighting the work area warming my back. The sill welded up nicely and fitted very well.

With this assembly completed, I dug out the POR 15 again and taped a brush to a broom handle and painted the entire inside length of the sill. So that leaves the driver's side sill end cap, the two A-post post closing pieces and the driver's side floor strengthener left. I forgot about the strengthener until this morning or else I would have welded it in yesterday as well, oh well, I need something to do tonight.